Social Performance and Interaction Rituals

Question 1

What is status?

Answer 1

• a culturally defined social position that an individual holds in a social interaction
• defines a person’s identity and relationship to others
• only exists in social interactions, as we interact with people in different situations, our status also changes
• different types of statuses that exist that are ideal types, but in reality there is a lot of overlap between these

Question 2

What is Ascribed Status?

Answer 2

• a status that you are born with and don’t have control over
  eg: royalty, celebrity children, ethnicity, economic status
• this status can change

Question 3

What is Achieved Status?

Answer 3

• a status that you achieve through work
  eg: Olympic athletes, students, military rankings
• but other things go into this, like your relationships, race, gender, ethnicity, etc (not just through will and hard work)

Question 4

What is master status?

Answer 4

• one status that stands out and defines most of our existence
  eg: priest, convict, parent, doctors (made a vow)

Question 5

Social Role

Answer 5

-the behavior performed by an individual who holds a particular social status

Question 6

Role Set

Answer 6

• complementary roles
• eg: the role of a doctor is part of a role set along with colleagues, nurses, patients, receptionists that compliment each other
• this does NOT mean they interact with each other or work together

Question 7

What is Role Strain?

Answer 7

• a situation that can occur when there is tension among the various roles attached to status, or even between roles attached to different statuses
• eg: mother has to be disiplinary and affectionate, a mother has to balance work and kids

Question 8

What did Goffman contribute to sociology?

Answer 8

• proponent of symbolic interactionalism and dramaturgy
• focused on how we interact, the patterns that guide our actions, and the way we manage our as well as other’s perception of us
• found that our actions are less spontaneous and more scripted than we believe

Question 9

What was Goffman’s idea of face-to-face interactions?

Answer 9

-the influence of another person on your actions when they are in your immediate physical presence

Question 10

What is Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor?

Answer 10

• social life is like a series of performances given by actors on the stage
• performances are meant to present actors that are conforming to or exemplifying existing social norms
• audience decided if the performance is genuine or not

Question 11

What is the Front Stage?

Answer 11

• the setting where social performances that are meant to be seen take place
• defines the situation in a general way for both an audience and a performer

Question 12

What is the Back Stage?

Answer 12

• a place where actions or interactions take place that is not intended for public view but supports a public role performance
  eg: getting ready before work

Question 13

What is the “Outside”?

Answer 13

• areas irrelevant to the performance of a particular social role or social situation
  eg: Zozo drinking water on the couch after class

Question 14

What is a team?

Answer 14

• a set of individuals who work together in a single performance and rely on each other
• performance or social interaction requires this

Question 15

What is Goffman’s idea of role distance?

Answer 15

• individuals play many roles on many teams and their level of commitment to each role may vary
• are distanced from some teams because can, not 100% commit to everything

Question 16

What is impression management?

Answer 16

• activity engaged in by a social actor to guard against social faux pas (embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion)
• complimentary with face work

Question 17

What are some impression management techniques?

Answer 17

1. Maintaining self control-not losing your temper when you have a job that requires you to control your emotions
2. Using personal fronts (props) to make the performance look believable eg: dressing in a certain way to show your gender-fluid
3. Institutionalized fronts (widely accepted fronts with fixed meanings for established roles) eg: putting credentials on wall, a butler has certain outfit and manner

Question 18

What was Goffman’s theory of what a face is?

Answer 18

• is like a mask that changes based on the audience and variety of social interaction-based on approved social attributes
• people strive to maintain the face they created in social situations-are emotionally attached to their faces so feels good to maintain face and experience emotional pain when the face is lost
• therefore people cooperate and use polite strategies to maintain each other’s faces

Question 19

Face-work

Answer 19

-our attempts to ensure that our behaviors are consistent with the “face” -communicational strategies we use to make sure our behaviors match those of a “good person”

Question 20

What is saving face?

Answer 20

• compensating for a poor impression that could be made, the things we do to maintain our image
• face is delicate
  eg: Zozo maintains her image as a competent professor by saying she will search things up when she doesn’t know the answers to things

Question 21

How can we save face? (face-saving repertoire)

Answer 21

• avoidance eg: Zozo doesn’t put stuff on her slides that she doesn’t know
• eg: the Cuban missile crisis allowed each side to compromise and save face (got out of an awkward situation and everyone benefited)
  eg: convoy has impossible demands that don’t allow the government to save face
• correction eg: Zozo says something wrong but goes back and corrects it

Question 22

What are ritualistic things we do to save face?

Answer 22

• scripts that exist that we may use to save face

- eg: someone says excuse me and the other person says no problem

Question 23

What are interaction rituals?

Answer 23

• things that hold society together (Durkheim)
• they give individuals a common purpose with others
• a lot of life is ritualistic eg: going to office hours, attention is based on a common goal

Question 24

What are the four characteristics of interaction rituals?

Answer 24

1. Two or more people need to be present
2. Clear boundaries have to be established between insiders and outsiders
3. The attention of all participants is focused on a common objective
4. Participants share a common emotional experience or set of feelings