Irving Goffman was one of the founders of American sociology. He portrayed that people are like actors. They are shaped by the way they relate to others. He argued that people’s moral behaviors come from the environment that surrounds them. He explained that human beings are supposed to think, and that can be brought about through social interaction. Goffman made the advancement of using face-to-face interaction with people. The paper is a kind of presentation that is an interaction analysis.
To start with, people are usually interested in other people’s information if that person presents himself or herself to others. In general, people like to know about the conception of self, economic and social status, competence, conception as well as trustworthiness. It is worth noting that some of this information may be an end in itself. All the same, there are practical reasons that may help in acquiring it. I understand that information regarding another individual will help people to know their expectations.
Goffman argues that we take different roles according to environments, like in workplaces and schools where one can assume the role of the social stage. In these social stages, we go up against parts of how we relate to others. By that, the environment that we grow in is the one that determines our character. That can be brought into place through acting, and that puts our image at the forefront of our characters. That can be manipulated through the setting in which the acts are performed. In our social setting, we are supposed to take different fronts depending on the environment in which we find ourselves. In some particular stages, you are supposed to take roles that will help you fit in with other team members so that you can achieve personal goals. Through this, Goffman says that you can know a person in real life when he is backstage because that is the time a person is not acting.
I chose to interact with a student at Lexus University. We had a little conversation about her social life, and she was free to tell me about her life. The conversation we had ideally helped [me to know how people manage to have interpersonal communication. She was ready to talk to me about her cultural ways and how she tried to adopt them. The girl is initiated and plays a symbolic play in adulthood. She completed school at Greenfield High School, and she achieved good grades that could enable her to join the university. She was born in May 1992 and has a young brother who lives with her mother, and their father works abroad. The observation took place in the university compound where she had just joined. She loves browsing the internet during her free time. Football and basketball are her favorite sports during her free time, as well as martial arts. She loves counseling her peer friends who are in the adolescent stage, and she finds it amusing.
Therese says that her social life has been impressive because of his boyfriend, David. They met in one of the restaurants at the university. Love at first sight is explained as dating somebody else, but they have to end the relationship so that they can start dating, although they began as friends. They say that their relationship has so many issues. Their issues have been petty and painful at the same time. At one point, Therese told David that his mobile phone had passwords like those of Camp David, who wanted privacy because of the work he was doing. I laughed aloud because it was funny to refer to David by that big name. David, on the other hand, could say his mobile phone was private. This made me wonder, too. How can a couple of mobile phones be private? ‘Wonders will never end,” I said. However, after consultation with the parents and counselors, David stopped that. Then I was forced to ask him why he always did that, and he said that he wanted a private life. But after that issue, their relationship became good. Therese could access David’s phone, and she could find out who they were speaking to all the time. They both apologize when they were wrong. They have solved several differences within themselves, and the problems have been a threat to their relationship. Music and dance are an important factor in an adult’s development. Played music while doing her house chores. And D avid will always join her while holding her waist.
They will take roles in the way they did the dancing. J was flexible in dancing so she could teach David dancing, a dance that was commonly known as salsa’. They danced while laughing aloud. One could easily judge they were couples. She feels sad when David takes a long time to make a move. Because of her egocentric nature, she does not want David to teach him anything that behaves more maturely than Therese. At this age, she thinks about how she will work in the future, have her own money, and buy a car of her own. She cooks tasty food, and David loves it. She learns new school on kitchen matters whenever she goes out. She loves mingling with other people who are older than she is because they will advise her on marriage issues.
Therese told me about her Western culture. She says that the culture was one of the best things to manage. Western culture is what is upcoming in most countries. Therese says that in their Western culture, the most loved thing is music, most specifically rock and hip-hop. She means that most people love such songs. That is why Therese and David love it when they are listening to and dancing to rock music instead of local music. Also, in Western culture, people tend to enjoy man-made medicines more than natural ones. Natural medicine is one of the best drugs that has been discovered d, but Western people tend to hate it. Intellectually, Western medicine can be either bad or good, as some medicines are more powerful and helpful to human health. It was quite amusing when Therese said that over her dead body, she could not take natural medication because she thought it couldn’t help.
From my observation, too, people from the Western culture do not value anybody despite their class level. They say that everybody is equal. That is, there is equality among all human beings. A national leader is not above anybody, and everybody is supposed to be under the rule. In Western culture, politics and the economy fall less than one lane. Powerful politicians have a significant influence on the world economy (Goffman, 1959). By that, it has been maintained through the method of trade. Also, in Western society, travel and vacations are a regular thing in their lives. Most families feel like they should go out on holiday, and this has become a norm in their daily lives. For example, Therese and David, since they started dating, have spent most of their time having several travels and spending their time together, and their parents had no problem because this was a norm in their culture.
The two were from the same university, and they participated in the drama festivals because they were good actors. Goffman emphasized the need for drama in human beings. That is because people can adjust or change the implications and images that they use in real life and collaboration based on their translation of the circumstance. Drama needs one who can interpret it on his or her own. People can make these changes and adjustments because, to a limited extent, of their capacity to communicate with themselves, which enables them to look at conceivable blueprints, evaluate their relative points of interest and drawbacks, and after that pick one (Bellingham, & Vasconcelos, 2013).
Goff man says that drama is the parts played to make it significant, the excitement is likened to dramatic conditions in which performing artists show up on a front stage as per the roles they should have an impact on a group or “group.” In the wake of authorizing their parts, the “genuine” self is unexpectedly introduced at backstage. The effortlessness and assortment of parts individuals play influence emblematic interactions to engage the collective people.
Roles can be done in different ways and shapes depending on the way you want to do your drama. Role-taking is a crucial component of association, characterized by specific circumstances and situations. Therese and David have taken part in drama festivals because of their ways of socializing; they can act and imitate people’s moves and sounds the way they want in drama. Therese, through her slim physique, is active and energetic, and she can dance flexibly without straining (Goodman, 2017). Therese is intelligent, and her attention is focused on a clever student who is serious about her work. Her academic matters exhibit a concrete operational stage cognitively. It is evident from his active participation in class and the grades her gets. I made this assumption through the cat they had recently administered. Through that observation, it shows that they are both self-driven in their doings, and this will help them come up with new ideas. Goffman argues that we take different roles according to environments, like in workplaces and schools where one can assume the role of the social stage. In these social stages, we go up against parts of how we relate to others. By that, the environment that we grow in is the one that determines our character.
In conclusion, Goffman believed in the symbolic way of interacting. He says that people are supposed to interact in different ways depending on the environment. If you are given a new thing to use, you might not know the use until someone explains it, and by that thorough explanation, you would have interacted. Goffman also says that human culture has to have symbols that help it to be guided. Like the symbol on someone s face can help one to know s status. A frown on someone’s face is a symbol of unhappiness, anger, or sadness. That one is supposed to learn different symbols that will guide us in daily life. Like in drama, it is one of the best logos for socializing and interacting with other people. Through Goff’s theory, this observation has helped me to have time to study people who are not me. There is a lot of information that I took for granted because I saw it as normal behavior. With the help of a textbook, I would relate to why things happen and the main reason why people interact.
References
Bullingham, L., & Vasconcelos, A. C. (2013). ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of Information Science, 39(1), 101-112..
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York.
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