Presentation Of Self

Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1-4

[When two or more people interact, there are two aspects of situations that may be involved. Some aspects of a situation are familiar to the participants, so that they know how to behave and do so habitually without giving it much thought, such as knowing that it is a college admission interview. Other aspects however may not be clear to participants and therefore problematic, such as the student wondering what will best impress the interviewer, and the interviewer wondering what to make of the student's statements and appearance. Participants must actively seek clues from each other and their surroundings to come to a mutually agreed upon definition of the situation, in order to decide what to expect from others and how to behave in turn. The following description of interaction applies especially to these uncertain, problematic aspects]

When an individual enters the presence of others they commonly seek to acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed. They will be interested in his general socio-economic status, his conception of self, his attitude toward them, his com¬petence, his trustworthiness, etc. Although some of this information seems to be sought almost as an end in itself, there are usually quite practical reasons for acquiring it. Information about the individual helps to define the situa¬tion, enabling others to know in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him. Informed in these ways. the others will know how best to act in order to call forth a desired response from him. .

For those present, many sources of information become accessible and many signs become available for conveying this information. If unacquainted with the individual, observers can glean clues from his con¬duct and appearance which allow them to apply their previous experience with individuals roughly similar to the one before them or, more important, to apply untested stereotypes to him. They can also assume from past ex¬perience that only individuals of a particular kind are likely to be found in a given social setting. They can rely on what the individual says about himself or on documentary evi¬dence he provides as to who and what he is. If they know, or know of, the individual by virtue of experience prior to the interaction, they can rely on assumptions as to the per¬sistence and generality of psychological traits as a means of predicting his present and future behavior.

However, during the period in which the individual is in the immediate presence of the others, few events may occur which directly provide the others with the conclusive infor¬mation they will need if they are to direct wisely their own activity. Many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction or lie concealed within it. For example, the "true" or "real" attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of the in¬dividual can be ascertained only indirectly, through his avowals or through what appears to be involuntary ex¬pressive behavior. Similarly, if the individual offers the others a product or service, they will often find that during the interaction there will be no time and place immediately available for eating the pudding that the proof can be found in. They will be forced to accept some events as conven¬tional or natural signs of something not directly available to the senses. The individual will have to act so that he intentionally or unintentionally expresses himself, and the others will in turn have to be impressed in some way by him.

The expressiveness of the individual (and therefore his capacity to give impressions) appears to involve two radi¬cally 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