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Erving Guffman (1922-1982)

Social psychology

Life is a theatre

Today I want to tell you about Erving Guffman and he's view that life is a dramatically enacted thing.

I would like to start with an example. Ten years ago I worked in a ***** hotel in Poland as a waiter. You could compare this hotel, or our restaurant, to a theater, in that our restaurant was like a stage, and we were like actors. The scene was set, the costumes were chosen, and the dialogue was memorized. And we entered the stage smiling, prepared, and acting our best. But upon entering the backstage, or the kitchen in this case, our personalities became different. Not very different, the act was still there, but the scene has changed and we assumed different roles. If you ever entered the kitchen in a busy hotel or restaurant then you know what I mean. Today's post is precisely about that. It’s about life. It’s about theatre. It’s about how both these things are one. Let's start with the person who introduced this concept.

Erving Goffman.

Erving Goffman was a Canadian sociologist and writer who was born in Manville Alberta. He obtained a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology at the University of Toronto and later he obtained a master's degree and PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago. Between the year 1962, when he became a full professor at the University of California, and the year 1969, he had published seven significant books. In 1969 he wrote “The insanity of place”. The paper talked about his experiences after the suicide of his wife in 1964. In 1981 Erving Goffman married again and in 1992 he became president of the American sociological Association. Few months after that he died of stomach cancer.

Impression Management Theory.

Erving Goffman introduced a theory called impression management. This Theory relates to how we create, maintain, and enhance our social identities. According to Goffman when we interact with other people we try to - either consciously or subconsciously - manipulate and control the way they perceive us. We present to them our public image. This would be especially true in situations when we are aware of being judged, such as job interview or first date. In other situations we might simply try and present favorable view or image of ourselves. Guffman drew the comparison between impression management and theater play in his book “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” that was published in 1959. In this book he compared our performances in real life and performances of actors on stage. Just like actors we choose our wardrobe, our words, and we try to make a favorable impression on our audience, people we interact with. Just like in the theater we have front of stage where we present our public image and we have the backstage, for our private lives. Each performance and social interaction is driven towards having a particular effect on our audience as much as it is driven towards honest self-expression.
According to the impression management Theory our personality is the sum of all the roles that we play in our lives. That in turn would mean that our personality or our real self is the dramatic effect of the ways we present ourselves two other people. Hence Guffman saying

“Life is a dramatically enacted thing”.

Social agreements

In Goffman’s opinion everyone has the ability to choose their own setting, their own stage, props, and costumes in which they want to show themselves to the public. There has to be, however, some sort of agreement between us and other “actors”. We need to know the characteristics, expectations, and limitations of a particular interaction or “scene”. If we all follow the script there won't be any embarrassment, misunderstandings, and chaos. As an example, you can imagine that when you attend your friend's birthday party, you know beforehand what sort of clothes or costumes are appropriate for this situation. You wouldn't suddenly appear wearing a pirate outfit if you and your friend hadn't agreed beforehand that it's a costume party. This applies to everyday situations. When we go to work we dress in a certain way, we greet people in a certain way, we talk to others in a certain manner. And if in any of those situations something unexpected happens, if for example you're on the bus and suddenly someone starts singing, you may notice that most people would just try to ignore the situation. In other words show must go on. It is said that Goffman himself enjoyed testing the limits of the rules in restaurants, theaters, and cinemas.

What's your opinion?

What do you think about the impression management theory? I would imagine most of us had the feeling of being actors in our own movie, playing the lead role of course. We enter the school cafeteria, or the coffee shop next to our workplace, and we automatically straighten our backs, put mysterious smile on our faces and try to look like someone who just arrived to take over the stage. It’s our play after all. Then we go home, get into some comfortable clothes, and sing silly songs to ourselves while playing with Lego (not that there is anything right with that). Most of that, of course, is on a subconscious level. We can’t control our behavior all of the time. We can’t pay attention to every single detail, and also, we simply can’t act all the time. If we, for example, manage to get a job, because during our job interview we showed that we’re confident, goal-oriented, creative etc. person, and then it turns out it was just an act, while in truth we’re insecure, indecisive person who just forced themselves to act for thirty minutes, we wouldn’t be able to keep this up. So I guess my question to you is: Is this just an act? Or is it genuine? Or maybe it’s a genuine act?

In any case, thank you for visiting my blog and reading this article. I had lots of fun writing it. I intend to write more on the subject of psychology since I recently re-discovered that by writing about something you will memorize it better than just by reading it. It is more time consuming of course, but I think it’s worth it.
Once again, thank you for stopping by!

Till next time!
JM