Role stress is an important source of job stress, it generally includes three dimensions, role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. This paper recommended conception and two major theoretical models of role stress at first, and a great deal of empirical work about antecedents, consequences, moderators and mediators of role stress has been systematically reviewed. Based on the review, new trends pertaining to the future research of role stress was discussed as follows: longitudinal research; situation of organization changes; mediators and moderators; cross-culture comparison.