Erving Goffman is an American sociologist who wrote The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and views social interactions amongst people as individuals or “team performances.” He believes that we, as human beings, are actors and that the world is our stage. We wear masks that are very deceiving to the audience, because we present the best versions of ourselves. We are always “performing,” which refers to everything that we do in front of an audience or an observer. This gives an impression and information that helps to confirm the identity of that individual. Setting has a huge impact of the performance of the individual. For example, one would act different at a club than at church. The appearance and manner of an individual also has an
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He says that we must produce social images, or fronts, of ourselves for people to know who we are or want them to think how we are. We can idealize ourselves both positively and negatively to our advantage. From the example of Evan and I, Evan talks about stocks. He produces the image that he is very intelligent, because he buys stocks and also offers to teach me how to buy stocks. He also shows that he has money when he talked about his stocks. Though it may seem natural for him to talk about stocks, to me, it seemed like it was his intention because it was a conversation starter. He used that as a way for me to respond to him and to keep the conversation going. Evan is in my American Culture class and he never dresses up. He always wears t-shirts and jeans, but during the hangout, he wore a nice dress shirt and slacks. His appearance was very clean and well put-together. His manner was also very gentleman-like because he held the door open for me and even paid for our uber ride there and back home. Not only that, but to my surprise, he also paid for our meals. I thought that was very nice of him. The setting took place at a Japanese restaurant, with us two at a table. Signals given off are assumed to be spontaneous and unintentional but they are quite different from what is actually shown. To others, the signals given off seems like we are on a date, but it was only a friendly dinner and that it was actually planned and not spontaneous, so signals given off are actually signals
He says that we must produce social images, or fronts, of ourselves for people to know who we are or want them to think how we are. We can idealize ourselves both positively and negatively to our advantage. From the example of Evan and I, Evan talks about stocks. He produces the image that he is very intelligent, because he buys stocks and also offers to teach me how to buy stocks. He also shows that he has money when he talked about his stocks. Though it may seem natural for him to talk about stocks, to me, it seemed like it was his intention because it was a conversation starter. He used that as a way for me to respond to him and to keep the conversation going. Evan is in my American Culture class and he never dresses up. He always wears t-shirts and jeans, but during the hangout, he wore a nice dress shirt and slacks. His appearance was very clean and well put-together. His manner was also very gentleman-like because he held the door open for me and even paid for our uber ride there and back home. Not only that, but to my surprise, he also paid for our meals. I thought that was very nice of him. The setting took place at a Japanese restaurant, with us two at a table. Signals given off are assumed to be spontaneous and unintentional but they are quite different from what is actually shown. To others, the signals given off seems like we are on a date, but it was only a friendly dinner and that it was actually planned and not spontaneous, so signals given off are actually signals