In the face of ambiguity, one may fall back on a more general schema to find a basis for defining a proper role, reducing perceived conflict and establishing a program for response in confusing circumstances. In American society, the official schema is the law. Laws provide guidelines for behavior and courts arbitrate when conflicts cannot be settled informally. Of course, the law itself is as ambiguous as lawyers can make it, so Americans often fall back on business principles as guides for judging behavior. For example, for hospital administrators, the crucial criterion for admittance is not a prospective patient's state of health but his ability to pay. When a person goes to a clinic, he needs to take his lawyer and accountant. Treatment begins only after payment is guaranteed and forms for medical irresponsibility are filled out. (It is a virtual Godsend that the law of "Malice of intent" which gives the media license to libel does not also apply to the medical profession.)

Ambiguity is compounded by the fact that, in most cases, a role is shaped by a schematic compromise of means with ends. Most people have general goals (happiness, wealth, etc.), and most behavior toward these goals is guided by general constraints (laws and ethics). That is, as most of us seek to achieve our goals, certain forms of behavior are proscribed and others condoned. Only in extreme cases is a schema dominated by an "End" to the point that a totally unscrupulous person (like a Hitler) would do literally anything to attain it. Likewise, only in exceptional cases (like loving Christians) do people live by a schema which defines success in terms of how they behave rather than what they achieve.

If there were less ambiguity in life, people would be clearer about their goals and more easily find appropriate means of achieving them. The schema is a general guide which provides a quasireligious ethic for behavior. This may or may not be consistent with the goals, which are determined largely by the emotionally loaded terminology of the reference group.

For example, in the field of civil rights, the change from discriminating against blacks and women to discriminating for them marked a great change in attitude toward the races and sexes but no change in attitude toward discrimination. The goals flip-flopped from segregation to integration, while the means, however ill suited to the new end, remained the same. In this specific case, the change in attitudes toward minority groups was accomplished as awareness of the inconsistency between idealized

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