SOCIAL INTERACTION AND EVERYDAY LIFE

Week 5

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Erving Goffman (1922-1982)

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Goffmans Dramaturgical Approch

Humans:

Are ACTIVE and KNOWLEDGEABLE

Device their own CONDUCT

GUIDE and CONTROL how others see them

Are different in social settings than alone

Are social CON ARTISTS

Dramaturgy

The Theatrical Presentation of life.

Consists of Front Stage and Back Stage.

Uses Impression Management as a too.

Microsociology: Social interaction

Microsociology is an area that was first developed by Erving Goffman.

He took the belief that small aspects of social life matter, not just major institutions, and turned it into a systematic theoretical perspective and research methodology.

Goffman insisted that we look at all parts of human interaction and developed the dramaturgical perspective.

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Why microsociology matters

Goffman indicated at least three reasons why studying seemingly trivial aspects of social life matter:

1. Our everyday routines provide (and illustrate) the structure of our lives.

2. Interactions reveal the importance of human agency.

3. Interactions can tell us a lot about our larger society.

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Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication includes any exchange of information without speaking:

Face and gesture

Email and other online communication

Personal space

Presentation of self

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Impression management

To explicate his perspective on social interaction, Goffman wrote The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

He outlined the way in which social life was, in its essence, theater:

We play roles for audiences.

We inhabit stages and sets.

We make use of props and scripts.

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Impression management

An important part of all interactions is to attempt to actively control the way others perceive you.

This is the heart of impression management, and it is crucial to identity construction.

Different roles we play require different impression management; some impression management is sincere and some is cynical.

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Impression management: Costume

Every day each of us starts by getting dressed, which is a crucial piece of impression management.

With what we wear, we reveal a great deal of social information alluding to class, subculture, sexuality, interests, and sometimes even politics or ideas.

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Cultural norms frequently dictate the acceptable

boundaries of personal space

Types of interaction

There are two basic types of interaction: focused and unfocused.

Focused interactions, or encounters, are those where we directly engage someone.

Unfocused interactions are those where we are present with others, but do not communicate directly with them.

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Identify examples of focused and unfocused interaction

in this photograph by Jeff Wall.

Audience segregation

Because we all play different roles and these different roles require different forms of impression management, we often attempt to keep our audiences segregated.

In certain types of online communication (e.g., Facebook), this is more difficult, yet it is critically important.

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What does it mean?

Part of examining social interaction is to try to determine meaning even when it is unspoken.

Read these lines: What do they mean?

A: I have a fourteen year-old son.

B: Well, thats all right.

A: I also have a dog.

B: Oh, Im sorry.

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Context matters

We learn to make sense of what people, say not only through words, but also through what your textbook calls shared understandings.

Communication, then, is based, not only on what we say, gesture, and do, but also on a set of shared cultural understandings.

Colloquialisms

Hyperbole 19

How do background expectancies inuence our conversations?

Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011)

Ethnomethodology

Harold Garfinkel introduced the study of how we make sense of interactions and called this approach ethnomethodology.

Ethno means folk, or lay, so ethnomethodology means understanding how everyday people make sense of interactions.

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Ethnomethodology in practice

Garfinkel had his students test the idea of background expectancies by having his students challenge them.

Experiments: Breech of Social Norms

Example of challenges:

Answering the question How are you? with a complete response or a query for specification.

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Studying talk

It is also important to look at the actual talk taking place in interactions.

How we conversehow we actually use wordsis foundational to constructing and maintaining a stable, comprehensible social world.

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Conversation analysis

Conversation analysis is a research method wherein all aspects of interaction are noted and assessed for meaning.

The words themselves, timing, order, and even status of participants are all examined.

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Micro-macro linkage

Oftentimes looking at micro-level interactions can reveal patterns in the society at large.

Ethnographic studies have, for example, illuminated racial and gender inequalities, fear of the homeless, and power structures in corporations.

Arlie Hochschilds classic, The Second Shift

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Why microsociology matters

Studying social interaction is important because it allows us to learn at the level of the everyday and then make connections upward.

Good microsociology also tells us something about how a society is structured and restructured in everyday interactions.

Microsociology offers thick description.

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Time and space

Social life is divided temporally.

For example, our days, weeks, and even months are organized in such a way that we know what to expect on a July day versus a December day.

Social life is divided spatially.

For example, our lives are also organized so that we know that at college there are certain expectations that are different in the classroom than the dorm room.

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Clicker Questions

1. Annie and Pat were out to dinner on a blind date. After dessert, Marcie made eye contact with and waved over the server, raising her hand out to the side of the table in order to indicate that she would be taking care of the bill. Annies cues to the server are all examples of

a. ethnomethodology.

b. regionalization.

c. nonverbal communication.

d. response cries.

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Clicker Questions

2. Ethnomethodology studies which of the following?

a. conversations in a caf

b. voting patterns in presidential elections

c. rates of drug use among college students

d. cross-national infant mortality rates

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Clicker Questions

3. Examining all facets of a conversation for meaningfrom the smallest filler words (such as umm and ah) to the precise timing of interchanges (including pauses, interruptions, and overlaps) is called

a. interactional vandalism.

b. focused interaction.

c. compulsion of proximity.

d. conversation analysis.

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Clicker Questions

4. Roles are

a. socially defined.

b. studied in terms of time and geography.

c. where people act in front regions.

d. nonverbal communication.

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Clicker Questions

5. What is focused interaction?

a. Individuals directly attend to what others say and do.

b. the examination of all facets of a conversation for meaning

c. Individuals act out formal roles in the social occasions or encounters.

d. a form of mental interaction that includes facial expression, gestures, and body movements.

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Clicker Questions

6. In a society such as our own, many of the people with whom we come in contact over the course of a given day are strangers. What is the technique we use to communicate to a stranger that we are not suspicious of or hostile to him or her and that we do not wish to avoid them?

a. a hard stare

b. a quick glance and then a look away

c. a complete avoidance of the other persons eyes

d. a big smile and a quick how-do-you-do

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Clicker Questions

Which best describes the concept Social Telesis?

A) Those who ruled deserved to do so because they had adapted best to social conditions.

B) Those who ruled deserved to do so because they were biologically superior.

C) Those who ruled did not deserve to do so because they were not properly adapted to social conditions.

D) Those who ruled did not deserve to do so because they were biologically superior

Social Telesis (telesis = planned progress)

The intelligent direction of social activity towards achievement of a desired and understood end.

How has electronic communication

Transformed social interaction?