This week's topic focused on the "self", and how we portray our own "self" with particular deference and demeanor. The words "obligation" and "expectation" frequently featured in the reading by Erving Goffman. Goffman explores the idea that obligation and expectation are the social grounding for our everyday rules of conduct. This led me to daydream about real life examples of my own, such as my own obligations and expectations within the many roles I conform to each day.
I am a student, a babysitter, a waitress, a sister, a daughter and a friend. Each one of these roles is bound with different obligations and expectations, and I'm sure most would agree that you learn to adapt to these different roles, obligations and expectations very quickly. The sense of responsibility and the different demeanor for each role is blatant, and I find myself juggling from one to the other, several times a day. No role is any more important than the others, it is simply how I present myself in each situation that lends insight into the deference and demeanor associated with each one.
In addition to the reading by Goffman I found an interesting piece by Lynass et al. (2012), which studies the social expectations and behaviours within the school environment. I found this reading rather interesting because it provides insight into where we learn our social expectations and how these are enforced from an incredibly young age.
References
Goffman, Erving. 1967. The Nature of Deference and Demeanor. Pp 47-96 in Interaction Ritual; Essays on Face to Face Behaviour. New York: Pantheon Books.
Lynass, L., Tsai, S., Richman, T. D. & Cheney, D. (2012). Social Expectations and Behavioral
Indicators in School-Wide Positive
Behavior Supports: A National
Study of Behavior Matrices. Journal of Positive Behaviour Intervention, 14(3), 153-161.
