Role Theory

According to this overview of Role Theory, we all go through our lives playing multiple different roles, similar to the way a child pretends to be different people depending on what game he is playing. We behave differently around different people, playing the role of son or daughter, friend, lover, parent, employee, etc. All of our myriad roles are presided over by a unifying "meta-role" which observes the world and determines what role is best suited for a given situation, orchestrating the roles and sub-roles we switch between at any given time.
Personally, I have seen shades of this in my own life. It can be difficult to observe this "roleplaying" phenomenon in others, as we obviously never see our peers except when they are around us, and therefore only ever observe them in one role (for the most part). As such, I have often thought myself something of a chameleonic person in my readiness to take on the role most similar to the personality of those around me. I find it personally validating to learn that at least some level of this practice is common to everyone, and I am not merely a habitual liar with no "true identity," as it were. (as in my darker moments I have feared)
I would very much like to learn more about Role Theory. For one, despite the validation it brings me, I would like to learn if others shift as freely between roles as I do, or whether others are more "fixed" in their roles. I suppose this would be best determined by observing different subjects in a number of real-world environments--at work, in school, with family, with friends, etc.--as opposed to in a lab. Granted, the very knowledge that one is being observed will alter one's actions, at least until such a time as one become acclimated to the observer. Related to this, I would like to know more about the Meta-Role and how it determines which roles to take on, and what effect a given role has on another role--even when we take on different roles, we are still, essentially, the same people, so no role is truly independent from any other.