Dramaturgy -- Social Life is like a stage or a play and our behavior is based on our understanding of our roles

Dramaturgy -- Social Life is like a stage or a play and our behavior is based on our understanding of our roles

Birth puts us on stage -- Socialization teaches us how to act

Impression management -- we have ideas about how we want others to think about us, so we act to communicate those ideas to them

Front stage -- wherever you deliver your lines -- from the dinner table, to the lunch table, to the wedding banquet -- Formal and informal settings all can be front stage

Back stage -- places of retreat and privacy -- behind closed doors -- almost always alone

Statuses, Roles, and Role Performance -- Statuses are positions that we hold within society -- daughter, student athlete, singer, friend. Roles are the expected behaviors for each status. Role Performances are the interpretations or style that we put into our roles -- ideal daughter, backup center, quirky singer.

Sign Vehicles -- these help inform us about how to act and communicate to others about how they should judge our behaviors. 1. Social setting -- pretty self explanatory, but the scenery of a social setting can really make a difference on how the actions are interpreted as well as the responses

2. Appearance -- including props. Like setting and scenery, but they decorate the person to inform and give strong cues.. Our bodies are often important sign vehicles that give off messages whether we want them to or not. Often, the body is emphasized or masked to give off cues.

3. Manner -- the attitudes we show as we play our roles. Our manner can indicate to others how we are going to play our roles.

Teamwork -- Being a good role player usually gets us the recognition and results that we covet. But since it all is social, we rely on others to play their roles to make sure that we can do ours correctly and get the results we want.

Reciprocal roles -- for nearly every actor, there is a reciprocal actor necessary for actions to make sense and for the role to be understood. A teacher needs a student. A coach needs a player. A parent needs a child. A friend needs a friend.

Face saving -- sometimes tact is needed when a performance fails to meet expectations or when there is a glitch in the performance or sign vehicles. Sometimes face saving is a technique by the actor, the observer, or both. The face saving can be an action or a lack of action such as a studied non-observance. The face saving technique allows the performance to go on and for everyone to continue playing their roles and communicating to others how to interpret their roles.

Becoming roles -- as we become used to playing our roles and the responses that we get, we can become them. Fine tuning the roles frequently happens as individuals become more comfortable with becoming the roles and they wish to make part of the impression stronger.

Self Concept -- roles then become part of our self concept and our identity. Role exit -- is very difficult for someone who has become their role -- they feel that they are losing their identity.

Who cares? -- Understanding impression management and dramaturgical approach can have a tremendous impact on relationships. It can have a strong impact as we face new situations. Applying and manipulating impression management can affect life chances and opportunities -- including our education and careers. As we better understand the social construction of reality, it may influence our decision making, our own behaviors, and the actions of those we interact with.

Self -- The views we internalize of how others see us

Looking Glass Self -- Theory by Charles Horton Cooley about how our sense of self develops. Our sense of self develops based on our interpretations of our interactions with others. It is a series of steps in a process.

Steps/Process of the Looking Glass Self: 1. We imagine how we appear to those around us.

2. We interpret the reactions of others to our behaviors and appearance.

3. We develop a self concept.

Note: We continually modify both our actions and our sense of self as we progress through life and have more interactions. A lack of interaction can lead to a stagnant sense of self.

The sense that we get does not rely on accurate interpretations -- whatever we think is the reality and we develop our sense of self from our (faulty or accurate) interpretations.

George Herbert Mead -- The development of self is a process that begins in childhood.

It relies on our understanding of situational roles and rules.

The sense of self that one develops depends on our interpretation of how we play the roles expected of us. Mead s idea is stage based and it progresses as we develop the ability to take the role of the other.

Children also progress from learning to take the role of significant others -- people we specifically know to taking the role of generalized others -- a group or a cohort as a whole.

Stages of play include: 1. Imitation -- children can only mimic others. They are not actually role taking, but they are learning to move and act as others do.

2. Play -- children pretend to take the specific roles of others. They also usually start with play that mimics a significant other and may progress to taking on the role of generalized others.

3. Organized Play/Team games -- children learn to take on multiple roles and can analyze and understand the role expectations and role performance of themselves and of others. They learn to critique multiple roles at once.

I and Me -- as the sense of self develops, Mead says that we develop the self as a subject - I and the self as an object - Me. The self is an active entity and can act to change others impressions, but can also have things done to it.