Role distancing: Differentiating the role of the elderly from the person

Elderly participants in an extended care class at a senior citizen's center were observed to determine if some of them could continually distance themselves from the client role. Although earlier research suggests that people can use role distancing techniques to disassociate themselves successfully fromoccasionally played roles or certain aspects of a role, it is unclear whether or how people successfully disassociate themselvescontinually from enacted roles. Using a symbolic interactionist's definition of role, this paper attempts to 1) classify the circumstances which give rise to both occasional and continual role distancing; 2) specify the conditions under which disassociation from continually enacted roles may be successful; and 3) suggest the relevance of the data to studies on low-status occupations, deviance, and role theory.I am especially grateful to Melvin Seeman (UCLA) for his critical comments and extensive editorial advice and to Ralph H. Turner (UCLA) for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also would like to thank Shulamit Reinharz for editorial assistance.