The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman

Introduction.

So the introduction is just orienting us to his overall theoretical position about analyzing the ways in which people engage with each other in an interpersonal basis, one on one.

And this is about self-presentation.

So how we learn to present ourself in each and every different role that we play in society and understanding the proper way to behave and how to avoid the improper way of behaving and how those lessons are taught.

through this kinds of one-on-one engagement.

So he's really focusing on what sociologists call symbolic interaction.

The daily interactions between two individuals reflects larger social structures that we behave in a role that we're putting on a mask.

And so the very first sentence on page one states, When an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed.

Socioeconomic status, concept of self, his attitude towards them, his competence, his trustworthiness.

Information about the individual helps to define the situation, enabling others to know in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him.

So basically, as soon as you meet someone, whether you realize it or not, consciously or unconsciously, you're sizing them up with every detail that you can put together.

And especially whatever information you already have about the person, you're going to make all kinds of assumptions about them.

And also, he goes on to say, to apply their previous experience with individuals roughly similar to the one before them, or more importantly, to imply that untested stereotypes to him so just that we have stereotypes about people we're instantly stereotyping them we're judging them based on these instant assumptions that we have and that we may treat them and engage with them accordingly so that's all just laid out on page one is just that it's the most human thing to assess someone as soon as you meet them And so on the second page, it's saying, okay, so we know that as soon as someone meets us, they're going to immediately be stereotyping us and making assumptions about us.

And so therefore, we're going to present ourself in a way that works with or manipulates the way the viewer sees the individual.

So therefore, the person is presenting themself in order to express a communication to the viewer.

So we can imagine, you know, when you go home and you are absolutely alone, then taking off all of these masks that you've put on throughout the day.

What does that look like? compared to whenever you walk out the door dressed up for the particular role you're about to enter into.

And so, of course, this book is written in the 1950s in the U.S.

So we have to really think about that context because think about self-presentation in the 1950s when students were wearing suits to college compared to now where people are wearing yoga pants out in public.

You know, it's just the context.

changes of how people present themselves.

So therefore the context is so important to really understand because objectively people's self-presentation is very different, but the social context is also changing.

So therefore they might be changing together in a way that it's completely acceptable to wear yoga pants in public, even as, you know, a very wealthy person.

So he's just really introducing this concept of the motivations behind how people are going to present themselves, understanding that they're going to be judged and decoded, and therefore that you also can't trust it completely either because you know that that person is presenting a particular image of themselves, that it's a construction.

So on page seven, he says, knowing that the individual is likely to present himself in a light that is favorable to him, of course, you're always presenting yourself in one way or another.