All of the many ways in which the work of human beings is studied lead back at some point to the obvious, yet infinitely subtle, fact of the division of labor. What is a jab description if not a statement of what one worker, rather than another, does or is supposed to do? Similar reference to division of labor lies implicitly in study of the number and migrations of the labor force, of motive and effort, of basic capacities and the learning of skills, and in analysis of the price of labor, services and goods. The division of labor, in its turn, im plies interaction; for it consists not in the sheer difference of one man's kind of work from that of another, but in the fact that the different tasks and ac complishments are parts of a whole whose product all, in some degree, con tribute to. And wholes, in the human social realm, as in the rest of the bio logical and in the physical realm, have their essence in interaction. Work as social interaction is the central theme of sociological and social psychological study of work.

Social role, the other term in my title, is useful only to the extent that it facil itates analysis of the parts played by individuals in the interaction which makes up some sort of social whole. I am not sure that I would put up much of an argument against the objection that it is not a very useful term, provided the objector has a better one to refer to the same complex of phenomena. I would argue vociferously, however, if the objector implied either that social interaction is not an ever-present and crucial feature of human work, or that the social-psiychological description of a division of labor implied by the term social role is of less importance than a description in terms of techniques. I would mention to the objector that even those who work in solitude are often