Smile Day (SOC Happiness)

40 ~

Performances Erving Coffman

Erving Goffman ( 1922-1982) has been described as the most important American sociological theo- rist in the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, because of the literary character of his writing, his influence has extended well beyond the discipline. As a dramaturgical sociologist, he is sometimes seen as a perceptive, if somewhat cyni- cal, chronicler of the contemporary "human com- edy:' In this selection from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Ufe, Goffman uses the metaphor of social life as theater in outlining his dramaturgical per- spective. In a play, actors attempt to convey to an audience a particular impression of both the actor and the social scene. Through the use of scripted di- alogue, gestures, props, costumes, and so on, actors create a new reality for the audience to consider. Goffman is concerned here with the ways in which a~tors convey a sense of personal identity. He be- gms with an intriguing discussion about whether the individual is taken in by her role performance, embracing it with sincerity or viewing it cynically, and t~en moves on to an analysis of the nature and function of the "front"-which he describes as the "expressive equipment" used to convince the Other about the authenticity of the individual's per- formance. Goffman concludes by observing that fronts-along with other theatrical props-tend to be embedded in our social worlds. Rather than social life being improvisational much of it is Pr d" ' e ICated on routines that actors select when deemed appropriate.

Belief in the Part One Is Playing

~en an individual plays a part he implic- ~~~ ~equest~ his observers to take seriously Th Impression that is fostered before them. they are asked to believe that the character

ey see actually possesses the attributes he ~hehrs to possess, that the task he performs

ave the consequences that are implic-

itly claimed for it, and that, in general, mat- ters are what they appear to be. In line with this, there is the popular view that the indi- vidual offers his performance and puts on his show "for the benefit of other people." It will be convenient to begin a consideration of performances by turning the question around and looking at the individual's own belief in the impression of reality that he attempts to engender in those among whom he finds himself.

At one extreme, one finds that the per- former can be fully taken in by his own act; he can be sincerely convinced that the im- pression of reality which he stages is th~ real reality. When his audience is also convmced in this way about the show he puts on-and this seems to be the typical case-then for the moment at least, only the sociologist or the socially disgruntled will have any doubts about the "realness" of what is presented.

At the other extreme, we find that the per- former may not be taken in at all by his own routine. This possibility is understandable, since no one is in quite as good an observa- tional position to see through th~ act ~s the person who puts it on. Coupled ~Ith this, the performer may be moved to gmde the con- viction of his audience only as a means !o other ends, having no ultimate co':"lcern m the conception that th~y h.a~e of him or of the situation. When the mdlVldual has no be- lief in his own act and no ultimate concern with the beliefs of his audience,"\~e may,call him cynical, reserving the term ~mcere .for individuals who believe in the ImpressiOn fostered by their own perfo~ance: It shoul.d be understood that the cyme, With ~ll his professional disinvolvement, m~y obtam un- professional pleasures from his ma~quer- d experiencing a kind of gleeful spmtual

:g:~ession from the f~ct th~t he can toy at will with something his audience must take seriously.! 11 ·

It is not assumed, of course, t~at a c~m- cal performers are interested m deludi~g th . audiences for purposes o~ what I.s

~;r d "self-interest" or private gam. A cym- cal ~ d" "dual may delude his audience for ca m IVI . d what he considers to be th~Ir own goo. , or for the good of the commumty, etc. For Illus- trations of this we need not appeal to sadly enlightened showmen such as Marcus

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Aurelius or Hsun Tzu. We know that in ser- vice occupations practitioners who may oth- erwise be sincere are sometimes forced to delude their customers because their cus- tomers show such a heartfelt demand for it. Doctors who are led into giving placebos, filling station attendants who resignedly check and recheck tire pressures for anxious women motorists, shoe clerks who sell a shoe that fits but tell the customer it is the size she wants to hear-these are cynical performers whose audiences will not allow them to be sincere. Similarly, it seems that sympathetic patients in mental wards will sometimes feign bizarre symptoms so that student nurses will not be subjected to a dis- appointingly sane performance. 2 So also, when inferiors extend their most lavish re- ception for visiting superiors, the selfish de- sire to win favor may not be the chief motive; the inferior may be tactfully attempting to put the superior at ease by simulating the kind of world the superior is thought to take for granted.

I have suggested two extremes: an individ- ual may be taken in by his own act or be cyni- cal about it. These extremes are something a little more than just the ends of a continuum. Each provides the individual with a position which has its own particular securities and defenses, so there will be a tendency for those who have traveled close to one of these poles to complete the voyage. Starting with lack of inward belief in one's role, the indi- vidual may follow the natural movement described by Park:

It is probably no mere historical accident !hat the war~ person, in its first meaning, Is a mask. It IS rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is alw~ys and every- where, mar~ ?r less consciOusly, playing a role ... It IS m these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves. 3

In a sense, and in so far as this mask repre- sents the conception we have formed of our- selves-:-the rol~ we are striving to live up to-th1~ mask 1s our truer self, the self we would hke to be. In the end, our conception of our role becomes second nature and an in- tegral part of our personality. We come into

the world as individuals, achieve character, and become persons.4

This may be illustrated from the commu- nity life of Shetland. s For the last four or five years the island's tourist hotel has been owned and operated by a married couple of crofter origins. From the beginning, the owners were forced to set aside their own conceptions as to how life ought to be led, displaying in the hotel a full round of mid- dle-class services and amenities. Lately, however, it appears that the managers have become less cynical about the performance that they stage; they themselves are becom- ing middle class and more and more enam- ored of the selves their clients impute to them.

Another illustration may be found in the raw recruit who initially follows army eti- quette in order to avoid physical punishment and eventually comes to follow the rules so that his organization will not be shamed and his officers and fellow soldiers will respect him.

As suggested, the cycle of disbelief-to-be- lief can be followed in the other direction, starting with conviction or insecure aspira- tion and ending in cynicism. Professions which the public holds in religious awe ofte? allow their recruits to follow the cycle in th~s direction, and often recruits follow it in this direction not because of a slow realization that they are deluding their audience-for by ordinary social standards the claims they make may be quite valid-but because they can use this cynicism as a means of insulat- ing their inner selves from contact with the audience. And we may even expect to find typical careers of faith, with the individu~l starting out with one kind of involvement Ill the performance he is required to give, then moving back and forth several times be- tween sincerity and cynicism before com- pleting all the phases and turning-points of self-belief for a person of his station. T~us, st~d~nts of medical schools sugg~st that ~dei ahsttcally oriented beginners m med~ca school typically lay aside their holy asp~ra­ tions for a period of time. During the first two years the students find that theirinterest i~ medicine must be dropped that t~ey maY giVe all their time to the task of leammg hr to get through examinations. During t e

next two years they are too busy learning about diseases to show much concern for the persons who are diseased. It is only after their medical schooling has ended that their original ideals about medical service may be reasserted. 6

While we can expect to find natural move- ment back and forth between cynicism and sincerity, still we must not rule out the kind oftransitional point that can be sustained on the strength of a little self-illusion. We find that the individual may attempt to induce the audience to judge him and the situation in a particular way, and he may seek this judgment as an ultimate end in itself, and yet he may not completely believe that he de- serves the valuation of self which he asks for or that the impression of reality which he fosters is valid. Another mixture of cynicism a~d belief is suggested in Kroeber's discus- Sion of shamanism:

~ext there is the old question of decep- t~on. Probably most shamans or medi- cm.e men, the world over, help along with ~leight-of-hand in curing and especially lil exhibitions of power. This sleight-of- hand is sometimes deliberate; in many cases awareness is perhaps not deeper than foreconscious. The attitude, whether there has been repression or not, seems to be as toward a pious fraud. Field e!hnographers seem quite generally con- VInced that even shamans who know that !hey add fraud nevertheless also believe m their powers, and especially in those of other shamans: they consult them when they themselves or their children are ill. 7

Front t I have been using the term "performance" oh:efer to all the activity of an individual ~ Ic.h occurs during a period marked by his f ntmuous presence before a particular set

0 observers and which has some influence

lb the observers. It will be convenient to a Jl as "front" that part of the individual's ~e onnance which regularly functions in a renefal and fixed fashion to define the situa- ~on or those who observe the performance. stro~, then, is the expressive equipment of a e~nl ard kind intentionally or unwittingly £ P oyed by the individual during his per- onnance. For preliminary purposes, it will

Chapter 40 + Perfonnances 255

be convenient to distinguish and label what seem to be the standard parts of front.

First, there is the "setting," involving fur- niture, decor, physical layout, and other background items which supply the scenery and stage props for the spate of human ac- tion played out before, within, or upon it. A setting tends to stay put, geographically speaking, so that those who would use a par- ticular setting as part of their performance cannot begin their act until they have brought themselves to the appropriate place and must terminate their performance when they leave it. It is only in exceptional circum- stances that the setting follows along with the performers; we see this in the funeral cortege, the civic parade, and the dream-like processions that kings and queens are made of. In the main, these exceptions seem to offer some kind of extra protection for per- formers who are, or who have momentarily become, highly sacred. These worthies are to be distinguished, of course, from quite pro- fane performers of the peddler class who move their place of work between perfor- mances, often being forced to do so. In the matter of having one fixed place for one's setting, a ruler may be too sacred, a peddler too profane. .

In thinking about the scemc aspects of front, we tend to think of the living room in a particular house and the small number of performers who can thoroug~ly i?entify themselves with it. We have given msuffi- cient attention to assemblages of sign-equip- ment which large numbers of performers can call their own for short periods of time. It is characteristic of Western European countries and no doubt a source of stability for them,' that a large number of luxurious settings are available for hire to anyone of the right kind who can afford them. One il- lustration of this may be cited from a study of the higher civil servant in Britain:

The question ho~ ~ar the ~en who rise to the top in the Civil Service take on the 'tone' or 'color' of a class other than that to which they belong by birth is delicate and difficult. The only d~fi~ite inf?rma- tion bearing on the questiOn IS the figures relating to the membership of the great London clubs. Mor~ thai?- three~quarters of our high admimstratiVe offlcmls be-

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256 Part Two: The Branches-Contemporary Social Theory + IX Symbolic lnteractionism

long to one or more clubs of high status and considerable luxury, where the en- trance fee might be twenty guineas or more, and the annual subscription from twelve to twenty guineas. These institu- tions are of the upper class (not even of the upper-middle) in their premises, their equipment, the style of living practiced there, their whole atmosphere. Though many of the members would not be de- scribed as wealthy, only a wealthy man would unaided provide for himself and his family space, food and drink, service, and other amenities of life to the same standard as he will find at the Union, the Travellers', or the Reform. 8

Another example can be found in the recent development of the medical profession where we find that it is increasingly impor- tant for a doctor to have access to the elabo- rate scientific stage provided by large hospi- tals, so that fewer and fewer doctors are able to feel that their setting is a place that they can lock up at night.9

If we take the term "setting" to refer to the scenic parts of expressive equipment, one may take the term "personal front" to refer to the other items of expressive equipment, the items that we most intimately identify with the performer himself and that we naturally expect will follow the performer wherever he goes. As part of personal front we may in- clude: insignia of office or rank; clothing; sex, age, and racial characteristics; size and looks; posture; speech patterns; facial ex- pressions; bodily gestures; and the like. Some of these vehicles for conveying signs, such as racial characteristics, are relatively fixed and over a span of time do not vary for the individual from one situation to another. On the other hand, some of these sign vehi- cles are relatively mobile or transitory, such as facial expression, and can vary during a performance from one moment to the next.

It is sometimes convenient to divide the stimuli which make up personal front into "appeara~ce" and "manner," according to the functiOn performed by the information that these stimuli convey. "Appearance" may be taken to refer to those stimuli which func- tion at the time to tell us of the performer's social statuses. These stimuli also tell us of the individual's temporary ritual state that is, whether he is engaging in formal ~ocial

activity, work, or informal recreation, whether or not he is celebrating a new phase in the season cycle or in his life-cycle. "Manner" may be taken to refer to those stimuli which function at the time to warn us of the inter- action role the performer will expect to play in the oncoming situation. Thus a haughty, aggressive manner may give the impression that the performer expects to be the one who will initiate the verbal interaction and direct its course. A meek, apologetic manner may give the impression that the performer ex- pects to follow the lead of others, or at least that he can be led to do so.

We often expect, of course, a confirming consistency between appearance and man- ner; we expect that the differences in social statuses among the interactants will be ex- pressed in some way by congruent differ- ences in the indications that are made of an expected interaction role. This type of coher- ence of front may be illustrated by the fol- lowing description of the procession of a mandarin through a Chinese city:

Coming closely behind ... the luxuri.ous chair of the mandarin, carried by e1ght bearers, fills the vacant space in the street. He is mayor of the town, and for ~ll practical purposes the supreme power 1.n it. He is an ideal-looking official, for h~ IS large and massive in appearance, ~h~lst he has that stern and uncomprom1s1r:g look that is supposed to be necessary m any magistrate who would hope to keep his subjects in order. He has a stern and forbidding aspect, as though he were on his way to the execution ground to have some criminal decapitated. This is the kind of air that the mandarins put on when they appear in public. In the course of many years' experience, I have _never once seen any of them, from the highest to the lowest, with a smile on his face or a look of sympathy for the people whilst he was being carried officially through the streets. tO

But, of course, appearance and manner maY tend to contradict each other, as when a per- former who appears to be of higher esta~e than his audience acts in a manner that IS unexpectedly equalitarian, or intimate, ?r apologetic, or when a performer dressed 10 the garments of a high position presents

himself to an individual of even higher status.

In addition to the expected consistency between appearance and manner, we expect, of course, some coherence among setting, appearance, and manner.l 1 Such coherence represents an ideal type that provides us with a means of stimulating our attention to and interest in exceptions. In this the student is assisted by the Journalist, for exceptions to expected consistency among setting, ap- pearance, and manner provide the piquancy and glamor of many careers and the salable appeal of many magazine articles. For exam- ple, a New Yorker profile on Roger Stevens (the real estate agent who engineered the sale of the Empire State Building) com- ments on the startling fact that Stevens has a small house, a meager office, and no letter- head stationery.12 . In order to explore more fully the rela- h~ns among several parts of social front, it Will be convenient to consider here a signifi- cant characteristic of the information con- veyed by front, namely, its abstractness and generality. . J:Iowever specialized and unique a routine Is: Its social front, with certain exceptions, Will tend to claim facts that can be equally c~umed and asserted of other, somewhat d~fferent routines. For example, many ser- VIce occupations offer their clients a perfor- mance that is illuminated with dramatic expressions of cleanliness, modernity, com- petence, and integrity. While in fact these abstract standards have a different signifi- cance in different occupational perfor- mances, the observer is encouraged to stress th~ abstract similarities. For the observer this is a wonderful, though sometimes disas- trol!s, convenience. Instead of having to mamtain a different pattern of expectation ~~d responsive treatment for each slightly Ifferent performer and performance, he

can place the situation in a broad category h~ound which it is easy for him to mobi.lize . Is past experience and stereotypical thmk- ~~· Observers then need only be familiar

1 lth a small and hence manageable vocabu- ~ry of fronts and know how to respond to t e~, in orde~ to orient themselves in a wide ~~nety of situations. Thus in London the

rrent tendency for chimney sweeps 13 and

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perfume clerics to wear white lab coats tends to provide the client with an understanding that the delicate tasks performed by these persons will be performed in what has be- come a standardized, clinical, confidential manner.

There are grounds for believing that the tendency for a large number of different acts to be presented from behind a small number of fronts is a natural development in social organization. Radcliffe-Brown has sug- gested this in his claim that a "descriptive" kinship system which gives each person a unique place may work for very small com- munities, but, as the number of persons be- comes large, clan segmentation becomes necessary as a means of providing a less complicated system of identifications and treatments. 14 We see this tendency illus- trated in factories, barracks, and other large social establishments. Those who organize these establishments find it impossible to provide a special cafeteria, special modes .of payment, special vacation ri?hts, and special sanitary facilities for every lme and staff sta- tus category in the organization, and at the same time they feel that persons of dissimi- lar status ought not to be indiscriminately thrown together or classified t?get~er .. As a compromise, the full range of diversit~ Is .cut at a few crucial points, and all those Withm a given bracket are allo~ed or ~bliged ~o maintain the same social front m certam situations.

In addition to the fact that different rou- tines may employ the same front, it is to be noted that a given social front tends to be- come institutionalized in terms of the ab- stract stereotyped expectations to whic~ it gives rise, and tends to take on a .n:eamng and stability apart from the specific tas~s which happen at the time to be pe~formed. m its name. The front becoi?e~ a coll~ctive representation" and a fact m Its own nght.

When an actor takes on an establish~d so- . 1 role usually he finds that a particular

cia ' bl. h d f · front has already been esta IS e or I~. Whether his acquisition of the role was pn- marily motivated by a desire to perform the

·ven task or by a desire to maintain the cor- ;~sponding front, the actor will find that he must do both.

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Further, if the individual takes on a task that is not only new to him but also unestab- lished in the society, or if he attempts to change the light in which his task is viewed, he is likely to find that there are already sev- eral well-established fronts among which he must choose. Thus, when a task is given a new front we seldom find that the front it is given is itself new.

Since fronts tend to be selected, not cre- ated, we may expect trouble to arise when those who perform a given task are forced to select a suitable front for themselves from among several quite dissimilar ones. Thus in military organizations, tasks are always de- veloping which (it is felt) require too much authority and skill to be carried out behind the front maintained by one grade of person- nel and too little authority and skill to be car- ried out behind the front maintained by the next grade in the hierarchy. Since there are relatively large jumps between grades, the task will come to "carry too much rank" or to carry too little.

Endnotes

1. Perhaps the real crime of the confidence man is not that he takes money from his victims but that he robs all of us of the belief that middle-class manners and appearance can be sustained only by middle-class people. A disabused professional can be cynically hostile to the service relation his cli- ents expect him to extend to them; the confidence man is in a position to hold the whole "legit" world in this contempt.

2. See Taxel, op. cit., p. 4. Harry Stack Sullivan has suggested that the t~ct of institutionalized per- formers can operate m the other direction, result- ing in a kind of noblesse-oblige sanity. See his "Soda-Psychiatric Research," American Journal of Psychiatry, X, pp. 987-88.

"A study of 'social recoveries' in one of our large mental hospitals some years ago taught me that

patients were often released from care because they had learned not to manifest symptoms to the environing persons; in other words, had inte· grated enough of the personal environment to re- alize the prejudice opposed to their delusions. It seemed almost as if they grew wise enough to be tolerant of the imbecility surrounding them, hav- ing finally discovered that it was stupidity and not malice. They could then secure satisfaction from contact with others, while discharging a part of their cravings by psychotic means."

3. Robert Ezra Park, Race and Culture (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950), p. 249. 4. Ibid., p. 250.

5. Shetland Isle study.

6. H. S. Becker and Blanche Greer, "The Fate of Idealism in Medical School," American Sociologi- cal Review, 23, pp. 50-56.

7. A. L. Kroeber, The Nature of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 311.

8. H. E. Dale, The Higher Civil Service of Great Brit- ain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941),p. 50.

9. David Solomon, "Career Contingencies of ~hi­ cago Physicians" (unpublished Ph.D. dissert~twn, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, 1952), p. 74.

10. J. Macgowan, Sidelights on Chinese Life (Phila- delphia: Lippincott, 1908), p. 187.

11. Cf. Kenneth Burke's comments on the "scene- act-agent ratio," A Grammar of Motives (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945), pp. 6-9.

12. E. J. Kahn, Jr., "Closings and Openings," The New Yorker, February 13 and 20, 1954.

13. See Mervyn Jones, "White as a Sweep," The New Statesman and Nation, December 6, 1952.

14. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Social Organiza- tion of Australian Tribes," Oceania, I, 440.

"Performances" from The Presentation of Self in Every- day Life by Erving Goffman. Copyright © 1973 by The Overlook Press. +