Lecture #17: Central concepts in Goffman's "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"

An “interactional morality” in everyday life

•                      What is involved in "being in a situation"?

            •          People in spontaneously responsive contact with each other

            •          It doesn’t just happen because you as an individual want it to happen

            •          A matter of the particular background anticipations and expectations unique to the situation.

•          Everything happens ‘from within’ the relationship... as defined or socially constructed by those within it.

            •          “Information about the individual helps define the situation, enabling others to know in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him.

            •          Informed in these ways, the others will know how best to act to call forth a desired response from him” (p.129).

•          The “definition of the situation” depends on many sources of information:

            •          If unacquainted with the individual, people rely on assumptions from/about:

            •          1) conduct;

            •          2) appearance;

            •          3) apply untested stereotypes

            •          4) “documentary evidence” (p.129).

•          Once two or more people become ‘engaged’ with each other... then people’s “expressions” become important.

            •          Expressions give rise to impressions

•          The expressiveness of the individual involves two radiacally different kinds of activity:

            •          1) the expressions that he gives – “sayings,” avowals, what we ordinarily call ‘giving or communicating information’

            •          2) and the expressions that he gives off

            •          3) ‘gives off’ – things that we ‘show’ or ‘display’ in our actions

•          Goffman is primarily concerned with these ‘given off’ expressions:

                        •          Why?

            •          Because others can pick up on these ‘given off’ expression to check up on an actor’s ‘real’ mood, or ‘real’ attitude, etc..

            •          “... the ‘true’ or ‘real’ attitudes, beliefs and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, (i) through his avowals or (ii) [even more indirectly] through what appears to be involuntary expressive behavior” (p.130).

•          Remember: one’s expressions here, linguistic or otherwise, have formative power

            •          They are creative of a ‘situation’, of a‘relationship’, rather than representational

            •          They do not automatically give a ‘true’ picture

            •          That has to be ‘checked out’ by those to whom the truth matters

•          “... this distinction only has an only initial validity.

The individual does of course intentionally convey misinformation by means of both these types of communication, the first involving deceit, the second feigning” (p.130):

                        •          See slide 1

•          Our behavior has a ‘promissory’ character:

            •          In our anticipations we ‘show’ or ‘exhibit’ a “practical trust” of the other – but only when there is no reason to doubt them.

            •          “The others are likely to find that they must accept the individual on faith offering him a just return while he is present before them in exchange for something whose true value will not be established until he has left their presence” (p.130).

•          We live by anticipation, by inference

            •          I am your guest. You do not KNOW I will not steal your spoons, but you assume I won’t

•          We can (try) to control other people's conduct – particularly “their responsive treatment” of us – through the in influences we can exert on the “social construction” of "the definition of the situation.”

•          Strangely, in doing this, we do not FORCE them to act as we desire

            •           A person can achieve control “by influencing the definition of the situation which others come to formulate,

            •          and he [or she] can influence this definition by expressing him-[or herself] in such a way as to give them the kind of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his [or her] own plan” (p.131).

•          Everyday ‘interactional experts’: they know how to make use of a certain (justificatory) vocabulary in presenting their claims as to who they are :

            •          They try to do this through their knowledge of the different roles of “expressions given” and those “given off”

            •          They know that people ‘trust’ expressions ‘given off’ more than those ‘given’

•          Preedy:

            •          1) kindly

            •          2) ideal

            •          3) methodical and sensible

            •          4) big cat

            •          5) carefree

            •          6) local fisherman

•          Everyday ‘expert analysts of interaction’:

            •          Knowing that the individual is likely to present himself in a favorable light, the others may divided what they witness into two parts:

            •          1) that which he can manipulate at will [expressions ‘given’];

            •          and 2) that which is much more difficult [those ‘given off’ or ‘shown’ or ‘displayed’].

•          We, and they, can use the uncontrollable aspects of peoples' behavior to check out on the controllable parts

•          Shetland crofter's wife's examples:

            •          1) In serving dishes to visitors from the mainland of Britain – watch whether they eat with ‘gusto’!

            •          2) Seeing what A thought of B, would watch A watching B engaged in conversation with C – smiles or winces? (See slide 2)

            •          3) Dark cottage: watch approaching visitors adjust their smile as they passed the window,

•          Individuals can gain much by controlling the presumably spontaneous aspects of their behavior - a “calculated unintentionality “

[an oxymoron]

•          Luckily for most of us, our arts at detecting such manipulation are (for most of us - con-men excluded) better than our arts at feigning a performance.

•          Let us turn now to the task faced by people really trying to “get on with each other:”

                        •          It’s still not that easy!

            •          All involved project their own ‘definition of the situation both:

            •          (i) by their responses

            •          and (ii) by having their own “lines of action”(which project different definitions of the situation)

•          Complete harmony is an optimistic ideal, and unnecessary for the smooth working of society.

            •          People must be sufficiently attuned to each other not to produce open contradictions.

            •          They can maintain a “surface agreement” (the suppression of “heartfelt feelings”), a “veneer of consensus”

•          An interactional "division of labor:"

            •          Individuals conceal their own wants by giving lip service to values (temporarily) to which everyone is oriented.

            •          They remain silent on issues important to others.

            •          They extend a courtesy to each other - an interactional "modus vivendi."

•          

            •          “Together the participants contribute to a single overall definition of the situation which involves

            •          (i) not so much a real agreement as to what exists

            •          but rather

            •          (ii) a real agreement as to whose claims concerning what issues will be temporarily honored” (p.134)

            •           – a “working consensus” as to whose voice currently counts.

•          Examples:

                        •          

            •          1) Two friends at lunch: a reciprocal show of affection

            •          2) Service occupations: specialist, e.g., doctor: a show of disinterested involvement; client: a show of respect for competence and integrity of the profession.

•          “First impresssions count:”

            •          An individual’s “initial projection” temporarily commits them to going on in the future as they 'promise' in the present -“getting off on the right foot”

            •          The “waitress” example.

•          Interactional breakdowns:

            •          Disruptive events, embarrassments, etc., accounts

            •          Protective practices -“tact” (we help other smooth it out)

            •          Feelings of shame and hostility

            •          Disorientation, anomie (”I feel as if I’m on another planet!”)

•          The importance of maintaining the spontaneous responsiveness of the conversation

            •          “... the initial definition of the situation projected by an individual tends to provide a plan for the cooperative activity that follows” (p.136).

            •          Thus, in (at least appearing) to follow others and to provide them with opportunities to follow you, we honor obligations to each other

            •          Hence, the distinctive moral character of projected definitions of the situation.

•          An interactional morality: rights and duties

            •          “Society is organized on the [moral] principle that (i) any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral right to expect that others will value and treat him in an appropriate way. Connected with this principle is a second, namely (ii) that an individual who implicitly or explicitly signifies that he has certain social characteristics ought in fact to be what he claims he is” (p.136).

•          Interactional rights and duties:

            •          Actors:

            •          1.1) have a moral right to expect others to value and treat them in ways appropriate to who they are, their identity

            •          1.2) but actors also have a moral duty to be sincere

            •          Audience:

            •          2.1) has a moral right to expect that actors signifying that they have certain social characteristics are who they claim to be

            •          2.2) but audience also has a moral duty to treat them as who they are

•          Thus, in a situation, people exerts moral demands upon each other (which change moment by moment), to be treated according to their (momentary) 'status', 'place' or 'position' in the situation.

•          “Definitional disruptions:” embarrassments; the protective practices of 'tact'.

•          What, then, is 'a situation'?

            •          What IS there in it?

            •          What is 'happening in' a situation?

            •          Whose ‘situation’ is it?... this is what social power is like, not coercive, but formative or constructional.

•          "The others find then that the individual has informed them as to what is and as to what they ought to see as the 'is'" (p.136).

•          You end up being assigned a ‘role’ or a ‘position’ in a ‘situation’ not of your own choosing: Role (teacher, pupil, father, etc): "the enactment of the rights and duties associated with a status, a place, a position" (p.138).