Erving Goffman

(noun)

Erving Goffman (June 11, 1922 – November 19, 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer. The 73rd president of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory was his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical analysis. This began with his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Related Terms

Examples of Erving Goffman in the following topics:

  • Dramaturgy

    • Dramaturgy is a sociological concept developed by Erving Goffman that uses the metaphor of theater to explain human behavior.
    • Developed by American sociologist Erving Goffman in his seminal 1959 text The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, dramaturgy uses the metaphor of theater to explain human behavior.
    • Goffman contends that each performance is a presentation of self and that everyone seeks to create specific impressions in the minds of others.
    • Goffman explains this awareness in terms of front stage and back stage behaviors.
    • Erving Goffman uses the metaphor of a stage to explain human behavior in everyday life.

  • Resocialization and Total Institutions

    • The term was coined by the American sociologist Erving Goffman.
    • Review Goffman's five types of social institutions and their functions, including their processes of resocialization

  • Socialization Throughout the Life Span

    • An example would be Erving Goffman's work Asylum, which discusses how individuals are molded by institutions.

  • The Stages of Social Movements

    • The concept dates back to Erving Goffman, and it discuss how new values, new meanings and understandings are required in order to understand and support social movements or changes.

  • Deviance and Social Stigma

    • Erving Goffman, an American sociologist, is responsible for bringing the term and theory of stigma into the main social theoretical fold.
    • In his work, Goffman presented the fundamentals of stigma as a social theory, including his interpretation of "stigma" as a means of spoiling identity.
    • Goffman identified three main types of stigma: (1) stigma associated with mental illness; (2) stigma associated with physical deformation; and (3) stigma attached to identification with a particular race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, etc.
    • While Goffman is responsible for the seminal texts in stigma theory, stigmatization is still a popular theme in contemporary sociological research.

  • The Interactionist Perspective

    • Erving Goffman, one of the forefathers of this theoretical perspective, emphasized the importance of control in social interactions.
    • According to Goffman, during an interaction, individuals will attempt to control the behavior of the other participants, in order to attain needed information, and in order to control the perception of one's own image.

  • The Social Construction of Aging

    • Erving Goffman was a sociologist writing in the mid-twentieth century.
    • Discuss the cultural treatment of aging in the U.S. versus Japan, employing Goffman's argument in ''The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life''

  • The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

    • Erving Goffman was a sociologist writing in the mid-twentieth century.
    • Argue that the perception of aging is better either in the United States or in Japan, using Goffman's theory of social presentation

  • The Feminist Perspective

    • This topic is studied both within social structures at large and at the micro level of face-to-face interaction, the latter of which incorporates the methodology of symbolic interactionism (popularized by Erving Goffman).

  • Levels of Analysis: Micro and Macro

    • Studying social life on the micro-level is a more recent development (in the early and mid-twentieth century) in the history of the field, and was pioneered by proponents of the symbolic interactionism perspective, namely George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer, and Erving Goffmann.
    • Goffman elaborated on both Mead and Blumer by formulating the dramaturgical approach .