Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 139

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) is another important contributor to the symbolic interactionists’ understanding of the self and how it develops (Jacobsen and Kristiansen 2015). Goffman’s work on the self was deeply influenced by Mead’s thinking, especially the tension between the “I” and the “me.” In Goffman’s work, this distinction takes the form of the tension between what we want to do spontaneously and what people expect us to do (Goffman 1959).

Goffman developed the notion of dramaturgy, which views an individual’s social life as a series of dramatic performances akin to those that take place on a theatrical stage. To Goffman, the self is not a thing possessed by the individual but the dramatic product of the interaction between people and their audiences (Manning 2007). While many performances of the self are successful, there is always the possibility that performances can be disrupted by the actions of audiences. For example, audiences can jeer at performances or even walk out on them. Goffman focuses on these possibilities and what people can do to prevent them by improving their dramatic performances or to deal with disruptions once they occur.

At matchmaking events, like this one in China, people obviously carefully manage the impressions they make on others. However, impression management is a reality in almost all of everyday life.

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