Presentation of Self

This week is all about the presentation of the self and the opinions of Erving Goffman. While the readings (both by Goffman) seemed a tad dry to me (especially the first one), they basically describe the intricacies of social interactions, how the ‘self’ is then constructed with these interactions, and the importance of establishing a sense of self in every encounter. The lecture delved into the man himself and his unconventional collection of theories that really separated him from other Sociologists. For example, the fact that he went to the extreme of enrolling into a mental institute in cognito to study the patients showed how involved he was in his work and how he lived to do things his own way.

One concept of Goffman’s that I found particularly interesting was facework. Loosely summarised, facework is the idea that everything we do is to keep good face (i.e. to keep our dignity). If we lose face, we suffer a certain ‘social death’, which is the worst consequence imaginable. We can sometimes try and keep other people in good face, but essentially we only care about ourselves.

Ok, so since I am utterly obsessed with Glee, I am going to give you an example from this amazing TV show. In one episode, Puck (the school bully) lost his trademark Mohawk and suddenly started getting picked on by the nerds he used to bully, completely uprooting the social hierarchy. Puck was absolutely humiliated and suffered a severe social death. He couldn’t face the rest of the school until he gained his ‘face’ back. This demonstrates the importance of keeping in good face.

Andrew also briefly introduced Goffman’s ideas on roles and role distance, which directly relates to the view of the self. Since I have gone slightly over the recommended word count for each blog, here is a fascinating scholarly source which can help you understand the idea of roles:

Marginality, Role Conflict, and Status Inconsistency as Forms of Stressful Interaction