In 2018, Daiki, together with his colleagues conducted a study exploring the psychological process of group dynamics during a collaborative art expression using LEGO blocks. They divided participants into small groups of four and asked them to create anything they liked together using the blocks.
The results were fascinating. They saw a remarkable increase in trust among participants and a heightened sense of role within the group. It became clear to Daiki that a sense of role is crucial for understanding our interpersonal relationships, and he felt this was a subject worthy of deeper study.
Most previous research on social roles had focused on specific roles, such as job positions or parental roles. But Daiki began to realize that we experience a broader sense of role satisfaction—something not confined to a single context or label.
That’s when he started thinking about how we could describe this feeling. He wanted a term that captured the sense of being fulfilled through role satisfaction. The word mindfulness came to mind.
Mindfulness is widely known around the world, including in Japan. It refers to a dynamic psychological state in which we are aware of our body and emotions in the present moment. Being conscious of how we feel and think is central to that process.
Daiki began to reflect on the relationship between mindfulness and role satisfaction. While mindfulness is nurtured through introspection and personal insight, he felt that our daily social roles were also essential for fostering psychological fulfilment.
So, he combined role with fulness—mirroring the structure of mindfulness—and the word rolefulness was born.
In 2018, Daiki co-authored a research paper with Dr. Mikie Suzuki titled Rolefulness: Social and Internal Sense of Role Satisfaction. That’s where they first introduced the term rolefulness as an psychological concept.
In the paper, they reviewed existing research related to role theory and interpersonal relationships across clinical, developmental, and social psychology. What they noticed was that most previous studies focused only on specific roles—like being a parent, student, or worker. They felt there was a gap.
So they proposed a new direction in role theory—one that wasn’t restricted by context. They defined rolefulness as the ongoing sense of role satisfaction satisfaction experienced in daily life. It’s a broader, more personal sense of fulfillment.
According to Daiki, rolefulness consists of two aspects:
- Social rolefulness
- Internal rolefulness
Social rolefulness refers to the sense of role satisfaction that comes from relationships with others and the social groups we belong to.
Social rolefulness exists on many levels. It includes our roles within family or friendship circles, but also how we perceive our usefulness in wider communities or society at large. The diversity of these experiences shows how multifaceted social rolefulness really is.
The best way to enhance social rolefulness is to start by focusing on your immediate social groups—family, friends, coworkers—and gradually expand your awareness to your place in society more broadly.
In contrast, internal rolefulness refers to the personal identity, confidence, and inner satisfaction that come from fulfilling one’s roles. It’s shaped less by external recognition and more by a deep, inward sense of purpose and value. For example, someone may discover a stronger sense of self through mentoring others or feel more confident as a parent after helping their child through a difficult time.
While social rolefulness is cultivated through interaction, internal rolefulness emerges from self-awareness and the internal affirmation of one’s worth.
To better understand and measure these internal and social dimensions of rolefulness, Daiki and Dr. Suzuki developed the Rolefulness Scale.