What is the self

Goffman defines the self as an image, deriving from the perceptions and responses of others, this if known as the face of the person. Goffman defines “face” as social values that a person claims for himself by the role/position he presents in social encounters. He explains that humans have different types of face:

-          Good face

-          Bad face

-          Wrong face

-          Out of face

-          Loss of face

Positive face – connection with others 

E.g. Need to be liked, culturally derived norms to be a desirable human being

Negative face – autonomy; freedom from imposition 

E.g. Need to be free, have an open schedule, freedom from imposition by others

Wrong in Face – Information that discredits the persons face or inconsistent with the face that is known within their cohort, which cannot be integrated into role/position that was formerly accepted

            E.g. Think of a time when an embarrassing secret surfaced, how did others respond to the new information. The new information is inconsistent with the face they associated to you before,

Out of Face – When one attempts to make social contact with others without having formed a role/position within the cohort.

E.g. Walking up to a group of strangers and talking to them about your sex life

Loss of Face – When this face becomes disrupted we lose it, and in turn lose the internal support that would once have protected us.

The role of this self is not a stable one.

Social Death - When a person is stripped of all attributed of a regular self you suffer a kind of Loss of face.

            e.g. Mentioned in the lecture, some patients in psychiatric wards have a tendency to steal and hide soap. These small acts are little gestures of resistance, a method used to reclaim the self

Role Dispossession – Individuals are usually defined by a collection of roles, such as mother, friend, carer, employee and wife. In a total institution, residents lose the ability to perform the functions associated with these roles, at least in the manner in which they were accustomed.

e.g. Sometime individuals are unable to care for sick family members because of the demands of the work schedule. Instead, these individuals are forced to abdicate responsibility for their loved ones to the assigned others.

Role distance – how individual fill certain roles but also are able to distance themselves from the role.

E.g. the university student who works at McDonalds during the summer holidays is not symbolically defined by this social role because of the social meanings attributed to being a student and the status of holiday work.