Goffman's (1959) The presentation of self in everyday life

According to Goffman, how do individuals who are interacting with one another achieve and maintain a shared definition of the situation?

"When we allow that the individual projects a definition of the situation when he appears before others, we must also see that the others, however passive their role may seem to be, will themselves effectively projects a definition of the situation by virtue of their response to the individual and by virtue of the lines of action they initiate to him. Each precipitant is expected to suppress his immediate heartfelt feelings, conveying a view of the situation which he feels the others will be able to find at least temporarily acceptable. The maintenance of this surface of agreement, this veneer of consensus, is facilitated by each participant concealing his own wants behind statements which assert values to which everyone present feels obliged to give lip service.

What did Goffman (1959, p. 75) mean when he wrote "To be a given kind of person...is not merely to possess the required attributes, but also to sustain the standards of conduct and appearance that one's social grouping attaches thereto"?

A status, a position, a social place is a pattern of appropriate conduct, coherent, embellished, and well-articulated. It is not something that must be enacted and portrayed; it is something that must be realized.

What did Goffman (1959, p. 35) mean when he said that, frequently, "a performance presents an idealized view of the situation"?

Performers tend to offer their audience impressions that are idealized. In other words, when performers present themselves before the audience, they will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of that society. And those can be seen on social mobility. "Commonly we find that upward mobility involves the presentation of proper performances and that efforts to move upward and efforts to keep from moving downward are expressed in terms of sacrifices made for the maintenance of front." (p.36). And this idealization could be either positive or negative.

Performance

all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants.

why do performers want to prevent unmeant gestures from occurring

because when such circumstances occur, the reality sponsored by the performers is threatened. Performers may chiefly discredit their own performance or the performance being staged by their audience.

Unmeant gestures

the accidents that convey impressions inappropriate at the time.

Setting

the physical scene that ordinarily must be there if the actors are to engage in a dramaturgical performance.

Personal front

those items of expressive equipment that the audience identifies with the performers and expects them to carry with them into the setting. By the definition in the book, "front, then, is the expressive equipment of a standard kind intentionally or unwittingly employed by the individual during his performance." (p.22)