# role (social)

a position within a collective that performs a recurring pattern of behavior

- Computed level: L13 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: emergence  ·  Arena: lexicon

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [part](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-part.relation), [pattern](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-pattern.regularity), [groups](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-groups.collection), [regular](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-regular.frequency), [state](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-state.condition)

**Through:** the part and the regular pattern together instantiate a stable condition within the collective

**Novel properties:**
- collective function
- persistent behavioral niche
- recurrent relational position

## Examples
- The night watch at Masada sounded alarms every two hours until the Roman siege in 73 CE. *(institutions)*
- In a beehive, the forager bees return to the same hive daily, transferring nectar to receiver bees. *(biology)*
- The Linux kernel's merge window assigns maintainers to review specific subsystem code every release cycle. *(computing)*

## Used by
- [department](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-department.organizational) (L16)
- [director](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-director.leadership) (L14)
- [executive](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-executive.role) (L14)
- [jobs](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-jobs.employment) (L18)
- [president](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-president.political) (L14)
- [students](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-students.group) (L14)
- [title](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-title.label) (L14)

---
*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-role.social*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-role.social.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*