The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

What it’s about

In 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,' Erving Goffman delves into the art of impression management and the roles individuals play in social interactions. By examining the balance between authenticity and performed identities, Goffman reveals how people navigate complex social dynamics to maintain favorable perceptions. This exploration is crucial for understanding the ethical dimensions of managing perceptions in today's world, where social media and public scrutiny are pervasive. Goffman's work stands out by highlighting the cooperative nature of social performances and the fluidity of self-identity.

See our guide

• Understand Human Behavior From The Foundational Canon →
• The Four-S Discipline — One System, Four Capabilities →
• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →
• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →
• Build A People Analytics Function →
• Deal With Burnout, Stress And Turnover →
• Make A Decision Your Biases Won't Wreck →
• Change A Behaviour That Won't Budge →
• Influence People Without Manipulating Them →
• Motivate People Without Bribing Them →
• Design The Organization And Change It →
• Build A Team People Speak Up In →
• Do Research That Holds Up →
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →

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Additional reading

• Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies · George Santayana

  Quoted at the beginning of the book, it provides the philosophical underpinning for viewing masks and appearances not as false hearts, but as natural and integral parts of existence.

• Being and Nothingness · Jean-Paul Sartre

  Goffman uses Sartre's famous analysis of the café waiter to illustrate how individuals 'play at' their roles, demonstrating that social roles must be actively performed and realized.

• The Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour · John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern

  Cited as an influence for treating a 'team' as the fundamental unit of analysis, rather than the individual performer, similar to how bridge is analyzed as a two-player (i.e., two-team) game.

• A Grammar of Motives & A Rhetoric of Motives · Kenneth Burke

  Burke's dramatistic analysis of human motivation is a major intellectual precursor to Goffman's dramaturgical sociology, providing concepts like the 'scene-act-agent ratio'.

• The Sociology of Georg Simmel · Georg Simmel (edited by Kurt H. Wolff)

  Goffman's 'formal sociology' approach, which focuses on the forms of interaction rather than their content, is methodologically justified by comparison to Simmel's work in the preface.

Featured in these guides

• Understand Human Behavior From The Foundational Canon →Cited source
• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →Cited source
• Build A People Analytics Function →Cited source
• Deal With Burnout, Stress And Turnover →Cited source
• Make A Decision Your Biases Won't Wreck →Cited source
• Change A Behaviour That Won't Budge →Cited source
• Influence People Without Manipulating Them →Cited source
• Motivate People Without Bribing Them →Cited source
• Design The Organization And Change It →Cited source
• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →Cited source
• Build A Team People Speak Up In →Cited source
• Do Research That Holds Up →Cited source
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →Cited source
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →Cited source