The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

In this valuable study Dr Goffman examines what happens when an individual appears in front of others. Usually the individual mobilizes his activity in order to convey an impression to others which it is in his interest to convey. This process is called impression management and it occurs in practically every social interaction. Each participant is expected to suppress his feelings and to convey a view of the situation which... Read Full Review

I remember reading this work many years ago and feeling a whole new world had opened up to me in relation to understanding ' the self'. Instead of looking inward only it was necessary to see the way we reshape ourselves in response to the kind of people we are with. The ' self' becomes a ' construct' which alters with performance, and with each new set of characters or scene we met. And so we ourselves are in effect many different... Read Full Review

Dr. Erving Goffman, after receiving his Ph.D. in 1953 at the University of Chicago, first published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life as a monograph at the Social Sciences Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh in 1956. Published by Anchor Books in 1959, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life effectively elaborates on Thorstein Veblen's observations about the character of the Leisure Class. However, Goffman... Read Full Review

I had to re-read each chapter two or three times to get a full sense of what Goffman was driving at. His ability to get at the inner workings of human interactions is, if not unique, darned rare. This book will repay the effort it takes to read it many times over. Often he'll take up a subject that other writers try to grapple with but don't quite nail, and he'll land a bull's eye so clean and square your head spins. ... Read Full Review

I really loved this book. First, I appreciated that it was written in the mid fifties by someone who valued the nuances of words and before books were dumbed down for popular understanding. It's a vocabulary builder.It was extremely difficult for me to read. I was 41 at the time. Nearly every page revealed to me errors in my thoughts and actions that were profoundly embarrassing. I would have to lay it aside and creep... Read Full Review