TUTORIAL Mead and Goffman Diya Chawla

1237

Q. Compare Mead and Goffman’s concept of self.

Symbolic Interactionism is a micro level sociological theory or frame of reference to better

understand how individuals interact with one another to create symbolic worlds, and in return,
how these worlds shape individual behaviors. It is a framework that helps understand how
society is preserved and created through repeated interactions between individuals. Some of its
assumptions are-
1. Individuals construct meaning via the communication process.
2. Self-concept is a motivation for behavior.
3. A unique relationship exists between the individual and society.
There is shared interpretation that occurs between interactions which helps create and recreate
meaning and also influences human behaviour. Individuals act on the premise of a shared
understanding of meaning within their social context. George Herbert Mead argued that
people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative.
Self refers to an individual's ability to reflect on the way that the individual is perceived by
others.  The looking glass self theory as given by Charles Horton Cooley states that we
change our self-perception based on how we guess others perceive us, not on how they actually
perceive us. 
The self has a character which is different from that of the physiological organism proper. It
arises with social experience and is distinguished from sensuous experiences. The self is reflexive
and has the characteristic that it is an object to itself, and this distinguishes it from other objects
and from the body. Example- the pictures that flash into a person's mind when he is drowning.
There is a contrast between an experience that is absolutely of outside activity in which the self as
an object does not enter, and an activity of memory and imagination in which the self is the
principal object. The self is then entirely distinguishable from an organism that is surrounded by
things and acts, including parts of its own body.
The individual experiences himself only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other
individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the society
as a whole to which he belongs. The apparatus of reason would not be complete unless the
individual brought himself into the same experiential field as that of the other individual selves
in relation to whom he acts in any given social situation. Reason cannot become impersonal
unless it takes an objective, non-affective attitude toward itself; otherwise we have just
consciousness, not self-consciousness.
Communication (significant symbols) is directed to others and individual himself. Individual
may become an object to himself. Example- one may hear without listening. It is only when self
has arisen and provides social experiences, and so we can conceive of an absolutely solitary self.
Example- in responding to one's self as another responds to it, taking part in one's own
conversation with others, being aware of what one is saying and using that awareness to
determine what one is going to say thereafter, we are continually controlling the process itself.
The conversation of gestures is the beginning of communication.
Example- if a person is saying something unpleasant, but when he starts to say it
he realizes it is cruel. The effect on himself of what he is saying checks him; there
is here a conversation of gestures between the individual and himself and that the
effect upon the individual himself is part of the intelligent carrying-out of the
conversation with others. By learning to speak, gesture, and play in “appropriate”
ways, the individual is brought into line with the accepted symbolized roles and
rules of the social process. It is in this process of social conduct that self appears.
The self is therefore one of the most subtle and effective instruments of social control. One
inevitably seeks an audience, has to pour himself out to somebody. it is still a part of social
intercourse to address other persons and one's self, and in which one controls the address to
other persons by the response made to one's own gesture.
We carry different relationships to different people. There are parts of the self which exist only
for the self in relationship to itself. There are all sorts of different selves answering to
all sorts of different social reactions. This multiple personality in some sense is
normal. There is usually an organization of the whole, unified self with reference to the
community to which we belong, and the situation in which we find ourselves. However, set of
activities may separate and evolve another self. Two separate "Me's" and "I's," selves,
result, breaking up the personality. One of Mead's most significant contributions
to social psychology is his distinction between the “I” and the “Me.” The self that
arises in relationship to a specific generalized other is referred to as the “Me.” The
“Me” is a cognitive object, which is only known retrospectively, that is, on
reflection. We are both “watching” and forming a self in relationship to the system
of behaviors that constitute this generalized other. The unity and structure of the
complete self reflects the social process as a whole; various elementary selves are
the various aspects of the structure. “The ‘I’ gives the sense of freedom, of
initiative. In other words, only once the actions of the “I” have become objectified
and known, by definition they have become a “Me.”

“I” reacts and initiates action, but the actions taken are comprehended,
objectified, as a “Me.” However, the “Me” is not simply confined to the
objectifications of the immediate actions of the “I.” The “Me” carries with it
internalized responses that serve as a commentary on the “I's” actions. Mead
states, “The action with reference to the others calls out responses in the
individual himself—there is then another ‘me’ criticizing, approving, and
suggesting, and consciously planning, i.e., the reflective self”. The peculiar character
possessed by our human social environment and is to be found in the process of
communication: the relation of the gesture of one organism to the adjustive response made to it
by another organism sensitivities. Thinking always implies a symbol which will call out the same
response in thinker and other. Such a symbol has a universal character. There is, of course, a
great deal in one's conversation with others that does not arouse in one's self the same response
it arouses in others. That is particularly true in the case of emotional attitudes. One tries to bully
somebody else; he is not trying to bully himself.

It is the task not only of a rational actor to express in a fashion that arouse in others what is
going on in himself.

Other background factors in the genesis of the self is represented in the activities of play and the
game both are followed by imitation. Distinction between self and organism is made which we
term as “double”.
1. Imitation: In this stage, children copy behaviour of adults without understanding it. A little
boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum clean the floor by pushing a toy vacuum cleaner or even a
stick around the room.

2. Play stage: A child plays, sometimes at being a mother or a teacher, at times a Post man, a
police man etc. In this stage, responses are not organized. A child thus internalizes the attitudes
of others who are significant to him through enacting the roles of others.

3. Game Stage: As a child matures, he also learns to respond to ‘Generalized Others’. The
individual just does not identifies the roles of his significant others (family) but also determines
other. He gains a Social Identity.

Among children however, there is an imaginary companion with whom they play. This is a part
of play stage which precedes organized games. When a child does assume a role he has in
himself the stimuli which call out that particular response or group of responses this is used in
building a self. He takes this group of responses and organizes them into a certain whole. It
involves a temporal situation. The child says something in one character and responds in
another character, and then this becomes a stimulus to himself in the first character, and so the
conversation goes on. A certain organized structure arises in him and in his other which replies
to it.

In an organized game, the child take the attitude of everyone else involved in that game, and
that these different roles must have a definite relationship to each other. At such a stage child
has not fully developed self. The child responds in a fairly intelligent fashion to the immediate
stimuli that come to him, but they are not organized. He does not organize his life as a whole.
The fundamental difference between the game and play is that in the latter the configuration of
roles-organized-according-to- rules brings the attitudes of all participants together to form a
symbolized unity and controls the response of the individual.

The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of
self may be called "the generalized' other." Their attitude is the attitude of the whole
community which exercises control over the conduct of its individual members and determines
their thinking.

Here are 2 stages in full development of self. First- the internalization of the attitudes of
others toward oneself and toward one another in the specific social acts. Second- Individual
must take their attitudes toward the common social activity in which, they are all engaged; and
generalize them as a whole, act toward different social projects which constitutes its life and of
which these projects are specific manifestations. The given individual's membership in several of
these abstract social classes or subgroups makes possible his entrance into definite social
relations. Mead delineates two types of social groups in civilized communities. There are,
“concrete social classes or subgroups” in which “individual members are directly related to one
another.” On the other hand, there are “abstract social classes or subgroups” in which “indirectly
related, but which afford unlimited possibilities for the widening the social relations among all
the individual members of the given society as an organized and unified whole”.
If one has the attitude of the person throwing the ball he can also have the response of catching
the ball. The two are related and further the purpose of the game itself. They are interrelated in a
unitary, organic fashion. There is a definite unity introduced into the organization of other
selves in game stage, against the situation of play where there is a simple succession of one role
after another, a situation which is characteristic of the child's own personality. Child does take
the attitude of the other to achieve common end, he is becoming an organic member of society.

The game expresses a social situation; its morale may have a greater hold on him
than that of the family to which he belongs or the community in which he lives.
Child plays all sort of social games. He likes "to belong". This constitutes him a self
conscious member of the community. At first, as babies, we are unable to interpret the meaning
of other’s behaviour. When children, learn to attach meanings to their behaviour, they step out
of themselves. Finally, when they can think about themselves, the same way they might think
about someone else, they begin to gain a sense of self.

Personality develops with the help of language (predominantly vocal gestures) this
mediates the social activities that gives rise to role taking of the other. Within the
linguistic act, the “process of taking the role of the other and responding to one’s
own gestures” within the process of symbolic interaction is essential to self-
realization.

A person has a personality because he takes over the institutions of that

community into his own conduct. There are certain common responses which each
individual has toward certain common things, to arouse his own self and that of others.
Consciousness simply has reference to the field of experience and “I”, but self-consciousness
refers to the ability to call out in ourselves a set of definite responses which belong
to the others of the group. Conversation of gestures can become part of conduct in
the direction and control of experience, then a self can arise. While there is a form
of pre-reflective consciousness that refers to the “bare thereness of the world,” it is
reflective (or self-) consciousness that characterizes human awareness. 

The self is a social emergent that supports the cohesion of the group; individual
will is harmonized, by means of a socially defined and symbolized “reality,” with
social goals and values. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between our own
selves and the selves of others, since our own selves exist and enter into our experience
only with reference to selves of others. This involves co-operative activities.

Certain experiences are subjective because we alone have access to them, and are reflective. The
structure of self arises in social conduct that is entirely distinguishable from these experiences,
the common character of privacy of access does not fuse thinking and consciousness together.

Often, reaction of the community on the individual takes on what we call an institutional form. e
whole community acts toward the individual under certain circumstances in an identical way. It
makes no difference. As a rule we assume that organized custom represents what we call
morality. The things one cannot do are those which everybody would condemn. We can reform
the order of things; can make the community standards better standards. We are not simply
bound by the community. We are engaged in a conversation in which what we say is listened to
by the community and its response is one which is affected by what we have to say.

In Mead’s relational conception of biological existence, there is a mutual determination of

organism and environment; the character of the organism determines the environment, just as
the character of the environment determines the organism. In actual perceptual experience, the
object is objectively present in relation to the individual. If we had no memory which identifies
experiences with the self, then they would certainly disappear and yet they might continue as
sensuous or sensible experiences without being taken up into a self. Our bodies are parts of our
environment; and Until the rise of individuals self-consciousness in the process of social
experience, the individual experiences his body-its feelings and sensations-merely as an
immediate part of his environment, not as his own, not in terms of self-consciousness.

The individual organism does not set itself as a whole over against its environment; it does not
as a whole become an object to itself (and hence is not self-conscious); it is not as a whole a
stimulus to which it reacts. On the contrary, it responds only to parts or separate aspects of itself
simply as aspects of its environment in general.

Self-consciousness, along with its motor accompaniments, provides the core and
primary structure of the self, which is thus essentially a cognitive rather than an
emotional phenomenon. The thinking or intellectual process-the internalization
and inner dramatization, by the individual, of the external conversation of
significant gestures constitutes his chief mode of interaction and is the genesis and
development of the self.

Giving an example of “I” and “Me”, Mead says, I talk to myself, and I remember what I said and
perhaps the emotional content that went with it. The "I" of this moment is present in the "me" of
the next moment. The "I" is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the
others, the "me" is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself
assumes. The "I," then, in this relation of the "I" and the "me," is something
responding to a social situation which is within the experience of the individual.
The self is essentially a social process going on with these two distinguishable
phases.

The reaction of the individual in this conversation of gestures is one that in some
degree is continually modifying the social process itself. One is continually
affecting society by his own attitude because he does bring up the attitude of the
group toward himself, responds to it, and through that response changes the
attitude of the group. Your own conduct symbols which are the expression of your reply to
the social demand, you have an idea of what your assessment ought to be. The gestures in this
case are vocal gestures. They are significant symbols, whose response is given in advance.

Conversation is continually going on, and what was response becomes in the field of gesture a
stimulus, and the response to that is the meaning. Our thinking is just such a continual
change of a situation by our capacity to take it over into our own action; to change
it so that it calls for a different attitude on our own part, and to carry it on to the
point where the social act may be completed. The "me" and the "I" lie in the
process of thinking and they indicate the give-and-take which characterizes it. The
self is in the social current. The immediate reaction of children to things about them is
social.

Furthermore, there is temporal and logical preexistence of the social process to the self-
conscious individual that arises in it. There follows from this the enormous development which
belongs to human society, the possibility of the prevision of what is going to take place in the
response of other individuals, and a preliminary adjustment to this by the individual. There is an
actual process of living together on the part of all members of the community which takes place
by means of gestures. The gestures are certain stages in the cooperative activities which mediate
the whole process. Now, all that has taken place in the appearance of the mind is that this
process has been in some degree taken over into the condu ct of the particular individual as
some of it is subjective. However, mind is nothing but the importation of this external process
into the conduct of the individual so as to meet the problems that arise.

The mind is simply the interplay of gestures in the form of significant symbols. Gesture is there
only in its relationship to the response, to the attitude. One would not have words unless there
were such responses. Words have arisen out of a social interrelationship. Intelligence or mind
could arise or could have arisen, only through the internalization by the individual of social
processes of experience and behavior, that is, through this internalization of the conversation of
significant gestures.

There exists a process by means of which the individual in interaction with others inevitably
becomes like others in doing the same thing, without that process appearing in what we term
consciousness. Take a person's attitude toward a new fashion. It may at first be one of objection.
After a while he gets to the point of thinking of himself in this changed fashion, noticing the
clothes in the window and seeing himself in them.

Not that we assume the roles of others toward ourselves because we are subject to a mere
imitative instinct, but because in responding to ourselves we are in the nature of the case taking
the attitude of another than the self that is directly acting, and into this reaction there naturally
flows the memory images of the responses of those about us, the memory images of those
responses of others which were in answer to like actions. Thus the child can think about his
conduct as good or bad only as he reacts to his own acts in the remembered words of his parents.
Until this process has been developed into the abstract process of thought, self-consciousness
remains dramatic, and the self which is a fusion of the remembered actor and this
accompanying chorus is somewhat loosely organized and very clearly social. 

Recognition of the individual as a self in the process of using his self-consciousness gives him
the attitude of self-assertion or devotion to the community. He has become, then, a definite self.
In such a case of self-assertion there is an entirely different situation from that of the member of
the pack who perhaps dominates it. In general, when the community reaction has been imported
into the individual and a new order of response emerges. We cannot realize ourselves except in
so far as we can recognize the other in his relationship to us. One attains self-consciousness not
in bare organic responses as reflexes of the organism but only as he takes, or finds himself
stimulated to take, the attitude of the other. Young children adjust themselves to experience in
an immediate fashion, without there being present in their experience a self.

The attitude of the community toward our own response is imported into ourselves in terms of
the universal meaning of what we are doing. Over against the "me" is the "I." The
individual not only has rights, but he has duties; he is not only a citizen, a member
of the community, but he is one who reacts to this community and in his reaction
to it, as we have seen in the conversation of gestures, changes it. The "I" is the
response of the individual to the attitude of the community as this appears in his
own experience. "The "me" is a conventional, habitual individual. It is always there. The fact
that they have to act in a certain common fashion does not deprive them of originality. The
element of novelty in the reconstruction takes place through the reaction of the individuals to
the group to which they belong.

the individual is constantly reacting to the social attitudes, and changing in this cooperative
process the very community to which he belongs. Those changes may be humble and trivial
ones. For the person who has a definite personality, who replies to the organized attitude in a
way which makes a significant difference. With such a person it is the "I" that is the more
important phase of the experience.

every individual self has its own peculiar individuality, its own unique pattern which reflects in
its organized structure the behavior pattern of that process as a whole. The individual, as we
have seen, is continually reacting back against this society. the ego or "I" that is responsible for
changes of that sort appears in experience only after its reaction has taken place.

The possibilities of the "I" belong to that which is actually going on, taking place, and it is in
some sense the most fascinating part of our experience. It is the realization in some sense of this
self that we are continually seeking. There are various ways in which we can realize that self in
its relationship to others. It must be recognized by others to have the very values which we want
to have belong to it. It realizes itself in some sense through its superiority to others, as it
recognizes its inferiorities in comparison with others. The inferiority complexes are the
reverse situations to those feelings of superiority which we entertain with
reference to ourselves as over against people about us. They are not expressions of
the egoistic or self-centered person. We have, of course, a specific economic and
social status that enables us to so distinguish ourselves and give a means of self-
identification, but there is back of all these matters a sense of things which on the
whole we do better than other people do.

This is the same attitude that is involved in the humor of somebody else tumbling
down. Laughter releases as in this situation there is a more or less identification of the
individual with the other. An element in the response which expressed itself in the sense of the
superiority of the person standing toward the person on the sidewalk.

Mead brings out in these instances the difference between the naive attitude of the "I" and the
more sophisticated attitude of the "me." One behaves perfectly properly, suppresses his
laughter, is very prompt to get the fallen person on his feet again. There is the social attitude of
the "me" over against the "I" that does enjoy the situation. The sense of superiority is magnified
when it belongs to a self that identifies itself with the group. We change things by the capacities
which we have that other people do not have. Such capacity is what makes us effective. The
superiority is not the end in view. It is a means for the preservation of the self. We have to
distinguish ourselves from other people and this is accomplished by doing something which
other people cannot do, or cannot do as well.

While the novelty comes in the action of the "I," but the structure, and self is one which is
conventional.

“Me" involved in the situation does not furnish to any such degree this control. Take the
situation of self-assertion where the self simply asserts itself over against others, and suppose
that the emotional stress is such that the forms of polite society with legitimate conduct are
overthrown, and person expresses himself violently. There the "me" is determined by the
situation. Individual has certain rights which he has within some limits. But when these limits
are not observed, individual asserts himself in perhaps a violent fashion. Then the "I" is the
dominant element over against the "me." Social control is the expression of the "me" over
against the expression of the "I”. Where persons are held outside or beyond that sort of
organized expression there arises a situation in which social control is absent. It is such a
response which raises him above the institutionalized individual.

The attachment of the values to the self does not involve egoism or selfishness. Even in highly
mechanized society, self-expression is important. Individual is able to do something on his own,
take over responsibility and carry out things in his own way, with an opportunity to think his
own thoughts. Those social situations in which the structure of the "me" for the time being is
one in which the individual gets an opportunity for that sort of expression of the self bring some
of the most exciting and gratifying experiences. . The situation in which one can let himself go,
in which the very structure of the "me" opens the door for the "I," is favorable to self-expression
and satisfaction.

The "me" is essentially a member of a social group, and represents, therefore, the value of the
group, that sort of experience which the group makes possible. Its values are supreme and
belong to society. They are values which under certain extreme moral and religious conditions
call out the sacrifice of the self for the whole.

Individual also selects the environment in the sense that it finds those characteristics to which it
can respond, to gain certain organic results essential to its continued life-process. In a sense,
therefore, the organism states its environment in terms of means and ends. The organism in a
real sense is determinative of its environment. The situation is one in which there is action and
reaction, and adaptation that changes the form must also change the environment. There is
always a mutual relationship of the individual and the community in which the individual lives.

New conceptions of some individuals enlarge the environment within which these individuals
lived. Such an individual is divergent from the point of view of what we would call the prejudices
of the community; but in another -- sense he expresses the principles of the community more
completely than any other.
The response of the "I" may be a process which involves a degradation of the social state as well
as one which involves higher integration. Take the case of the mob in its various expressions. A
mob is an organization which has eliminated certain values which have obtained in the
interrelation of individuals with each other, has simplified itself, and in doing that has made it
possible to allow the individual, especially the repressed individual, to get an expression which
otherwise would not be allowed. We are normally dependent upon those situations in which the
self is able to express itself in a direct fashion, and there is no situation in which the self can
express itself so easily as it can over against the common enemy of the groups to which it is
united. Until we have such a social structure in which an individual can express himself as the
artist and the scientist does, we are thrown back on the sort of structure found in the mob, in
which everybody is free to express himself against some hated object of the group.

It is this which marks One major difference between primitive and civilized human society is
that in primitive human society the individual self is much more completely determined, with
regard to his thinking and behavior by the general pattern of the organized social activity carried
on by the particular social group to which he belongs, than he is in civilized human society. In
other words, primitive human society offers much less scope for individuality-for original,
unique, or creative thinking and behavior and indeed the evolution of civilized human society
from primitive has largely resulted from a progressive social liberation of the individual self and
his conduct, with the modifications and elaborations of the human social process which have
followed from and been made possible by that liberation. No individual has a mind operates in
isolation from the social life-process in which it has arisen, and in which the pattern of
organized social behavior has consequently been basically impressed upon it.

The difference between the social and the individual theories of the development of mind, self,
and the social process of experience or behavior is analogous to the difference between the
evolutionary and the contract theories of the state as held in the past by both rationalists and
empiricists. The latter theory takes individuals experiences -individual minds and selves-as
logically prior to the social process in which they are involved, and explains the existence of that
social process in terms of them; whereas the former takes the social process of experience or
behavior as logically prior to the individuals and explains their existence in terms of that social
process.

One assumes individual selves as logically and biologically, of the social process or order within
which they interact, while the other assumes a social process or social order as the logical and
biological precondition of the appearance of the selves of the individual organisms involved in
that process or belonging to that order. Though mind can get expression only within or in terms
of the environment of an organized social group, yet it is nevertheless in some sense a native
endowment - a congenital or hereditary biological attribute. However, the supposition that the
social process presupposes, and are sense a product of, mind seems to be contradicted by the
existence of the social communities of certain of the lower animals, especially the highly
complex social organizations of bees and ants, which operate on a purely instinctive or reflex
basis, and do not involve the existence of mind or consciousness.

It is true that some experience (particularly kinesthetic) are accessible only to the given
individual organism and not to any others; and that these private or "subjective," as opposed to
public or "objective," contents of experience are usually regarded as intimately connected with
the individual's self, or as being in a special sense self-experiences. But this is not in conflict
with, the theory as to the social nature as it does not alter the fact that self-consciousness
involves the individual's becoming an object to himself by taking the attitudes of other
individuals toward himself within an organized setting of social relationships, and that unless
the individual had thus become an object to himself he would not be self-conscious or have a self
at all.

Thus, the growth of the self arises out of a partial disintegration, – the appearance of the
different interests in the forum of reflection, the reconstruction of the social world, and the
consequent appearance of the new self that answers to the new object.

GOFFMAN

Adding to this, Erving Goffman says, social interaction may be likened to a theater,
and people in everyday life to actors on a stage, each playing a variety of roles. This
gave rise to dramaturgical approach of sociology that argued the elements of
human interactions are dependent upon time, place, and audience. The best way to
understand human action is by seeing people as actors on a ‘social stage’ who
actively create an impression of themselves for the benefit of an audience (and,
ultimately themselves). Goffman uses the imagery of theater in order to portray
the nuances and significance of face-to-face social interaction.

Interaction occurs when a given set of individuals are in one another’s continuous presence. A
‘performance’ may be defined as all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which
serves to influence in any way any of the other participants. The pre-established pattern of
action which is unfolded during a performance and which may be presented or played through
on other occasions may be called a ' part’ or ‘routine’. playing the same part to the same
audience on different occasions, - a social relationship is likely to arise.

Erving Goffman's main point of interest in "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" is the
nature of social interaction. When we meet a person we always attempt to draw information
about him such as social, economic and marital status, an assessment of his nature and traits,
his abilities and so forth. The information befits our conduct and expectation to that person.
There are assumptions and generality of psychological traits as a means of predicting his present
and future behaviour. Many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction
or lie concealed within it. For- example, the ' true’ or ’real’ attitudes, beliefs, and
emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, through involuntary
expressive behaviour. "The expressiveness of the individual appears to involve two
radically different kinds of sign activity: the expression that he gives(verbal), and
the expression that he gives off(non-verbal)"  Thus the individual will have to act
so that he intentionally or unintentionally expresses himself, and the others will in
turn have to be impressed in some way by him.

When the individual is in the immediate presence of others, his activity will have a promissory
character. Actor may wish them to think highly of him, or to think that he thinks highly of them,
or to obtain no clear-cut impression; he may wish to ensure sufficient harmony for sustained
interaction, or to defraud, get rid of, confuse, mislead, or insult them. Regardless of a fixed
objective, there is desire to control their conduct by influencing the situation
which others formulate. Actor tries to create a front by manipulating the setting in
which we perform (e.g. our living room), our appearance (e.g. our clothes) and our
manner (our emotional demeanour). He may lead them to act voluntarily in
accordance with his own plan. Individual mobilize his activity so that it will convey
an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey.

Individual might become calculative or intentionally and consciously express himself in a

particular way.The others may be impressed by the individual’s efforts to convey something, or
may skeptically examine or may misunderstand the situation and come to conclusions that are
warranted neither by the individual’s intent nor by the facts. When the others act as if the
individual had conveyed a particular impression, we may take a functional or
pragmatic view and say that the individual has ’effectively ’ projected a given
definition of the situation. There is reciprocal dependence between actors and the
audience.

Goffman admits this stage metaphor has its limitations, but it also has remarkable
applicability to ordinary social circumstances. One likeness between the stage and
real (social) life is the participants' insistence on maintaining a shared definition
of the situation. In a play, the actors all work to create an illusory but coherent
narrative for the audience to follow. They act different parts, but not independent
ones. In much the same way, Goffman suggests, the participants in a conversation
collaborate to maintain a consensus about its tone and nature. This kind of
harmony is an optimistic ideal and in any case not necessary for the smooth
working of society. Rather, each participant is expected to suppress his immediate
heartfelt feelings, conveying a view of the situation which he feels the others will
be able to find at least temporarily acceptable. Participants conceal their wants.

This means that we must be constantly on our guard to practice ‘expressive control’ when on the
social stage. There is a 'working consensus’ which is different in a different type of setting. Thus,
between two friends at lunch, a reciprocal show of affection, respect, and concern for the other is
maintained. In service occupations, on the other hand, this might not be true for the specialist
and his client

Additions and modifications in this initial informational stage of interaction may occur, but they
should not be in conflict with the initial positions taken by the several participants. Society is
organized on the principle that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a
moral right to expect that others will value and treat him in a correspondingly appropriate way.
This is exactly what happens between the actor and audience.

Events may contradict this projection. When these disruptive events occur, the interaction itself
may come to a halt. Predicted responses may become untenable and participants may feel
lodged. To avoid embarrassments ’defensive and projective are applied to safeguard the
impression fostered by an individual during his presence before others. The issues dealt with by
stage-craft and stage-management they seem to occur everywhere in social life, providing a
clear-cut dimension for formal sociological analysis.
Central to the book and Goffman's theory is the idea that people, as they interact together in
social settings, are constantly engaged in the process of "impression management," to prevent
the embarrassment of themselves or others. This is done to ensure all parties have the same
"definition of the situation," meaning that all understand what is meant to happen in that
situation, what to expect from the others involved, and thus how they themselves should behave.
Impression management involves projecting an ‘idealised image’ of ourselves, which involves
concealing a number of aspects of a performance – such as the effort which goes into putting on
a front, and typically hiding any personal profit we will gain from a performance/ interaction.

The performer must act with expressive responsibility, since they might mirror, impressions
inappropriate at the time. These events were called unmeant gestures’. Acting out social roles is
quite demanding and so in addition to the front-stage aspect of our lives, we also have back-
stage areas where we can drop our front and be more relaxed, closer to our ‘true-selves’, and
where we can prepare for our acting in the world. We generally tend to think of performances as
being of one or two types – the sincere and the contrived. Some people sincerely believe in the
parts they are playing, they invest their true selves in the impression they give off, this is the
typical case. However, other people act out their roles more cynically – they only play their part
in order to achieve another end.

Some of the roles we play contradict each other – and so we need to keep audiences separate –
some performances are only meant for certain audience members – For example a student
might act studiously while at school but more care-free while amongst his friends outside of
school. ‘Inopportunate intrusion’ might lead to witness activity that is quite incompatible
with the impression that they are. They are more frequently introduced by intentional verbal
statements or non-verbal acts. Performer unthinkingly makes contribution which destroys his
own team’s image. This is called ‘faux pas’. These are unintended sources of dissonance. It is
different from ‘scene’ where individual acts in such a way as to destroy or seriously threaten the
polite appearance of consensus. Example- when team-mates can no longer approve of each
other’s inept performance and blurt out immediate public criticism of the very individuals with
whom they ought to be in dramaturgical co-operation. Another type of scene occurs when the
audience decides it can no longer play the game of polite interaction. Criminal trials have
institutionalized this kind of open discord. Sometimes interaction becomes so loud, heated, or
otherwise attention-getting, that nearby persons engaged in their own conversational
interaction are forced to become witnesses. Finally, the individual may make a plea to the
audience to treat themselves as part of his team or to allow him to treat himself as part of their
team.

With any incident, reality of the performer must be threatened. Some defensive attributes
and practices used for prevention and correction-

Dramaturgical Loyalty- team mates must be loyal and must not betray each other. They
must fulfill moral obligations. A performance depends on all members of a team and the mutual
dependency evokes a special relationship of friendship among the members, characterized by
relative equality and informality. Members should participate enthusiastically. Attempts to
achieve high levels of in-group solidarity to prevent some members of the team becoming too
close to the audience and giving away dark or strategic secrets; regularly changing audience may
also be another strategy. Example- the managers of stores are often loyal to the establishment
and will define the product being sold to a customer in glowing terms linked by false advice, but
clerks can frequently be found to take the role o f the customer in giving buying-advice. Team-
mates form a complete social community which offers each performer a place and a source of
moral support, performers can protect themselves from doubt and guilt and practice any kind of
deception. This allows us to understand in part why groups that are alienated from or not yet
incorporated into the community are so able to go into dirty-work trades and into the kind of
service occupations which involve routine cheating.

Dramaturgical Discipline: While the performer is ostensibly immersed in the activity he is

performing, offers a show of intellectual and emotional involvement in the activity he is
presenting, but must keep himself from actually being carried away." Team must learn to better
control aspects of their performance. A disciplined performer does not commit unmeant
mistakes or faux pas and has presence of mind together with self- control. He can suppress his
emotional response and spontaneous feelings, to his private problems, to his team-mates when
they make mistakes, and to the audience when they induce untoward affection or hostility in
him which might offend to the working consensus but may also implicitly extend to the audience
the status of team member against status quo established by the team member. Perhaps the
focus of dramaturgical discipline is to be found in the management of one’s face and voice. Here
is the crucial test of one’s ability as a performer. Actual affective response must be concealed and
an appropriate affective response must be displayed. The same issue arises, perhaps in a less
dramatic form, in ordinary family life, young members of the team can be taken to public and
semi-public ceremonies, for only when the child is ready to keep control of his temper will he be
a trustworthy participant on such occasions.

Dramaturgical Circumspection: members need a little foresight, preparing in advance for

things that can go wrong. One must invest the performance with seriousness, weight, and
dignity. One automatic way of ensuring that no member of the team or no member of audience
acts improperly is to limit the size of both teams as much as possible. Select the audience that is
likely to be the kindest – teachers prefer middle class schools, salesmen prefer to sell to one
rather than two people. Prudence must be exercised. The performer will have to adapt his
performance to the information conditions under which it must be staged. He will have to take
into consideration the information the audience already possesses about him. The more they
know, interaction will less radically influence them. Thus the circumspect performer will adjust
his presentation according to the character of the props and tasks out of which he must build his
performance. Example- in job interview, interviewer will have to make decisions on the sole
basis of information gained from the interviewee’s interview -performance. Interviewee will
therefore give much preparation and thought to his performance. To avoid confusion it is
important to settle on a complete agenda before the event, designating who is to do what and
who is to do what after that. Rehearsal can identify contingencies that were not predicted will
occur under circumstances in which they can be safely attended to. Sometimes responses of
audience are also decided in advance blurring the distinction between them and the performers.

Furthermore, there is a tactful tendency of the audience and outsiders to act in a protective
way in order to help the performers save their own show. These are implied in Protective
Practices. First, access to the back and front regions of a performance is controlled not only by
the performers but by others. Individuals voluntarily stay away from regions into which they
have not been invited. When interaction must proceed in the presence of outsiders, outsiders
tactfully act in an uninterested, uninvolved, unperceiving fashion, to obtain effective closure.
Etiquette as regards tactful inattention, and the effective privacy it provides, varies from one
society and subculture to another. there is an elaborate etiquette by which individuals guide
themselves in their capacity as members of the audience. This involves: the giving of a proper
amount of attention so as not to introduce too many contradictions, interruptions, or demands
for attention; statements that might create a faux pas; to avoid a scene. When there is slip of
some kind, exhibiting a discrepancy between the fostered impression and a disclosed reality, the
audience may tactfully 'not see’ the slip or readily accept the excuse that is offered for it. When
performer is a beginner, audience shows extra consideration. Performers are aware of being
tactfully protected and thus the line separating the teams momentarily disappears.

In order to assist in this tactful withdrawal, the participants who feel it is physically possible for
them to be overheard may omit from their conversation and activity anything that would tax this
tactful resolve of the outsiders and might lead to inattention, and at the same time include
enough semi-confidential facts. Goffman mentions 2 strategies- First, the performer must be
sensitive to hints by audience used to warn the performer that his show is unacceptable. Second,
performer must not leave himself in a position from which even the lamest excuse and the most
co-operative audience cannot extricate him.

To conclude, Within the w alls of a social establishment team of performers co-operate to

present to an audience a given definition of the situation. This will include the conception of
own team and of audience and assumptions concerning the ethos that is to be maintained by
rules of politeness and decorum. Audience access to back region is prevented. A tacit agreement
is maintained and familiarity is maintained among team members. Working consensus varies in
presence and absence of audience. There is controlled communication in their presence. We find
that performers, audience, and outsiders all utilize techniques for saving the show, whether by
avoiding likely disruptions or by correcting for unavoided ones. Team will tend to select
members who are loyal, disciplined, and circumspect, and to select an audience that is tactful.

An establish m e n t may be viewed ' technically,’ in terms of its efficiency and inefficiency of
the achievement of pre-defined objectives. An establishment may be viewed ‘ politically ,’ in
terms of the actions which each participant (or class of participants) can demand of other
participants might include snactions. An establishment may be viewed ‘structurally,’ in terms
of the horizontal and vertical status divisions and social relations. Finally, an establishment may
be viewed ‘culturally,’ in terms of the moral values pertaining to fashions, customs, and
matters of taste, etc.

Goffman however talks about the dramaturgical approach which describes the
techniques of impression management employed in a given establishment, the principal
problems associated with it, and the identity and interrelationships of the several performance
teams which operate in the establishment. The technical and dramaturgical perspectives
intersect in regard to standards of work. One set of individuals will be concerned with testing the
unapparent characteristics and qualities of the work-accomplishments of another set of
individuals, and this is concerned with giving the impression that their work embodies these
hidden attributes. The political and dramaturgical perspectives intersect clearly in regard to the
capacities of one individual to direct the activity of another. Further, if one individual attempts
to direct the activity of others by means of, enlightenment, persuasion, exchange, manipulation,
authority, threat, punishment, or coercion, it will be necessary, regardless of his power position.
The structural and dramaturgical perspectives seem to intersect most clearly in regard to social
distance. The cultural and dramaturgical perspectives intersect most clearly in regard to the
maintenance of moral standards.
Throwing light on 3 basic areas of inquiry individual personality, social interaction, and society.,
Goffman says social interaction which is a dialogue between 2 teams. Where participants may
feel awkward or embarrassed. Secondly, in addition to these disorganizing consequences for
action at the moment, audiences tend to accept the self projected by the individual performer
during any current performance as representative of his social establishment with evidence of
his capacity to perform the routine. Finally, the individual may deeply involve his ego in his
identification with a particular role, establishment, and group. Disruptions then have an impact
on personality, interaction and social structure.

We lead an indoor social life. We specialize in fixed settings, in keeping strangers out, and in
giving the performer some privacy in which to prepare him for the show. But we must not
overlook other societies with different rules. Example- in societies with settled inequalitarian
status systems and strong religious orientations, individuals are sometimes less earnest about
the whole civic drama than we are, and will cross social barriers with brief gestures that give
more recognition to the man behind the mask than we might find permissible. a parallel process
goes on called 'role enterprise,’ within a particular social establishment, whereby a particular
member attempts to create a new position for himself, a position involving duties .which
suitably expresses attributes that are congenial to him.

Impression, in turn, has been treated as a source of information about unapparent facts and as a
means by which the recipients can guide their response to the informant without having to wait
for the full c o n s e q u e n c e s of the informant’s actions to be felt-. Expression, plays
communicative role during social interaction

To uncover fully the factual nature of the situation, individual must know all the relevant social
data about the others and must know the actual outcome or end-product of the activity of the
others during the interaction. In absence of full information, the individual tends to employ
substitutes —cues, tests, hints, gestures, symbols etc.

While George Herbert Mead and Goffman both belong to same school of thought, Mead believes
Language, gesture, communication, and role-taking are central to the symbolic interaction by
which the genesis of self is constructed in social milieu, and which forms the basis of social life,
for Goffman, It is always possible to manipulate the impression. The observer uses as a
substitute for reality and relies on representations of things itself creates the possibility of
misrepresentation. Actions which appear to be done on objects become gestures addressed to
the audience. He talks about importance of expressions and impressions in portrayal of self. The
round of activity becomes dramatized. To use a different imagery, the very obligation and
profitability of appearing always in a steady moral light, of being a socialized character, forces
actor to be the sort of person who is practiced in the ways of the stage. In short, people are
“social actors” who do not have a “real self”, but many “real selves”.