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Role play

Role play is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a different role, either unconsciously to fill a social role or consciously to act out an adopted role.[1]

Sources: grade C×8. Last checked 8 October 2026. What the grades mean

In psychology, an individual's personality can be conceptualised as a set of expectations about oneself and others, and these add up to role-playing or role-taking.[2] The role is fiction because it is not real, but it has a degree of consistency.[2]

Role-playing is also a technique used by researchers studying interpersonal behaviour, in which participants are assigned particular roles and asked to act as if a specific set of conditions were true.[3] The technique has a long history in early classic social psychological experiments.[4]

Experiments have found that role-playing can result in behavioural change, as when smokers asked to pretend to be a person diagnosed with lung cancer reported a negative attitude towards smoking.[5]

Sources

  1. Source grade C"Definition of Role Playing from the Oxford English Dictionary" . Askoxford.com . Retrieved 2012-06-18 . {{ cite web }} : CS1 maint: deprecated archival service ( link ) askoxford.com (via Wikipedia: Role-playing)
  2. Source grade CCorsini, Raymond (2017). Role Playing in Psychotherapy . New Brunswick, NJ: AldineTransaction. p. 21. ISBN 9780202363936 . (via Wikipedia: Role-playing)
  3. Source grade C"Role Playing". The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods . Sage Publications, Inc. 2004. doi : 10.4135/9781412950589.n870 . ISBN 978-0-7619-2363-3 . Retrieved 2025-01-18 . methods.sagepub.com (via Wikipedia: Role-playing)
  4. Source grade Ccf. H. Schuler, Ethical Problems in Psychological Research, Academic Press, 1982, 2013; pp. 137ff. (via Wikipedia: Role-playing)
  5. Source grade CMaio, Greg; Haddock, Geoffrey (2014). The Psychology of Attitudes and Attitude Change . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. p. 157. ISBN 9781446272251 . (via Wikipedia: Role-playing)
  6. Source grade C"Van de Mark B., Energy exchange, in The Gay & Lesbian Times" . 3 March 2005. Archived from the original on 25 May 2011 . Retrieved 2008-05-09 . web.archive.org (via Wikipedia: Play party (BDSM))
  7. Source grade C"Moser C., Demystifying alternative sexual behaviors, in Sexuality, Reproduction & Menopause, Volume 4, Issue 2" . October 2006 . Retrieved 2022-04-03 . researchgate.net (via Wikipedia: Play party (BDSM))
  8. Source grade CNewman F. (2004) The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide , Cleis Press, San Francisco, page 271-277. ISBN 9781573441995 . (via Wikipedia: Play party (BDSM))

Grades: A systematic review or official classification, B peer-reviewed study, C expert or community organisation, D practice from the community without research. How we grade sources.

Every claim was checked against its source before publication. Last checked 8 October 2026.