Page 26 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3

the presentation

If the social context of an act changes
both its meaning and how people react
it follows that an awareness of self is
constructed and developed socially. It
also follows that who we believe
ourselves to be - our sense of identity
- is also, as Goffman (1959) argues,
constructed socially through the ways
we present ourselves to others.

In this respect he proposed a
dramaturgical model of self and
identity where social life is seen as a
series of dramatic episodes and
scenarios.

People, in this respect, are actors
sometimes write and speak their own
lines (our personal identity) and
sometimes simply follow lines
already written - the influence of
social identities that tell people how
to behave in particular situations and
roles.

Our knowledge of how society defines
things like masculinity and femininity,
for example, gives us clues about how
we are expected to behave if we are
male or female.

As Barnhart (1994) puts it:
“Interaction is viewed as a
performance, shaped by environment
and audience, constructed to provide
others with impressions" that match
“the desired goals of the actor”.

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