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The impact of symbolic interactionism
Impression management examples
Cultural influence on social behavior
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We humans put on many shows and performances throughout our lives. We are all actors playing different roles at any given moment; we change who we are and how we behave base on the role we are playing. We act differently depending on the stage we are on, and with whom we are around. In each stage we want to present a different impression, we do this because we want to manage the impression we give to others about ourselves. Our society places people into categories. Labels and symbols are used to subconsciously prevent us from escaping the categories in which we have been placed.
I chose to Saturday, April 17th, 2015 to record my life because I interact more with people on the weekend, I am mostly on the computer on weekdays. I woke up at 10:00AM, and the first thing I did was call my boyfriend. We live together. However, he wakes up earlier than I do. We had a brief conversation about our plans for the day, then I took care of my personal hygiene and had breakfast while replying to a text from a friend in Dallas, Texas.
At approximately 12:00PM I went downstairs to my office; since I own my own business and manage several websites I do not have the luxury of a weekend off from work. I
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The way we have a sense of self is by seeing how we are being reflected in other people’s eyes; it is known as the looking glass self. When interacting with others, I notice that my sense of self diminished because my thoughts and actions were being influenced by the norms of society. Sociologist Erving Goffman laid the foundation for symbolic interaction through his dramaturgical theory of social interaction. “ Goffman had used the language of the theatre to describe the social facade we create through such devices as tact, gestures, front-stage, behaviors, props, and scripts” ( 93). According to Goffman, we make judgment about class and social status based on the
Dramaturgy is a view of social life as a series of dramatic performances akin to those taken place in a theatre (Ritzer, 144). Much of Goffman’s dramaturgy is concerned with the processes by which such disturbances are prevented and dealt with (Ritzer, page 144). In the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman developed a new approach to the sociological study of human interaction, due to a mental health court scenario, of what he referred to as “dramaturgical” because of the analogy it had of the theatre to describe how an individual engages in social interaction with others in a performance (Staton et al, page 5). This performance was a way for actors to influence their audience in a given situation. In the addition of the mental health scenario, age, gender, and race relevant. The human relationships observed in the mental health court was analyzed was theorized so Goffman could explain characteristics of human interactions.
Erving Goffman created a concept, called dramaturgical analysis, to compare social interaction to performing on stage. He believes that people show different sides of themselves depending on who they’re around and the current setting. Impression management is the “process of suppressing unfavorable traits and stressing favorable ones” (90). Many people focus on making themselves look impressionable and show their best qualities when around others. Another part of social interaction is front stage which discusses what happens in peoples sight and back stage talks about the things that happen behind closed doors. In the article, “Rethinking Goffman’s Front Stage/Back Stage,” the author made me realize that anything that is posted on social media
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.
The process of categorisation seems to have an assimilative function. If you can’t beat them, label them. If it fits into our picture, it is ours. Put this way, it seems like we are imprisoned in a menacing matrix of metaphysical manipulation. However, as I have shown to be the case in pop culture, we are complicit in our captivity, in fact, all too willing to participate.
It views society as an active influence affecting everyday social interactions. Individuals manipulate symbols and create their social worlds through interactions that are maintained by a shared understanding of everyday behavior. Unlike functionalist and conflict theorists, integrationists view human interaction on a micro level and generalize about everyday social interactions in order to explain society as a whole. In interactionism, humans are viewed as living in a meaningful world of objects like symbols that play an important role in communication. Symbolic interaction is known as nonverbal communication, which includes facial expressions and many other gestures that are shared amongst all members of society. Erving Goffman came up with a popular method of interactionism that is called the dramaturgical approach. It compares everyday life in a theatre because just like actors, individuals only present certain features of their personality depending on the setting of environment. Thus, interactionism consists of communication and interaction on a micro level to understand the larger macro phenomena (Schaefer
In sociology symbolic interactionism explains the individual in a society and their interactions with others and through that it can explain social order and change. This theory was compiled from the teachings of George Herbert Mead in the early 20th century. Mead believed that the development of the individual was a social process. People are subjected to change based on their interactions with other people, objects or events and they assign meaning to things in order to decide how to act. This perspective depends on the symbolic meaning that people depend on in the process of social interaction. This paper will examine the movie “The Blind Side” through the symbolic interaction perspective.
He suggested the metaphor of the stage, where people play roles in specific everyday situations using trust and tact, the control of bodily gestures, face and gaze and the use of language to set the parameters of their social interactions. People individually participate in these rules of conduct to produce social order. Looking at Goffman's work of the Presentation of One Self in Everyday life, Stigma and Asylums, Goffman argues that it is these interactions, or the interactional order, that constructs society. This Essay looks to give an Insight of how Foucault and Goffman Compare and contrast in their theories to give an understanding of how the exertion of power and expert knowledge constructs individuals identities. Michel Foucault’s
Impression management is a social phenomenon that occurs in our daily life both consciously and unconsciously. “It is the act of presenting a favorable public image of oneself so that others will form positive judgments.” (Newman 184) Our first impressions of a person are always based on physical appearance and we compare them to the norms of our society. We can all admit to the initial meeting of a person and first noticing their age, gender, race, or other ascribed characteristics. Our cultural norms are ideas such that fat is “ugly” which are very different across societies and time. Also, impression management is an idea of how individuals interact in different social situations. “Sociologists refer to dramaturgy as the study of social interactions as theater, in which people (“actors”) project images (“play roles”) in front of others (“the audience”).” (Newman 169) This is our human need for acceptance and way of managing the impressions we give others and perform what we think people want to see. Our social life is governed by this concept but it only works with effective front-stage and back-stage separation. Our front-stage is the visible part of ourselves that we allow others to see unlike our hidden back-stage self.
The social theorist I chose for this paper is symbolic interactionist Erving Goffman. I chose Erving Goffman because of his intellectual and still relevant research on social behaviour and learning among individuals. He is one of a few social theorists whom I find completely interesting and noteworthy. Not only this, but I found that I wanted to learn more about him and soak in all of his ideas and his work because he is from Canada. I am a very proud Canadian and I am glad that such an influential social theorist whose work is still being put to use today came from the country that I am from. This paper will outline most, if not all, of Goffman’ss most important aspects to social life by providing you with his biography, his ideas, and how his ideas relate to the now, the twenty-first century. → ADD
Erving Goffman (1959) wrote that “social interaction may be likened to a theatre, and people in everyday life to actors on stage, each playing a variety of roles”. When you think of the way we behave and interact with each other, there really is not a more appropriate metaphor than comparing our behavior to that of actors portraying roles on stage. For example, there are a multitude of roles and statuses that could be used to describe me; among them being Mexican American, student, wife, daughter, sister, female, and middle child. However, while all these are true at any given time throughout the day, the role I portray changes with the situation and it should since different settings or situations have different audiences thus requiring a distinct performance to accommodate the current situation. An example of this phenomenon is described by the differentiation between front stage performance and back stage performance. To use myself as an example again let us consider my front stage performance as a
How we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. Throughout the interview I knew that the way I interacted within the group would determine whether or not I would be able to study as a student nurse. Subsequently, I wanted to appear socially desirable. Therefore, I believe there was a distortion of self-image because the interview was very important to me. Using Goffman 's theory of self (1959), the 'social mask ' I put on during the interview, could be seen as 'performance ', '...the term ‘performance’ refers to all activity of an individual in front of a particular set of observers, or audience... ' , I wasn 't my: bubbly, hyper self, I felt I had to keep this hidden as I was in a professional environment. Therefore, Johari 's window demonstrates mundane realism, because my self-image did change. My bubbly, hyper personality which is usually 'open/public ' was now 'Hidden/private '. However, Johari 's window see 's self-awareness constructed by the individual alone, which makes the theory over –simplified and not interactionist as it only considers 'nurture ' factors impacting on an individual’s self-awareness, when in reality it’s a combination of biological/genetic and social factors (nature nurture). Therefore the theory is reductionist as it over simplifies human behaviour. Although Johari 's window doesn 't give a holistic reflection for my own self-awareness and communication, the fact I can identify this as a result of using Gibb’s model means that I have a rounded analysis of my interviewing
The theory of symbolic interactionism grew from the understanding the mind was not a thing or structure, but was a process of thinking (Ritzer, 2000). This process comprised of three stages, which includes defining objects in the social world, outlining possible modes of conduct and seeing the consequences of alternative actions and elimination of unlikely possibilities allowing a focus on selecting the most optimal course of action (Ritzer, 2000), this process allows the “self” the ability to adjust with interactions with others. (Ritzer, 2000)
Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Double Day
Erving Goffman uses a dramaturgical perspective in his discussion of impression management. Goffman’s analysis of the social world primarily centres around studies of the self and relationship to one’s identity created within a society. Through dramaturgy, Goffman uses the metaphor of performance theatre to convey the nature of human social interaction, drawing from the renowned quote “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It.’ Much of our exploration of Goffman’s theories lies within the premise that individuals engage in impression management, and achieve a successful or unsuccessful performance. Impression management refers to the ways in which individuals attempt to control the impression that others have of them stemming from a basic human desire to be viewed by others in a favourable light. Goffman argues that our impressions are managed through a dramaturgical process whereby social life is played out like actors performing on a stage and our actions are dictated by the roles that we are playing in particular situations. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the interaction, and the script is the set of social norms in which the actors must abide by. Just as plays have a front stage and back stage, this also applies in day-to-day interactions. Goffman’s theory of the front and back stage builds on Mead’s argument of the phases of the self. The front stage consists of all the public and social encounters with other people. It is similar to the ‘me’ which Mead talks about, as it involves public encounters as well as how others perceive you. Meanwhile the back stage, like the ‘I’, is the time spent with oneself reflecting on the interactions. Therefore, according to Goffman’s dramaturgical
“I am who I think others think I am”. Charles Horton Cooley created the looking glass self, stating that people grow from their perceptions of other people. There are three steps to his concept: imagining how we appear to others; are we funny or dull? What do people really think about me? The next step is imagining the judgment other people think of us; do they like us funny or dull? The third step is developing the self-concept or feeling about the situation. Dramaturgy is when you feel like your life is a drama or play. In this, we have an idea of what how we want others to think of us as. We put on a performance or a presentation self to the people we want to think we are similar. Conformity is what we do every day; we are meant to go to wake up, go to school, then make dinner and go to bed. We go along with whatever group we feel we want to belong to or already belong to. The true definition is “behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards”. Conformity could be even