Erving Goffman

This article reviews the sociologist, for surname cousins see Goffman (disambiguation)

Erving Goffman (born June 11, 1922 in Mannville , Canada , † November 19, 1982 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was a Canadian sociologist .

Life

Erving Goffman was born on June 11, 1922 in Manville / Alberta Province in Canada to the Jewish immigrants Max and Anne Goffman from Ukraine . He lived in Dauphin, Manitoba, for much of his childhood .

Goffman first began studying chemistry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (Canada), and finally got a job on the National Film Board in Ottawa in social science. He studied sociology at the University of Toronto and at the University of Chicago , to which he was a member until 1951. Finally, he spent from 1949 to 1951 at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh in Great Britain, while doing field research on the Shetland Islands . In Chicago, Goffman wrote his dissertation under Anselm Strauss in 1953 with the title Communication conduct in an island community . The results later flowed into his best known work The Presentation of Self in Every-day Life. (German: We all play theater ) a. After a few years in Bethesda, Maryland , and Washington, DC, Goffman moved to Berkeley to join the University of California in 1957 , where he was given a full professorship in 1958. There he worked with Herbert Blumer and became a "cult figure". Goffman moved to the East Coast one last time in 1968 to take on the post of Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania . Goffman was finally elected President of the American Sociological Association in 1981 , but died of complications from cancer before his scheduled inaugural lecture.

From 1952 to 1964 he was married to the psychologist Angelica Schuyler Choate, with whom he had the son Thomas Edward. In 1981 he married the linguist Gillian Sankoff , with whom he had a daughter, the sociologist Alice Goffman . The character actress Frances Bay (1919-2011) was his sister.

plant

His work dealt with anthropological , social psychological and psychiatric problems of the basic mechanisms of social, especially socially deviant behavior . Investigations into behavioral patterns , interaction rituals , role distance and personal self-portrayal in everyday life have significantly influenced newer sociological approaches. The central question for Goffman is how the individual can maintain his structurally vulnerable autonomy .

One of his best-known works, Asyle (Frankfurt am Main 1973), deals with total institutions and thus triggered the goal of de-institutionalization of social institutions such as state hospitals, old people's homes , prisons and children's homes , which continues to this day .

interaction

Goffman defines interaction as “mutual influencing of actions that individuals exercise on one another when they are present for one another.” So what is meant first of all is the face-to-face situation. Niklas Luhmann adopts this term and differentiates between interaction-free communication (e.g. writing, audio-visual transmissions).

The term “interactivity”, as it is used today in relation to programs and interfaces, must be distinguished from this. Because, according to Goffman and Luhmann, an interaction between man and machine is not an interaction.

Non-centered interaction

In the case of non-centered interaction, at least two actors are co-present and also perceive each other. Because of this, an alignment of one's own behavior takes place, as everyone knows that they are being noticed.

Example: Four people are waiting for a bus at a bus stop.

Centered interaction

In the case of centered interaction, the actors act not only in relation to one another, but with one another. They cooperate by focusing on one another and on a thing or activity for a certain period of time in “visual and cognitive attention”. In the centered interaction, not only are signs produced for the other, but it is also indicated that this is happening and the other is the addressee.

Examples: having a conversation with each other, playing a game together, dancing together.

Basic assumption

According to Goffman, you try to convey a certain image of yourself in interactions, because you know that you are being watched. By continuing this thought, he comes to the conclusion that in principle all people always play theater and create a facade, “a standardized repertoire of expression with stage design and props.” Goffman says: “When an actor takes on an established social role (e .g . Waiter), he will find that there is already a certain facade for this role. "

The theater is therefore used as a model for the social world.

Nevertheless, Goffman identifies important differences between the theater and everyday world:

• the theater's level of reality is fictional
• in the theater there are usually at least two actors who embody their roles in front of each other ; as well as the audience . These three positions are reduced to two positions in everyday life: there is no such thing as a pure audience, since every viewer potentially always embodies a role.
• the beliefs of the performers differ. The actors themselves usually “believe” in their roles . It corresponds to (...) (the) generally widespread opinion that the individual plays his role for the others and stages his imagination only for them. For our analysis of such representations it will prove useful to start from the opposite question and to investigate to what extent the individual himself believes in the appearance of reality that he seeks to evoke in his environment. ( We all play theater , Munich 1959, p. 19)

Act of representation

• stage
• Actor who acts within the framework of a certain role specification (e.g. student, teacher, nerd, class clown, ...)
• spectator

In the real world, a constant change between the actor and the audience is possible. As a “spectator” you can be “drawn into” the action at any time.

Example: The situation in a typical lecture illustrates this: apparently the professor is the performer and the students form the audience. In fact, however, the students are actors in the role of the (individually developed) student, which only becomes more apparent when z. B. a student reports and asks a question.

Impression management

Goffman describes this acting as impression management . The English language Wikipedia defines impression management as follows:

"Impression management (IM) is the goal-directed conscious or unconscious attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction."

- en: Impression management

Impression management is the attempt to control one's own appearance. This includes the use of special signs with corresponding connotations , with the help of which the knowledge about one's own person is controlled ( regulating and controlling information ). This includes language, facial expressions , gestures , but also non-interactive communication.

Failures

However, mistakes are possible here, e.g. B. facial flushing, stuttering, "Freudian mistakes". These can be dangers for impression management , as they communicate something that you actually didn't want to communicate.

Expression types

Expression given to oneself ("expressions given") : word symbols and their substitutes that are used to convey information that is generally associated with these symbols. Expression that one emits ("expressions given off") : expressions that are perceived by others as informative for the agent, insofar as they can assume that they were not given for reasons of information.

Such an interpretation is also possible in fictional content and is sometimes deliberately provoked, e.g. B. in thrillers in which the viewer is supposed to puzzles himself and is only led to false suspects by "wrong tracks".

Front stage / back stage

Front of House	Backstage
Place of the "official" event visible to all	Place of the "unofficial" events, only visible to the initiated and those involved
you know that you are being watched	feels unobserved
plays a role	falls out of role

Example: waiter in a restaurant.

• Front stage: dining room
• Backstage: kitchen

Politics.

• Front stage: events visible in cameras: stage of the party congress, image detail in the studio
• Backstage: behind the cameras: in the committees, during unofficial discussions, in the cloakroom of the television studio

By looking at the backstage, it becomes clear how and with what means the staging comes about.

Self

Under the self / self Goffman sees the result of the IM. The self is consequently a product of attribution. You are what the others perceive you as. So it is nothing more than “a dramatic effect that unfolds from a depicted scene” (cf. Khazaleh).

Frame analysis

Goffman understands frameworks as experience schemes learned through socialization, the use of which is unconscious and which help us to perceive situations in a meaningful way. These experience schemes or frames are definitions for situations and therefore important for the correct recognition of situations. People try to classify every situation in their existing experience schemes / framework. The framework analysis therefore begins “with the actor situated here and now, who (himself) is asking, What is actually going on here? ' represents ”(Willems 1997: 35). Without a suitable or learned framework, the situation cannot be understood in a meaningful way.

These frames are used unconsciously until irritation occurs (example: in the feature film The Truman Show , the protagonist Truman Burbank learns from a falling spotlight that he is not in real life but in a television show).

• Situations are classified into experience schemes, perceived within a certain framework and given a meaning against this background.
• Situations are only meaningful within the framework of one's own stock of knowledge.

"And we said the framing makes the action meaningful for people. '"

- Goffman, 1977, Framework Analysis, p. 376

Primary framework

• are general interpretation schemes to define the situation.
• are experienced as originally and mostly not consciously applied.
• enable an immediate recognition and identification of situations and events of all kinds.
• guarantee the idea of ​​normality.
• guarantee the assumption that everything that is going on can be classified in some way in “cosmology”, ie in the societal stock of knowledge or the institutionalized framework.

Modulation and deception

Keying - "Modulation"

The German translator has translated Goffman's terms “upkeying” and “downkeying” somewhat misleadingly with their musical meaning of “ modulation ” (“up-, down- modulating ”). It is advisable to use generally understandable terms in German such as Illusionierung - Disillusionierung or to rely on the terminology of narrative theory (cf. Diegese ).

The keying defined Goffman as:

“Term for the application of a 'system [s] of conventions, whereby a certain activity, which is already meaningful within the framework of a primary framework, is transformed into something that is modeled on this activity, but is seen as something completely different by those involved '“

- Goffman, 1977, Framework Analysis, p. 55

Under keying , as it were in the interplay between seriousness and joke, Goffman understands the transformation of primary frames, i.e. a modified outer frame, although the core of the situation remains the same. A keying can be accomplished by many things: Acting, Rehearsal alarm, ironic, joke communications, satire etc. Keying is the extent risky, as there is always the possibility that it is not recognized.

1st example: Alfred Tetzlaff ( One Heart and One Soul ), a role that was satirically laid out as a permanent complainer, complainer and family tyrant, was taken by many not as satire, but at face value. So the keying was not recognized.

2nd example: Dispute between a couple:

• Quarrel between a couple on the stage
• Film scene with an argument between a married couple on stage
• Quote from the film excerpt in the media studies seminar

Nowadays, frame changes are standard in some formats. With the play of the frames, media effects can be achieved that cannot be realized one-dimensionally. Mixtures of this kind are also possible in the field of feature films, such as the film JFK - Tatort Dallas shows. Black-and-white recordings and colored documentary material are combined with corresponding fictional images in a very suggestive way, thus blurring boundaries considerably. The frames should be made more difficult to see.
Examples: docu-soap, docu-drama

illusion

"... the conscious effort of one or more people to direct action in such a way that one or more others are led to a wrong idea of ​​what is going on."

- Goffman, 1977, Framework Analysis, p. 98

Examples :

• Fire alarm rehearsal without first informing those involved;
• the show Do you understand fun? ;
• Cheater who disguises himself as a doctor and thus pretends to be such.

However, Goffman differentiates between well-intentioned deception and malicious deception:

• Well-intentioned deception: Clarification would not affect the relationship between the parties involved.
• Malicious deception: A disclosure can lead to far-reaching, possibly also legal, consequences.

Goffman explains that there are contexts or situations or places that promote characteristic deception maneuvers, e.g. B. Therapist offices or relationships.

Brackets ...

• ... serve to mark and delimit social processes from the surrounding environment,
• ... can limit events both temporally and spatially,
• ... mark the transitions between the various frames,
• ... modulation signals that indicate frame transformations to those involved.

The last point in particular deserves emphasis. Brackets are used to indicate modulations. This can be: a laugh, a church, ritual acts, in films about theme music and topics or the title sequence, a logo and the like.

Criticism of the concept of the framework analysis

The concept of the framework analysis was criticized for the fact that Erving Goffman “overemphasizes” the structural characteristics of interactions, but “underestimates” the subjective meanings that people associate with interactions.

Interaction and gender

Erving Goffman dedicates a chapter in his book Interaction and Gender to the topic of “the arrangement of the sexes”. In modern industrial society, gender counts as the basis of a central code, which serves as a structure for social interactions and social structures and the ideas of the individual about their fundamental nature. The conventional sociological view sees gender as a “learned, diffuse role behavior”. Due to the biological conditions, it is reserved for women to bear and breastfeed children, but not for men. In terms of physionomy, women are on average smaller than men, have lighter bones and fewer muscles. It would be important to clarify the social consequences not only through the innate gender differences, but also those that were asserted for social arrangements. Goffman goes on to describe in the text that not so much an immediate improvement in the living conditions of women should be seen as an achievement of the women's movement, but a weakening of the convictions that have supported a gender-specific division of income and labor.

Goffman also uses the term sex class : Every society assigns infants to one or the other sex class when they are born. This assignment is made by looking at the child's naked body. This assignment allows the associated identification chain of man / woman, male / female, boy / girl, he / she. This classification extends over the entire phases of growth and significantly determines the entire development of a person. It thus offers a prime example, if not the prototype, of a social classification. Goffman himself understands the term gender class to be “a purely sociological category that relates solely to this discipline and not to the biosciences”. The division into gender classes is a step towards a sorting process, where members of different classes are subjected to different socialization . Members of the male class are treated differently than those of the female class. They have different experiences and the expectations placed on them are different. In every society these sex classes are formed in different ways and in their own way.

Honors

In 1969 Goffman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fonts (selection)

• On face-work : An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. In: Psychiatry 18 (1955), pp. 213-231.
• The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday & Company, New York 1959.
  • German edition: We all play theater. The self-expression in everyday life. Translated by Peter Weber-Schäfer . 10th edition. Piper, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-492-23891-2 .
• Asylum. Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates. Chicago 1961.
  • German edition: Asyle. About the social situation of psychiatric patients and other inmates. 10th edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 978-3-518-10678-5 .
• Stigma. Notes on the management of spoiled identity , Prentice-Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, NJ 1963.
  • German edition: Stigma. About techniques of coping with damaged identity. Translated by Frigga Haug . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-27740-9 .
• Interaction ritual. 1967.
  • German edition: interaction rituals. Over-behavior in direct communication. 3rd edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 978-3-518-28194-9 .
• Strategic interaction. 1969. (German strategic interaction )
• Relations in public. 1971. (Eng. The individual in public exchange )
• Frame analysis. 1974. (German frame analysis , 1977)
• Gender and Advertising. 1981.
• Speech wise men. Forms of communication in social situations. UVK-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 978-3-89669-535-2 .

literature

• Michael Dellwing : On the topicality of Erving Goffman . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-531-19260-4 .
• Jürgen Raab: Erving Goffman. UVK, Konstanz 2008, ISBN 978-3-89669-550-5 . Second, revised and expanded edition 2014, ISBN 978-3-86764-464-8 .
• Hubert Knoblauch : Erving Goffman. The culture of communication. In: Stephan Moebius , Dirk Quadflieg (Ed.): Culture. Present theories . VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14519-3 , pp. 157-169.
• Herbert Willems: Frame and Habitus. On Erving Goffman's theoretical and methodological approach. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-518-28919-5 .
• Robert Hettlage , Karl Lenz (ed.): Erving Goffman - a sociological classic of the second generation. Haupt, Bern / Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-258-03968-2 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Erving Goffman  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Erving Goffman in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Erving Goffman  in the German Digital Library
• http://wiki.experimentelles.org/index.php/Erving_Goffman ( Memento from May 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday, New York 1956, pp. 22-30, 70-76.
• Erving Goffman. In: Alexandra Schepelmann: Contextualization Conventions in Internet Relay Chat.
• Robert Hettlage, Karl Lenz (ed.): Erving Goffman - A sociological classic of the second generation. Haupt, Stuttgart / Bern 1991. (Book as pdf on Karl Lenz's page.)
• Robin Pape: Biography of Erving Goffman In: Biographical Archives of Psychiatry (BIAPSY) , 2015.

Remarks

1. ↑ Esther Besbris: When Erving Was an Infant My Mother Nursed Us Both So We Were Bosom Buddies.
2. ↑ André Kieserling : Social Systems, Die Gläserne Welt, Erving Goffman, the sociologist of urbanity, once went to the country incognito and found out that transparency can be really exhausting . In: FAZ. 19th March 2015.
3. ↑ Alice Goffman: On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries) . Univ. of Chicago Press, 2014. (Review: Peter Richter : American Hustlers. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 28, 2014, p. 11)
4. ↑ freely translated: impression control is the goal-oriented conscious or unconscious attempt to influence or determine the perception of other people about a person, an object or an event through social interaction.
5. ^ Hubert Knoblauch: Frame Analysis. In: Dirk Kaesler , Ludgera Vogt (Hrsg.): Major works of sociology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 396). Kröner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-520-39601-7 , p. 175.
6. ↑ Erving Goffman , Hubert Knoblauch: Interaction and Gender . 2nd Edition. Campus , Frankfurt a. M. 2001, ISBN 3-593-36858-7 , pp. 105 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
7. ↑ ^{a b} Erving Goffman , Hubert Knoblauch: Interaction and gender . 2nd Edition. Campus , Frankfurt a. M. 2001, ISBN 3-593-36858-7 , pp. 107 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
8. ↑ Erving Goffman , Hubert Knoblauch: Interaction and Gender . 2nd Edition. Campus , Frankfurt a. M. 2001, ISBN 3-593-36858-7 , pp. 108 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
9. ↑ Erving Goffman , Hubert Knoblauch: Interaction and Gender . 2nd Edition. Campus , Frankfurt a. M. 2001, ISBN 3-593-36858-7 , pp. 108–109 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
10. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 18, 2016