Erving Goffman - the presentation of self in everyday life

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Foreword

Erving Goffman's investigation is supposed to be a guide from a specific sociological perspective from which you can study social behavior within it’s spatial settings such as a domestic, a commercial or industrial setting. The method approach he uses is taken from a theatrical performance with a dramaturgy. Goffman aims to show how the individual presents herself and her actions in a normal woking environment and what means she uses to control her impression on others.

Hoffman is aware of the insufficiency of such a model: On stage things are simulated whereas in real life they are unrehearsed. On stage actors are playing roles interacting with other actors playing roles.The audience is the third party within this system. The audience plays an important role but one that wouldn’t be there if the scene were real. In real life the actors are reduced to two parties and the role of the individual is synchronized to the role of the others who are simultaneously the audience.


Introduction

If a person meets with a group, both sides usually try to gather information from one another; information such as social and economic status, her view of herself, her view of the group, her abilities, her credibility etc. This information helps to define the situation so the group knows beforehand what is expected of them and what they can expect. Information can be drawn from behavior and appearance, which can be used for comparison to previous experiences with similar people or for transferring stereotypes onto that person. The individual person has a goal within this group for example gaining sympathy, keeping harmony, getting rid of the others, lying to them etc so she wants to control the behavior of the others towards her because her actions effect the others' interpretations of the situation.

For the individual there are two fundamentally different ways of expression: The expression that she gives of herself (verbal communication) and the expression that she sends out (behavior). Goffman's investigation deals primarily with the 2nd way of expression.

The reactions of people are just as important. Their observations can be divided into two aspects: verbal statements (easy to manipulate) and impression (not so easy to manipulate). The individual person is usually just aware of one stream of communication whereas the counterpart observes two streams.

A way of examine the „real“ opinion of person A could be to watch that person (A) not in direct contact with person B but watching person B talk to person C -> so watching person A as she feels unobserved. If person A knows that, she can keep her „happy face“ during this time as well.

This is a kind of control that provides a stage of a game of information - a potential never ending cycle of concealment, discovery, false disclosure and rediscovery.

By controlling behavior the individual is ahead because the others are generally uncritical about the apparently uncontrollable behavior of a person. If the others do notice that, they can look for nuances that are not under control (dissymmetry of communication). Usually the methods of unmasking of staged spontaneity by the observer are much more developed - so the observer wins and the dissymmetry of communication continues.

But also the reaction of the others determine the situation. Usually reactions of a group are harmonized. Even though they might not be deeply in accordance. Deeper feelings are supposed to be oppressed to articulate an aspect of a situation that the others can at least for now bear with - modus vivendi.

The first impression is important because based on our initial information we define the situation and we build our actions around that. It will be easier for the individual to determine at the beginning how she wants to be treated by the others than to change their behavior later on.

There is a moral aspect to setting up the interaction because everyone can expect to be treated according to their social properties. By stating to be of a certain social status for example the individual rises the moral demand to be treated accordingly and gives up the demand to be treated differently. The others assume to be informed respectively. Of course that doesn’t always work and embarrassing situations might happen. Precautions to avoid those are the following: If the individual tries to defend her position we call it „defense maneuver“ and if someone else tries to help her defending her position we call it „protection maneuver“ or simply „tact“.

In the social life of a group this disruption plays an important role. These disruptions are used to keep someone in place. Summing up the individual has many reasons wanting to control the impression the others have of a situation. Goffman's investigation deals with common techniques used to keep up evoked impressions and with common aftereffects of using these techniques. Goffman is not concerned with the particularities nor the meaning of a certain role, he only investigates the dramaturgy of the individual in a group.