SOC251 Mead and Goffman

Symbolic interactionism

Human beings create their lives through ongiong processes of interaction with other selves

• Homo sapiens (human) construct existence through communicative interaction

• This construction is based on the creation and use of symbols (objects or acts that represent and convey meanings)

  • E.g., spoken or written word, uniform

Mead

• Individual is a social construct, and society is the creation of socialized, interacting individuals

• Deny behaviorism (viewed human beings as products of their environment, organically conditioned to react in fixed ways to stimuli)

  • They misses the true nature of the social act; human assign meanings to and interpret those stimuli (cultural meanings that are assigned to the symbols)

  • Human not behave in conditioned ways. Instead, they pursue goals by understanding the situation

• Human are self-awareness, through cultural learning, socialization, those organic properties are gradually disciplined and transformed into emotions, perceptions, ambitions, and principles.

  • Individuals can become “minded selves” only in a social

    context, through symbolic interaction with others.

Mind

Simply conscious thought

• thought occurs by means of “self-talk” or inner conversation.

• Conversation: form of symbolic communication employing language

  • Socially created system of vocal and written designations to symbolized shared experiences

  • imparted through socialization

→ our mind come from the outside (socialized language), from society.

• internalized language → think → accessing and communicating about the world

Self

capacity to reflect back on its own actions or status, to take on the perspective of both subject and object. This capacity arises through learning.

3 stage to form “self”

• Preparatory stage: small children begin to imitate actions of significant others

• Play stage: children “take the role of other” as in hide and seek

• Game stage: learn to place themselves in multiple roles, coordinating their actions with others on a team, as in hockey or baseball

looking-glass self

we form our self-concept largely through the “mirrored reflections” of ourselves that we see in the reactions of others.

At each stage of forming “self”, a child is developing an expanded capacity to step outside of pure subjectivity, pure ego, and reflect on actions in the light of how others might judge them.

Generalized other

the self is fully attained when one can take on the collective attitudes of one’s community or society

our identities are constructed through social interaction.

社会整体的一般态度，对这个问题的思考说明自我发展到了更成熟的阶段

Goffman

Dramaturgical perpective

• In daily interactions, people act like actors, adjusting their performance according to the occasion and the audience

the arts of impression management take precedence over honest communication

Impression management

Social interaction is driven by this.

Participants try to shape the situation in ways that support their own interests and protect their self-image.

• People must manage the information others receive about them during interaction. (Expression given, verbal declaration, and so on)

• Even when people notice fake or awkward performance, norms of tact help preserve a surface agreement, because both sides want to avoid embarrassment.

performance

Backstage and frontstage setting

• Closed to audiences, the backstage is where we do the preparatory work, wearing costume and make-up, rehearsing the act prior to its delivery frontstage.

One is usually a part of a performance team, collaborates in staging a performance with others

• Preserving team loyalty and coordination is important in social establishments, especially to places where people gather regularly to deliver and receive serveices

Total institution

More restrictive life, individuals are cut off from the wider society and being control. E.g., asylums

前台后台理论：staff前台表现关心病人，后台控制虐待humiliation病人；病人前台服从，后台underlife保持尊严

Behavior in Public Places

Fleeting encounters, but order prevails

People minimize “interpersonal contact” with strangers; if contact is inadvertently made, we quickly use standardized apologies or excuse

Stigma identity

The stigmatized identity is spoiled because the “normals” classify, label and treat them as abnormal, so their life-chances are limited. They use interaction strategies to avoid and hide their stigmatized attributes.

Both “the normals” and the stigmatized identifies are doing pression management

World of social encounters

Face to face or mediated contact

A line

a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which he expresses his view of the situation and his evaluation of the participants, especially himself

• regardless of whether a person intends to take a line, he has done so in effect, so people should response the line

• The response: Consideration the impression they have possibly formed of him

Face

during a particular contact, Positive social value a person claims for himself by the line (that others assume he has taken)

An image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes - An image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes

Mutual acceptance of line

Important conservative effect upon encounters

• once the person initially presents a line, he and other tend to build their later responses upon it

• A “working” acceptance, not a “real” one

• Alter this line will lead to confusion

Maintenance of face is a condition of interaction, not its objective

社交活动就是face saving的过程，a large number of different motive can equally lead home to do so

Face-work

The actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face

• poise

  • Controls his and other’s embarrassment

Habitual and standardized practice

Each person, subculture, and society seems to have its own characteristic face-saving practices

• however, face can be saved only in a certain number of ways

• Members of every social circle may be expected to have some knowledge of face-work

• Variation in social skill → efficacy of face-work than to the frequency of its application

2 points of view

Defensive orientation

• saving his own face

• The person must consider the loss of face that his action may entail for others

Protective orientation

• saving the other’s face

• The person must choose a tack that will not lead to loss of his own

3 levels of responsibility that a person may have for a threat to face that his actions have created

1. Acted innocently

   1. Can feel that he would have attempted to avoid it had he foreseen its offensive consequences

   2. Faux pas, gaffes, boners or bricks

2. Intention of causing open insult

3. Incidental offense

   1. Unplanned but The accompanying behavior may offend others

This may happened on anyone against anyone. A person have to have a set of face-saving practices for each of these possible relations to threat

Cooperation in face-work

A person’s performance of face-work represents their socialization level

Each participant in an event is concern with saving everybody’s faces, then tacit cooperation will naturally arise (although objectives are different)

when a face has been threatened, face-work must be done

• Resolution of the situation to everyone’s apparent satisfaction is the first requirement

Noblesse oblige: If one person finds he is powerless to save his own face, the smothers seem especially bound to protect him

Method

• face-work itself

• Tacit agreement - through the languages of hint (ambiguities, carefully worded jokes) - warn but not upgrade to an incident

• Reciprocal self-denial - person doesn’t know what would be just acceptable judgement during the occasion, this is safety form of exchange

Double definition of self

1. Image pieced together from interactions with others

2. Player who are maintaining the image in other’s eyes (first self)

   1. If a person good at maintaining the image, this reputation may become part of the face (first self) that later they need to maintain

Face and social relationships

When a person begins an encounter, a social relationship is set up and expects to stand in a given relationships after the encounter ends.

• greeting and farewell when begin a conversational encounter or depart form one

Characteristic obligation: each members guarantees protect other’s face to prevent disruption of these relationships

In many relationships, the members come to share a face - in a social relationship, People’s face is largely based on the good behavior of others.

The nature of ritual order

Ritual order is a set of social rules organized on accommodative lines, helping people maintain face and keep interaction from breaking down.

Within this order, people protect their self-image through small adjustments such as blindnesses, half-truths, illusions, and rationalizations.

Communication is different from facts because facts are harder to avoid, while communications belong to a less punitive scheme: they can be passed by, withdrawn from, disbelieved, conveniently misunderstood, or tactfully conveyed.

Because communication allows this flexibility, it gives people room to manage tension and preserve the interaction.

When an offense becomes too serious, a person may withdraw from the encounter.

In the article, this withdrawal is not so much an informal punishment as a means of terminating the encounter, and it may even help salvage some face.