Sunshine Skyways

Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical approach within sociology that contends that one's identity is created through her/his interactions with others. In other words, my identity is (or identities are) socially constructed. Although Herbert Blumer (1900 - 1987) coined the term in his 1937 article "Social Psychology," its foundation can be found in the writings of Charles Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and others. The construction of I necessitates the existence of the Other (or Others), and my experience of I and the Other (or Others) is derived from my interactions with the Other (or Others) and my imagination of the Other's (Others') perceptions and evaluations of me. This idea is found in Cooley's notion of "The Looking Glass Self", which is found in his Human Nature and the Social Order (1902):

In a very large and interesting class of cases the social reference takes the form of a somewhat definite imagination of how one's self — that is any idea he appropriates — appears in a particular mind, and the kind of self-feeling one has is determined by the attitude toward this attributed to that other mind. A social self of this sort might by called the reflected or looking glass self:

'Each to each a looking glass
Reflects the other that doth pass.'

As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and we are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it.

A self-idea of this sort seems to have three principal element: the imagination of our appearance to the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification. (pp. 179-185).

In Mead's "The Genesis of the Self and Social Control", it is also clear that the Self exists through interaction with others and a reflexive imagination:

...the self that is central to all so-called mental experience has appeared only in the social conduct of human vertebrates. It is just because the individual finds himself taking the attitudes of the others who are involved in his conduct that he becomes an object for himself. It is only by taking the roles of others that we have been able to come back to ourselves. We have seen above that the social object can exist for the individual only if the various parts of the whole social act carried out by other members of the society are in some fashion present in the conduct of the individual. It is further true that the self can exist for the individual only if he assumes the roles of others. (p. 268)

When one appears in front of a mirror, one sees one's reflection. One sees one's self. Similarly, an individual can perform in front of a mirror and pretend that s/he is watching her/his interaction with someone else. In this example, the individual is both performer and audience, both subject and object. This duality does not appear solely when standing in front of a mirror because my imagination can create it as well. For example, what I do when I am interacting with someone else is affected greatly by what I imagine her/his reactions to be of what I say verbally and non-verbally.

Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self uses a "dramaturgical approach" to study the self. Basically, it is the idea that an individual's interaction with another (or others) can be understood as if an actor was giving a performance within a setting and the other is (or others are) her/his audience. The setting is the location of the interaction, such as a coffee shop, office, or restaurant. In his analysis, Goffman divides an individual's performance into a "front" and a "back" (or backstage). The front refers to "that part of an individual's performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance" (p. 22). According to Barnhart, the "front acts as the vehicle of standardization, allowing for others to understand the individual on the basis of projected character traits that have normative meanings." Put another way, the front is the part of the performance which is used to persuade others that the performer is the ideal example of an individual in that particular role and situation. Thus, the front is the set of messages that the performer communicates and imagines to be consistent with a norms, mores, and laws of society. The back or backstage is that part of the performance which communicates that the performer is not consistent with the ideal. For example, during an interaction with her minister, Margaret's front is the set of messages that she communicates and imagines to be consistent with that of the ideal mother. Her back is the set of messages that she communicates and imagines to be inconsistent with that ideal, but consistent with herself as a particular individual. How much back or backstage information Margaret gives to the minister is dependent upon what she believes of her self and the mininster's reaction to her being any other than ideal. At one extreme, she may sincerely believe that her front is representative of her self as a particular individual, so there is no back performance that would suggest she is not ideal. At the other extreme, she may believe that she is very much the opposite of the ideal mother, but nonetheless, she may not want to communicate any information that would suggest she is anything but the ideal. Consequently, she may intentionally convey misinformation about her self as a particular individual in an attempt to control the minister's impression of her as a mother (Goffman).

Associated with one's performance are messages "given" and "given off". For Goffman, verbal communication (oral or written) is "given", whereas non-verbal communication is "given off".

The expressiveness of the individual (and therefore his capacity to give impressions) appears to involve two radically different kinds of sign activity: the expression that he gives, and the expression that he gives off. The first involves verbal symbols or their substitutes which he uses admittedly and solely to convey the information that he and the others are known to attach to these symbols. This is communication in the traditional and narrow sense. The second involves a wide range of action that others can treat as symptomatic of the actor, the expection being that the action was performed for reasons other than the information conveyed in this way.(Goffman, 1959, p. 2).

This can be illustrated with a continuation of the prior example. During the interaction with her minister, Margaret may work hard to "give" and "give off" messages that she is the ideal mother. She may "give" by speaking glowingly about her children and how much she loves them, and "give off" by using a tone of voice, body language, and other forms of non-verbal communication to express that she is a wonderful mother. It is easier to control what is given versus given off. Consequently, some authors equate "given" with intended messages and "given off" with unintended messages. However, an individual uses both given and given off messages to create the front and back.

Goffman distinquishes one's "appearance" from one's "manner". Appearance is what the performer looks like, and in face-to-face communication, it is a significant source of information. A person can look at the performer and identify her/his race(s), ethnicity(ies), gender, height, weight, hair color, eye color, age, and other visible features used to label the individual. Appearance is difficult to change, and in many ways, it moves with us no matter what visual setting we are in. For example, Margaret is seen as white and female no matter where she goes in physical space. Manner, on the other hand, is how the performer acts, and that is much easier to change and changes with the setting.

When a performer interacts with another, both intended and unintended messages are communicated. Moreover, intended messages may be include both information and misinformation. For example, a person can intentionally inform a neighbor by saying that s/he is going to San Francisco next month and also misinform the neighbor by purposively lying about the duration of and reason for the trip. Goffman divides the communication of misinformation into two types: deceiving and feigning. A performer deceives another by giving messages that are intended to misinform, that is, by verbally communicating misinformation. On the other hand, a performer feigns by giving off messages that are intended to misinform, that is, by non-verbally communicating misinformation.

In text-only communication, a performer is not seen. Consequently, the performer's appearance and all other non-verbal messages are absent. The performer is reduced to her/his set of given messages, that is, her/his written word. As text, can one unintentionally communicate information that s/he does not want the audience to know? Moreover, as text, does the performer have greater ability to create, conceal, and falsify her/his identity(ies)?


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Bibliography:

Barnhart, Adam D. "Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." Obtained online at www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/CURRIC/soc/goffman.htm.

Cooley, Charles. 1902. "The Looking Glass Self" in Human Nature and the Social Order. Scribner's, New York, pp. 179-185. Found online at www2.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/DSS/Cooley/LKGLSSLF.HTML.

Goffman, Erving. 1956. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday, New York. Obtained online at www2.pfeiffer.ed/~lridener/courses/GOFFSELF.HTML

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City, New York.

Mead, George Herbert. 1913. "The Social Self" in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, vol. 10, pp. 374-380. Obtained online at http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/Mead/default.html.

-------------------. 1925. "The Genesis of the Self and Social Control" in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 25, pp. 251-277. Obtained online at http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/Mead/default.html.

// posted by Sunshine Skyways @ 8:30 PM