SOC250 Blog - Week 5

This week’s reading “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor” by Erving Goffman, discussed in depth ideas about the Rules of Conduct, Deference and Demeanor in everyday life. Below I will highlight the parts of the reading I found the most curious. 

Firstly, in Goffmans text “The Neglected Situations,” he describes social situations as a time when one person is in the company of another person until one of them leaves (Goffman 1964), these social situations can vary dramatically from waiting impatiently in a line at the shops, to having coffee with a friend. Today while at work I found myself in countless social situations with different colleagues, and I adjusted my behaviours and interactions with each person depending on our social relationship. With that in mind, I found Goffman’s ideas about Rules of Conduct quite interesting as they seem to be present in many situations and activities that are undertaken in our day to day lives. People in society tend to follow the various rules of conduct as it is the appropriate and right thing to do. These rules affect people in two different ways either directly, through obligation and how you are obliged to act in a situation, or indirectly, through expectations and what you expect from people and what others expect from you.  Goffman also describes two types of rules within our society,  a substance rule and also a ceremonial rule. Substance rules are enforced through variants such as the law, what is ethical and moral, whereas ceremonial rules focus on etiquette and manners (Goffman 1967). 

As a final note, Goffman also discusses Deference and Demeanor in the reading; he refers to Deference as the use of presentation or avoidance rituals that are used by people to show gratitude for another person. Demeanor on the other hand, looks at ceremonial behaviours and etiquette. For instance, how someone dresses plays a vital role in others discerning if that individual is desirable or unwelcome (Goffman 1967), one example of this is a person going for a job interview wearing old jeans and a torn shirt, as opposed to being dressed in a smart suit, in doing this the individual may give the employer the impression that they are an undesirable candidate for the job.   

Goffman, Erving 1964, “The Neglected Situation”, American Anthropologist, Vol 66, no 6, pp 133-136, accessed 22/8/12, Google Scholar http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00090/pdf

 

Goffman, Erving 1967, “The nature of Deference and Demeanor”, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour, Doubleday, Garden City, accessed 21/8/2012, University of Wollongong Library e-readings