2/25/2013
SOCIAL INTERACTION
introduction to sociology
SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

SOCIAL STRUCTURE, SOCIAL POSITION, AND
SOCIAL ROLES

Social context

In order to understand a conversation, we need to
understand the social context.


E.g., electronic communication such as email or text
messaging can lead to miscommunication because
of lack of context.
E.g., Three’s Company
SOCIAL STRUCTURE, SOCIAL POSITION, AND
SOCIAL ROLES

Social structure

the underlying regularities or patterns in how people
behave and their relationships with one another
 E.g.,

classroom, inner city
Social position (social status)

the particular slot or position that you occupy in any
given social structure
 E.g.,

student, child, parent, employee, spouse
Our social position in any particular group importantly
shapes how we behave in that group.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE, SOCIAL POSITION, AND
SOCIAL ROLES

Social role
 Socially
defined expectations of a person in a given
social position
 E.g.,
teacher’s social role—speak at a level students can
understand, respond to students’ questions, give fair
exams
 E.g., arrive to class on time, raise your hand before
speaking, turn in assignments on time—these
expectations are part of the social role of students.
 Social
role significantly shapes, but does not fully
determine how we will behave.
SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

ERVING GOFFMAN’S DRAMATURGY
Focus on the “trivial”
 Impression management
 Dramaturgy

ERVING GOFFMAN’S DRAMATURGY
Focus on the “trivial”
 Impression management
 Dramaturgy

FOCUS ON THE “TRIVIAL”

Erving Goffman
 pioneering
sociologist who developed
microsociology and emphasized the importance of
understanding the “seemingly trivial”
FOCUS ON THE “TRIVIAL”

civil inattention





Civil inattention is defined as acknowledging the presence
of others but avoiding interaction.
rather unconscious
signals to the other that one does not suspect the other’s
behavior
social life is allowed to proceed in an orderly fashion
e.g., two people walking on a city sidewalk quickly glance at
each other and then look away as they pass
FOCUS ON THE “TRIVIAL”

audience segregation
 People
engage in audience segregation to reconcile
their role in one part of life with their role in another
part of their social world.
 E.g.,
being openly gay at home but being “straight” at
work for fear of discrimination.
 E.g., while grocery shopping, you run into your sociology
professor. This creates an awkward interaction since you
are not used to seeing her outside of class and you are
not sure how to behave.
FOCUS ON THE “TRIVIAL”

response cry
 purpose:
to show others one’s continued
competence in daily routines
 e.g., a student drops a spoon on the floor as she
carries her dish to the kitchen. As the spoon
clatters loudly on the tile floor she exclaims,
“Ooooooh, sorry!”
ERVING GOFFMAN’S DRAMATURGY
Focus on the “trivial”
 Impression management
 Dramaturgy

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

People use impression management to compel
others to react to them in ways they wish.
 E.g.,
a CEO wears a suit and tie to a board meeting
and later in the day changes into jeans and a T-shirt
to attend a football event with friends.
 E.g., wearing a new dress on a first date.
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

“There is no occasion of talk so trivial as not to
require each participant to show serious
concern with the way in which he handles
himself and the others present."
 Goffman
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

We do impression management because we are
sensitive about how others see us.


humans tend to collaborate with others to make sure that
interactions end without embarrassment
E.g., Maria’s friend posted an unflattering picture of her
from a Halloween party on Facebook. Maria was
embarrassed and quickly took it down since she is friends
with many coworkers on Facebook.
DIFFERENCES IN CONCERN FOR THE OTHER’S FACE

differences in concern for the other’s face
 more
likely to be concerned
 relationship
is not close
 you like the person
 less power
ERVING GOFFMAN’S DRAMATURGY
Focus on the “trivial”
 Impression management
 Dramaturgy

DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

DRAMATURGY

Uses the analogy of theater
 According
to Erving Goffman, social interaction is
like performing a play in a theater.
 We are all actors (see first date slide)
 Front region, back region
 E.g.,
the calm professor in your sociology class may
behave quite forcefully in a department meeting: that is,
she could act in ways she did not want her students to
witness.
THE FIRST DATE, LIKE THEATER






characters
back stage
front stage
costumes
props
scripts
DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

THE IMPORTANCE OF STYLE

Our style (how well we can act) importantly
determines whether our performance will be
accepted or not.
 (see
next slide)
THE RELATION BETWEEN CONTENT AND
SYMPTOMATIC ACTION (STYLE)
Content
Positive
Symptomatic Audience reaction
action
Positive
Performance accepted
Positive
Negative
Negative Positive
Negative Negative
Performance
damaged
Performance accepted
if content cannot be
checked
Performance rejected
Dramaturgy – the importance of style
DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

CYNICAL AND SINCERE

Cynical
 Do
not believe our own performance
 almost

all of us are cynical sometimes
Sincere
 Believe
that we are who we are pretending to be
DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

THE MANAGED HEART, ARLIE HOCHSCHILD

According the Arlie Hochschild, flight
attendants use several strategies to manipulate
their emotions since it is part of their job
requirement to have particular feelings.
 surface
acting
 deep acting
 deep
acting with body
 self prompting
 method acting
SURFACE ACTING
If I pretend I’m feeling really up, sometimes I
actually get into it. The passenger responds to
me as though I were friendly, and then more of
me responds back.
Dramaturgy. Emotion labor
DEEP ACTING WITH BODY
Sometimes I purposely take some deep
breaths. I try to relax my neck muscles.
Dramaturgy. Emotion labor
DEEP ACTING, SELF-PROMPTING
I may just talk to myself: “Watch it. Don’t let
him get to you. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t
let him get to you.” And I’ll talk to my partner
and she’ll say the same thing to me. After a
while, the anger goes away.
Dramaturgy. Emotion labor
DEEP ACTING, METHOD ACTING
I try to remember that if he’s drinking too
much, he’s probably scared of flying. I think to
myself, “He’s like a little child.” Really, that’s
what he is. And when I see him that way, I don’t
get mad that he’s yelling at me. He’s like a
child yelling at me then.
Dramaturgy. Emotion labor
DRAMATURGY
Analogy of theater
 Style
 Cynical and sincere
 Emotion labor (Hochschild)

ERVING GOFFMAN’S DRAMATURGY
Focus on the “trivial”
 Impression management
 Dramaturgy

SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

HAROLD GARFINKEL’S ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Harold Garfinkel founded the field of
ethnomethodology
 the
study of micro interaction
 how
people sustain meaningful interactions with each
other.
 the
study of ethnomethods
 folk
or lay methods people use to
make sense of what others say and do
 every person uses in day-to-day life
HAROLD GARFINKEL’S ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

we live in a world that we create
 E.g.,

we assume that the world makes sense and we
try to make sense of it
 E.g.,

pets
counseling
we are not aware of the taken-for-granted rules
that we follow
 E.g.,
breaching experiments (see next slide)
BREACHING EXPERIMENT


Harold Garfinkel conducted experiments in which
students were encouraged to pursue the precise
meaning of general or casual comments.
The intent was to uncover the background
expectancies.
 People use background expectancies to structure
and organize everyday conversation.
 Communicating
through plain, everyday language
requires an array of complex, shared background
understandings.
BREACHING EXPERIMENT

According to Garfinkel, people tend to get upset
when minor conventions of talk are not
followed. (see next slide)
 His
explanation for this reaction is that it is
disturbing when people disrupt the stability and
undermine the cultural assumptions about what is
said and why.
BREACHING EXPERIMENT
S: How are you?
E: How am I in regard to what? My health, my
finance, my school work, my peace of mind, my
...
S: (red in face and suddenly out of control) Look!
I was just trying to be polite. Frankly I don’t give
a damn how you are.
SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS


The technique used to examine the organized principles of talk
is called conversation analysis.
interactional vandalism
 Interactional vandalism is defined as a subordinate person
breaking the tacit rules of interaction


E.g., a street vendor tries to sell products to people by walking next
to them and putting the products in people’s line of vision. As he
does so, people ignore him and avert their eyes.
Interactional vandalism, such as when men on the street
call out to and follow women, is likely to have the effect of
supporting status positions.
SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity

CONFORMITY AND SANCTIONS

Police Accounts of Normal Force. JENNIFER
HUNT
 “normal
force” is between what is legal and what
the police officers themselves consider to be
excessive
 police create an interpretation of questionable
behavior that makes it appear to be a natural and
acceptable response to particular situations
CONFORMITY AND SANCTIONS

Police Accounts of Normal Force. JENNIFER
HUNT
 An
unspoken rule of the police is that an officer is
occasionally allowed to blow his or her top and lose
emotional control.
CONFORMITY AND SANCTIONS

Positive formal sanction
 E.g.,

Positive informal sanction
 E.g.,

giving someone respect
Negative formal sanction
 E.g.,

employee of the month
formal reprimand
Negative informal sanction
 E.g.,
criticism
SOCIAL INTERACTION – LECTURE OUTLINE
Social structure, social position, and social
roles
 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy
 Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology
 Conversation analysis
 Conformity
