A role set is a situation where a single status may have more than one role attached to it. This multiplicity of roles is what sociologists termed it as such. Consider a student for instance, involves one role as a pupil, another as a user of university library, and another as a member of a faculty.[1]
The term "role set" was coined by Robert K. Merton in 1957. He made a clear distinction between a "role set" and a "status set".[2]