G offman, E rving

Abstract

The sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) became noted for his contributions to the study of interaction in everyday‐life situations. Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is one of the “books of the century” according to the International Sociological Association (ISA) poll, and has been translated into many other languages. He was not a psychologist and he did not contribute directly to psychology as a discipline, hence few psychological social psychologists cite him in their work. The social psychological study of everyday life by sociologists contributes to the qualitative sociological study of social psychology, but is rejected by many quantitative psychologists. Goffman is best known for emphasizing the “presentation” of one's self in public places. He differentiates the sociological “front stage” of public life from the “back stage” of one's private life. His approach was eclectic, but as an astute observer he noticed subtle nuances of interaction patterns that others did not see. He has been criticized for too often changing his key terms and for not always making a consistent argument from one book to another. He was consistent in his method, often called a “dramaturgical approach” because it involves seeing the world as a stage. Goffman remains one of the most widely read sociologists and he is often seen as a leading symbolic interactionist theorist.