Sociology 3701: Outline--Week Seven

I. Self and other in potentially disruptive social situations

A. Behavior in Private Places: Sustaining Definitions of Reality in Gynecological Examinations

B. "Precarious situations" in a Strip Club: Exotic Dancers and the Problem of Reality Maintenance

Groups: Discussion questions from these two articles

Emerson: "Definitions of reality are continuously validated by apparently trivial features of the social scene, such as details of the setting, persons' appearance and demeanor, and 'inconsequential talk.'" In addition, in both settings the staff takes the lead in socializing the patient/customer and enforcing the norms. To them it's everyday reality; to the patient and at least to some of the customers, it's very much not their everyday reality.

Why deal with extreme and somewhat unusual situations? Goffman's answer

I. Dramaturgy and the actual theater: video: "Noises Off"

Dramaturgy is especially strong in understanding shorter-term or less intimate relationships--"scenes" and "establishments.

III. Embarrassment: In "Noises Off," we see professional actors handling chaos and breakdown with ingenuity and aplomb. Very little actual embarrassment ("the show must go on"). What about more ordinary situations when things break down and there is perhaps greater potential for embarrassment?

Gross and Stone: "Embarrassment occurs whenever some central assumption in a transaction has been unexpectedly and unqualifiedly discredited for at least one participant.... By examining such ruins, the investigator can reconstruct the architecture they represent." (Instructor: "transaction" means a social scene of some kind. "Architecture" just refers to whatever the framework that makes these "scenes" possible.)

Two key observations:

1. Every enduring social relation will provide means of preventing embarrassment, so that the entire transaction will not collapse when embarrassment occurs.

"In every social transaction, selves (Instructor: "identities," really)must be established, defended, and accepted by the parties. Every person in the company of others is obligated to bring his best self forward to meet the selves of others also presumably best fitted to the occasion. When one is "not himself" in the presence of other who expect him to be just that... embarrassment ensues." e.g. the "customer" with no wallet... the party-goer who is dressed completely "wrong"... the "joker" who has just insulted someone whose presence he hadn't noticed...

a. Personal poise... the "performer's" control over self and situation

b. Tact and consideration

"Each must be able to assume that the other will render assistance if he gets into such control trouble."

"Clearly, if everyone went around watching for chances to embarrass others, so many would be incapacitated for role performance that society would collapse."

2. Some stages of the life cycle, for example, adolescence in our society, generate more frequent embarrassment than others. (Any ideas why? I might suggest that people's affiliations are more in flux then and that sometimes they are willing to gain status with a coveted peer group by putting down someone else. What can compare to the embarrassment of turning to a previously "best friend" for support only to find that she now has joined the other side in putting you down?)