Socio-what?

Being a newbie to sociology I’m finding most of our topics mind-blowingly thought provoking (if that can actually happen). This week was no exception, in that I walked away from the tutorial with my brain overloading with information and thoughts.

So what does Goffman have to say, and what is this idea of the self? Essentially everyone is fulfilling a role to everyone, with their feelings and obligations governing which role they play and when. Further, Goffman reinforces this, and states that these roles are dictated to us by society. For example, to my parents I am a son, to my tutors/lecturers I am a student, to my close friends, I’m someone completely different to the aforementioned. However, this is only an extremely basic understanding of the concept itself.

This basic idea is reinforced and built upon by Zussman (2005, p. 48), who suggests that the ‘self’ differs from ones ‘personality’, stating that the ‘self seems to refer to something more permanent, independent of behaviour’. In saying this, Zussman (2005, p. 48) referred to questions that he had asked his students, relating to situations in which they can be themselves. He states that the questions are generally answered in two ways: when they are alone, or, when they are with a close group of friends or family. This, for me, demonstrates how ones ‘true’ self can emerge when there are no expectations on what you are to be, however, this could be countered with the argument that even sitting alone in our rooms,  there still are those expectations. For example, sitting in my room alone at home, I am expected to be a ‘son’ and not make any excess noise.

I wish I could elaborate more on the topic, but I think I could write for ages! This will have to do, well, for now! The referenced article also contains much debate over the meaning of the self which is extremely useful.

Reference

Zussman, R, 2005, 'The Self', Contexts, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 48-50