Social dramaturgy: how we chain ‘façades’ to interact

It is possible to analyze our interaction with others as if it were a play, as if social life were a succession of masquerades. We call this approach social dramaturgy, focused on studying how much this succession of roles has to do with human behavior and the rules that control our daily interactions.

Its reference is Erving Goffman, creator of the movement of symbolic interactionism. For him, In every social interaction we engage in, we try (consciously or unconsciously) to project a specific image of ourselves, manipulating how others perceive us.

Thus, our personality would not be an internal phenomenon, but the sum of the different ‘masks’ that we put on throughout life: a social dramaturgy.

Explaining social dramaturgy

In the world of interpretation (theatrical or, in this case, social), The main objective is to maintain coherence, both in interactions and with the environment. Thus, to convey a positive impression we must have dramatic skills (or social skills) and costumes or props necessary. But all this is unimportant if the actors present on stage are not able to agree on the “definition of the situation”, on the expectations and limits that implicitly tell us how to fit into a certain setting (social environment).

According to this approach, to achieve social success Attention is paid to several aspects:

Know how to vary between the scenario (when we project an image for others) and the backstage (our private life).Having ease in changing between sets. That is, between different situations. Having a appropriate clothing for every moment.

Thus, those who do not know how to act during the performance, which is life, constitute a danger to the other actors and end up being separated.

There is no doubt that when we act (or interact), Our comments and expressions shape the opinion that others have of us. We are aware of this and, therefore, we learn to manage speech, modulate our gestures and measure how we react. We all, to some extent, act to fit our role in the environment in which we find ourselves.

Image, concealment and morality

For Goffman, in this social dramaturgy, people try to present an idealized image when we act, for the simple reason that we are convinced of how beneficial it can be to hide parts of ourselves. In this sense, learn to hide three fundamental aspects:

The process of preparing our paper. Like the teacher who, after preparing a lesson for hours, recites it pretending that he has known it all his life, We prefer to offer others only the “final result.” of our performance. No projecting outtakes or repeating the script several times until we memorize it; That’s behind the scenes.The dirty work carried out to get the role. The character we want to show may not be compatible with everything that has been done along the way. For example, let’s think of a politician who becomes a candidate by selling honesty after having elbowed his way to the top.That which would prevent us from continuing to act. We keep quiet about affronts and avoid reacting to humiliations that could affect the image we have chosen to offer.

As Ervin Goffman himself said, “As actors, individuals are concerned with maintaining the impression that they comply with many rules that can be applied to judge them, but an individual, as an actor, is not concerned with the moral problem of complying with those rules, but rather with the amoral problem. to create a convincing impression that you are complying“. Our activity is largely based on morality but, in reality, as actors, we have no moral interest in it.. Just pretending that we are interested. Will it be true?

You might be interested…