Erving Goffman

Question 1

Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Sociology

Answer 1

Life as ‘theatre’
Role: the image an actor wants to convey
Scripts: maps of interpersonal communications
Costumes: way to form an impression
Sets and stages: the social context

Question 2

Key Ideas of Goffman

Answer 2

• Social interactions as performance
  Behaviors: front stage behavior, back stage behaviors, off stage behaviors, border/boundaries

Front Stage behavior:the conventional performance, appearance and mannerisms
Back stage behavior: the preforms drops the “front’

Off stage behavior: outsides getting involved in the performance

Boundaries: prevent or restrict movement of individuals between various regions

Question 3

Key concepts in Goffman sociology

Answer 3

• Impression management; conscious and un conscious efforts made by an individual to control the impressions other form regarding an individual
• Frames; cognitive structure that individuals use to organize and interpret phenomenological experience
• ‘Total Institutions’: Sites which cut-off individuals from the broader society and subject them to extreme authority