Week 3: Social Interaction

Question 1

What is microsociology?

Answer 1

the study of everyday behavior in situations of small-scale face-to-face interaction

Question 2

What is copresence?

Answer 2

the presence of two or more people that are aware of each other

Question 3

What is unfocused interaction?

Answer 3

when individuals exhibit awareness of one another’s presence (e.g. crowds)

Question 4

What is focused interaction?

Answer 4

when individuals directly attend to what others say and do (i.e. encounters)

Question 5

According to Erving Goffman, what is impression management?

Answer 5

the strategic actions that are performed by a person to convey an acceptable and favorable image of oneself to others

Question 6

What is dramaturgical sociology?

Answer 6

social life is a theatrical production - it involves front/backstage, scenes, roles, props, performance, and audience

Question 7

What is the definition of the situation?

Answer 7

we orient ourselves within the scene before determining how to behave

Question 8

What is front-stage behavior?

Answer 8

social performances that are idealized and conform to the stereotypes and expectations of the audience

Question 9

What is back stage behavior?

Answer 9

the part of the social world where people feel free to express themselves in ways that are suppressed in the front stage

Question 10

What is audience segregation?

Answer 10

people have different roles, where they behave differently, and they try to keep separate

Question 11

According to Erving Goffman, what are two motivation for impression management?

Answer 11

1. Self-interest (offensive motivation): we want to portray ourselves in the most favorable light in order to maximize rewards
2. Self-protection (defensive motivation): the self is a sacred object that must be treated with care

Question 12

What is face?

Answer 12

the positive social value a person effectively claims for oneself

Question 13

According to Shanyan Zhao et al., what are the three strategies of identity construction utilized by Facebook users?

Answer 13

1. Visual: self as a social actor
   -photos depict users having fun with friends
2. Enumerative: self as a consumer
   -users list cultural preferences and tastes, interests, and hobbies that define ‘the self’
3. Narrative: first person self
   -explicit verbal description of the self (least elaborate)

Question 14

According to David Grazian, how does the girl hunt involve the identity performance?

Answer 14

It is a ritual performance through which men perform their idea of masculinity

Question 15

According to Harold Garfinkel, what is ethnomethodology?

Answer 15

the study of ethnomethods that people use to make sense of what others do and say

Question 16

What is indexicality?

Answer 16

a cooperative sense-making method in which people contextualize descriptions to understand their meaning

Question 17

What are breaching experiments?

Answer 17

demonstrations designed to disrupt normal procedures and defy expectations of cooperative accommodative sense-making work

Question 18

How do breaching experiments reveal the moral foundation of social order?

Answer 18

The response of ‘righteous hostility’ shows that people trust that others will comply with the background expectancies of everyday life