The Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life

Goffman outlines eight of the key elements that comprise the performances individuals put on relative to their social standing. They include belief, front, dramatic realization, idealization, the maintenance of expressive control, misrepresentation, mystification, and reality and contrivance. Regarding an individual’s belief in the roles they assume in daily life, Goffman outlines two possible modalities: cynicism and sincerity. The cynical individual performs their social role in such a way that they no longer see themselves in the performance, or they perform a given social role but seek out ends other than those typical of that subject position (i.e., a philanthropist whose main concern is not helping the poor but improving their social capital and being perceived as a virtuous individual, regardless of what happens to those in need). By contrast, the sincere individual strongly identifies with their social role and the duties required of them. Regarding a “front,” Goffman means the scenic and personal elements that constitute the background or overall setting of a specific social interaction (e.g., doctor-patient, student-teacher). The scenic elements of a “front” include the decoration or interior design of a fixed and regular setting (e.g., office, classroom), and so forth, while the personal elements of a “front” include a performer’s attire, nonverbal communication, speech and accent, physical appearance, etc. While the scenic and personal aspects of an interaction remain largely in the background, they still give an individual observer some immediate social cues as to who they are interacting with and what they may expect.

Regarding idealization, Goffman is referring to how individuals may embellish their interactions with others to give off the best possible impression of themselves. For Goffman, the striving for upward social mobility provides the best and clearest example of idealization, which he describes in the following terms: “Commonly we find that upward mobility involves the presentation of proper performances and that efforts to move upward and efforts to keep from moving downward are expressed in terms of sacrifices made for the maintenance of front. Once the proper sign-equipment has been obtained […] then this equipment can be used to embellish and illumine one’s daily performances with a favorable social style” (36). Now, what Goffman calls “maintenance of expressive control” refers to the amount of time and energy that is required on the part of a performer to account for all the ways a certain gesture or word may cause the observer to view the performer as something other than what their social status would lead them to believe. Likewise, but this time on the part of the observer, what Goffman calls “misrepresentation” refers to the necessity of an observer’s vigilance with respect to their interpretation of the verbal and nonverbal cues that make up the particular social interaction with the performer. Failure on either the performer or the observer’s part may result in the following scenario:

“Failure to regulate the information acquired by the audience involves possible disruption of the projected definition of the situation; failure to regulate contact involves possible ritual contamination of the performer” (67).

Now, what Goffman terms “mystification” refers to the way a performer, by maintaining adequate social distance from observers, can produce a situation wherein “the audience can be held in a state of mystification in regard to the performer” (67).

And lastly, Goffman takes issue with the common-sense framework that is typically used to interpret social interactions, which he formulates as the dichotomy of “reality and contrivance” (70). In the everyday usage of this distinction, an individual typically assumes that what is real is natural and what is contrived is false; false because it is fabricated. For Goffman, however, such a distinction covers over the reality of the skill set required of both performer and observer. He presents stage acting as an example:

“It does take deep skill, long training, and psychological capacity to become a good stage actor. But this fact should not blind us to another one: that almost anyone can quickly learn a script well enough to give a charitable audience some sense of realness in what is being contrived before them” (72).

That is to say, navigating social situations through the lens of “either reality or contrived” (72) is to ignore the way all individuals must put in the effort to become capable of performing what is required of them within their respective social role. For Goffman, then, persons are always already, and such a truth is no mark against their moral character.

Goffman shifts focus from the individual performer to the individual performer who acts as part of a group, which Goffman calls a performance team (or team for short), referring to “any set of individuals who co-operate in staging a single routine” (79). Now, Goffman identifies two key elements regarding the kind of impression given off by a group of performers who work in concert: relations of dependence and relations of familiarity. Relations of dependence refers to the way each member of a team has the capacity to both disrupt and support the overall impression that a team gives off to an audience. By contrast, relations of familiarity refers to the way each member of a team relates to all others. For Goffman, relations of familiarity are interactions between members of a team that are largely kept out of the audience’s view, while relations of dependence are interactions among teammates that appear to observers.

Moreover, because it is inevitable that teammates will disagree regarding best group practices, Goffman underscores that unlike situations where there is only a solo individual performer, team performances exhibit a “party line” approach rather than the rich definition of a situation that is given off by an individual. Thus, because “public disagreement among the members of the team not only incapacitates them for united action but also embarrasses the reality sponsored by the team,” they must “protect this impression of reality,” and thus “members of the team may be required to postpone taking public stands until the position of the team has been settled, and once the team’s stand has been taken, all members may be obliged to follow it” (86). Additionally, similar to the way in which an individual performer could control the setting of the social interaction, “performing teams,” or teams “which control the setting” (86), function in a similar manner and can act in such a way as to maintain a front (e.g., a manager in an office or place of business, a family that is hosting guests in their home). It is for this reason that Goffman concludes this chapter with the following: “if a performance is to be effective it will be likely that the extent and character of the co-operation that makes this possible will be concealed and kept secret” (104)—concealed and kept secret to give off the impression of “smooth” group dynamics and cohesion.

Goffman analyzes the spatial and temporal determinants of a given performance, or what he calls a “region.” A region is a space with spatial and temporal boundaries that contains a delimited set of possible experiences and expressions. For example, the classroom constitutes its own region, one whose boundaries (education buildings, school-day schedule) delimit a set of possible experiences (learning) to be had by the audience (students). Moreover, for every region there is always a “front region” and a “back region.” The front region constitutes the setting where observers are in the presence of a group of performers and can receive their verbal and nonverbal expressions.

Regarding the behavior of performers within the front region, Goffman notes that workers will maintain an appearance of being busy (or what he calls “make-work”) to give off the correct impression to the boss and potential clients. With respect to the back region, the performers’ behavior is markedly different than their performance in the front region. Goffman uses the analogy of the “backstage” of a theater play to elucidate this point, since just as the cast immediately drops their act once they enter the backstage area, so too do individuals and workers change their way of relating to each other when they are out of their audience’s sight. To summarize the discrepancy between front and back regions, Goffman writes:

“Throughout Western society there tends to be one informal or backstage language of behavior, and another language of behavior for occasions when a performance is being presented. The backstage language consists of reciprocal first-naming, co-operative decision making, profanity, open sexual remarks, elaborate griping, smoking, rough informal dress, “sloppy” sitting and standing posture, use of dialect or sub-standard speech, mumbling and shouting, playful aggressivity and “kidding” [...] The frontstage behavior language can be taken as the absence [...] of this. In general […] backstage conduct is one which allows minor acts which might easily be taken as symbolic of intimacy and disrespect for others present and for the region, while front region conduct is one which disallows such potentially offensive behavior” (128).

Given the difficulty of impression management and maintaining differing patterns of relating to others in both the front and back regions of a single performance, problems or conflicts between differing kinds of performances naturally arise. Or, as Goffman puts it, “When individuals witness a show that was not meant for them, they may, then, become disillusioned about this show as well as about the show that was meant for them” (136).

Thus, to avoid or ameliorate the observer’s disillusionment, Goffman proposes three solutions: segregating audiences, shifting rapidly to the expected performance, or adding welcoming gesture to include the observer as another legitimate member of the interaction currently taking place. By the separation (or segregation) of audiences, Goffman is referring to the ways certain individuals can avoid such a conflict altogether by maintaining a very select group of persons with whom they feel comfortable engaging in a given activity. For example:

“some French Canadian priests do not want to lead so strict a life that they cannot go swimming at the beach with friends, but they tend to feel that it is best to swim with persons who are not their parishioners, since the familiarity required at the beach is incompatible with the distance and respect required in the parish” (137).

However, when it is not possible for a group of performers to separate themselves from certain audiences, they may attempt to quickly overcorrect their behavior when caught off guard by an unexpected observer or visitor, such as “a husband and wife in the midst of their daily bickering, when suddenly faced with a guest of brief acquaintance, will put aside their intimate quarrels (139). In such situations, “if the newcomer is to be treated in the manner to which he has become accustomed, the performer must switch rapidly from the performance he was giving to one that the newcomer will feel is proper” (139). By contrast, a group of performers may forgo overcorrecting their behavior to meet their unexpected observer’s expectations and include them in the performance as it unfolds. This would be “to accord the intruder a clear-cut welcome as someone who should have been in the region all along” (139).