Self-presentation norms govern nearly every occupation and social relation
Evidence
Erving Goffman has documented the importance of self-presentation in a number of cases: doctors, nurses, waitresses, dentists, military personnel, mental patients, funeral directors, eighteenth-century noblemen, Indian castes, Chinese mandarins, junk peddlers, unionized workers, teachers, pharmacists, as well as in the relationships between men and women and blacks and whites. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 909
Categorization
- CANDY: A fun trivia-ish sweep of the range of Goffman’s studies — funeral directors rubbing shoulders with Indian castes and junk peddlers.
- XREF: connects to: Effective self-presentation requires matching appearance to location-specific social codes; Social norms make people present stable identities that others can trust; Behavioral inconsistency masks consistency with shifting social norms. (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Effective self-presentation requires matching appearance to location-specific social codes
#expands(0.85) - Social norms make people present stable identities that others can trust
#expands(0.82) - Behavioral inconsistency masks consistency with shifting social norms.
#complicates(0.75) - Reflexive personal trust becomes trust in tact and disciplined self-presentation
#expands(0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 255 - Self-presentation sustains broader trust than emotional attachment by maintaining boundaries rather than fusing identities
#expands(0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 294 - Freedom of symbolic choice makes self-presentation in modern cities perpetually error-prone
#exemplifies(0.72) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 618 - Feminine presentation is coerced self-objectification in disguise
#exemplifies(0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 900