Loyalty and Betrayal

Role theory identifies people through the roles they choose and the way in which they coordinate them. That is no different from what we do when we meet someone and try to gain a sense of him or her. We ask about their profession, where they studied, enquire about their spouse and children, leisure activities, social and political engagement, and which clubs or church they attend. We try to discover the meaning that these various roles hold for the person and whether such roles are endowed with stronger or weaker emotional significance, are experienced as being more or less essential and binding, more or less difficult to change.

It is the roles in which someone feels bound and protected through their loyalties, those in which they would face difficult decisions if a conflict of roles and loyalties arose, that reveal the most about that person.