01.05 Social Interactions in Life

A prominent perspective you will learn about in any introductory sociology class is Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy. Goffman’s ideas were heavily influenced by the symbolic interaction perspective which we learned about in lesson 2. Goffman’s take on human behavior is that it is nothing more than a theatrical performance. In other words, all human behavior is viewed as if it were simply actors on a stage trying to play their part. And where do these parts come from? We just went over that; they come from social structures and culture. In Goffman’s view, a status position that we occupy is similar to a part that an actor or actress holds. The script that the actor/actress follows is the role. As Goffman puts it, we are constantly engaging in something he calls “presentation of the self”, sometimes referred to as impression management. We are constantly trying to behave in manner to elicit the responses that we want from those that we are interacting with, just as actors and actresses behave in a manner to convey the proper impression to an audience.

2 terms that can help us wrap our heads around Goffman’s ideas are front stage & back stage. The front stage is the social arena in which you play your part as determined by social structure and culture. The back stage is the place where you can practice for the front stage and be a little bit more free with your behavior. If you are a waiter/waitress, the front stage is when you are serving customers. You are expected to be courteous, prompt, dressed in a certain manner and have your notepad ready to take an order. The back stage is when you are in the kitchen or away from customers where you can let your guard down so to speak. In the back stage you can let off steam but also practice for how you will behave once you enter the front stage once again.

Let’s go with another example to really cement our understanding. Imagine that you are going on a blind date. Even before the date you likely spend plenty of time thinking about how the date will go. You will think about what you will wear, what you will say, what you will do, and rehearse in your mind how you want the date to go. In other words, before the date even starts you will spend plenty of time thinking about how you are going to manage the impression your date gets of you by presenting yourself in a certain manner. We all have preconceived ideas about how we need to present ourselves in order to elicit certain responses from others. In a dating context, you likely want to come across as attractive, confident, intelligent, and funny. This is the impression that you want to give and thus you will behave in a manner that you think will cause your date to view you in such terms. And importantly, where do these ideas about how you should behave come from? They come the social structures that we occupy and the culture that exists around us.

All in all, Goffman argues that the way we interact with others cannot escape the influences of society; specifically meaning social structures and culture. The status positions we occupy and the roles associated with them give us the information we need to play our parts. Goffman as well as many other like-minded sociologists argue that our very reality is socially constructed as we constantly engage in impression management. By constantly trying to manage the impressions of others we try to exert control over our own reality by attempting to manipulate the impressions that others have of who we are.

Alright, a few main points to remember. First, social structures organize interaction whereas culture influences the actual moment-to-moment specifics of interaction. I always find it useful to go back to the house analogy to differentiate the 2. Social structure is the raw materials; beams, walls, doorways and furniture. Culture is how you decorate the house; carpets, wall hanging, paint color, etc. Second, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy views human behavior as if it were nothing more than theatrical performance. Social structures provide for us the stage, culture provides for us the script and we play out our parts. And third, as a part of this understanding we are constantly engaging in impression management. In other words, we are constantly trying to manipulate the views that others have of us by interacting with them in certain ways. Again, go back to the dating example and think about any past dates that you had. How much impression management did you engage in? The more you think about it, the more you realize that Goffman’s ideas can really help us understand human behavior, as move from stage to stage and shift from part to part.