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Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman Biography

Sociologist

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“Here I want to stress that perception of losing one’s mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the anxiety consequent upon this perception of oneself, and the strategies devised to reduce this anxiety, are not a product of abnormal psychology, but would be exhibited by any person socialized into our culture who came to conceive of himself as someone losing his mind.”

MadnessStigmaStereotypesMental Health StigmaAsylumMental HospitalStigmatizationStigmatized
Book:Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
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“individuals are concerned not with the moral issue of realizing these standards, but with the amoral issue of engineering a convincing impression that these standards are being realized. Our activity, then, is largely concerned with moral matters, but as performers we do not have a moral concern in these moral matters. As performers we are merchants of morality. Our day is given over to intimate contact with the goods we display and our minds are filled with intimate understandings of them; but it may well be that the more attention we give to these goods, th e more d is ta n t we feel from them and from those who are believing enough to buy them. To use a different imagery, the very obligation and profitablility of appearing always in a steady moral light, of being a socialized character, forces us to be the sort of person who is practiced in the ways of the stage.”

PhilosophyMoralsSociologyDramaturgy
Author:Erving Goffman
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“When persons are present to one another they can function not merely as physical instruments but also as communicative ones. This possibility, no less than the physical one, is fateful for everyone concerned and in every society appears to come under strict normative regulation, giving rise to a kind of communication traffic order.”

GivingKindPersonsOrderPossibilityCommunicationConcernedFunctionInstrumentsRegulationTrafficStrict
Book:Behavior in Public Places
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“The stigmatized individual is asked to act so as to imply neither that his burden is heavy nor that bearing it has made him different from us; at the same time he must keep himself at that remove from us which assures our painlessly being able to confirm this belief about him. Put differently, he is advised to reciprocate naturally with an acceptance of himself and us, an acceptance of him that we have not quite extended to him in the first place. A PHANTOM ACCEPTANCE is thus allowed to provide the base for a PHANTOM NORMALCY.”

FirstsMadeDifferentAbleIndividualBeliefAcceptanceBurdenHeavyRemovePhantomsNormalcyReciprocate
Author:Erving Goffman
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“Perhaps the individual is so viable a god because he can actually understand the ceremonial significance of the way he is treated, and quite on his own can respond dramatically to what is proffered him. In contacts between such deities there is no need for middlemen; each of these gods is able to serve as his own priest.”

WayNeedsAbleIndividualTreatedContactPriestsSignificanceDeitiesGod Is AbleMiddlemen
Book:Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face to Face Behavior
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“A performer may be taken in by his own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which he fosters is the one and only reality. In such cases we have a sense in which the performer comes to be his own audience; he comes to be performer and observer of the same show. Presumably he introcepts or incorporates the standards he attempts to maintain in the presence of others so that even in their absence his conscience requires him to act in a socially proper way.”

WayMayMomentsShowsRealityCasesAudienceTakenStandardsConscienceConvincedAbsenceImpressionPerformersObservers
Author:Erving Goffman
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