Self Identity

The context of this essay will include a debate on whether the self is shaped by society. By doing so, I will analyse the different perspectives on whether or not this is the case; starting with the view point that it is , with contributes from Mead (1931), Cooley (1992) and Goffman( 1963; 1987; 1968; 1969 ) and then further looking at the view points that disagree with this.

The self is something that has been defined as a “relatively stable set of perceptions of who we are in relation to ourselves, others, and to social systems.” It has also been defined as a “primary (although, basic) social identity.” (Jenkins 1996) Identity however, refers to who or what one is and to the various meanings attached to oneself by ourselves and others,

He believed that we manipulated the way other’s see us in order to socially construct the ‘self’. Goffman’s dramaturgical approach is described as so due to the fact that he uses drama analogies when talking about social interaction; for example, the fact we are all ‘actors’, using ‘scripts’ and ‘props’. He further went on to state how we pursue to present a particular image of ourselves to our ‘audience’, for us to do this, we must intently look at how our audience respond to our ‘performance’ and whether or not this is convincing enough for them, if not, changes will be made accordingly. By using our ‘props’ such as make-up, clothing as well as using our language, gestures, tone of voice, us, as people, can socially construct our self for the person we want our audience to believe, we, in fact, are. He believes that in our ‘theatre’ there is a ‘front’ we use, which is the role we are acting out, whereas, ‘backstage’, we can almost step out of this role and act ‘ourselves’. For example, a lecturer will fill their put up their ‘front’ when doing their job, however, when they are ‘backstage’ they can drop the ‘act.’ Goffman’s idea of roles is different to other ideas in sociology of what our roles are—such as in Functionalism, in which it is believed that our roles are tightly ‘scripted’. Whereas, Goffman believes that like a stage actor is not really

The main criticism of interactionist theories is the fact that, although they focus on meaning of the actor, they fail to explain how actors even create these meanings in the first place. However, in contrast to this, the labelling theorists which use interactionism as a basis, such as Cooley’s (1922), are often criticised for being deterministic, due to the fact that they try and say our actions are shaped by the way others label them, instead of us taking responsibility for our own actions which may lead to negative consequences. Blumer (1969) built on Mead’s ideas, helps to strengthen his ideas, it builds on his basic idea’s whilst also adding his own, which, makes the theory more credible. There are, of course, limitations to Goffman’s ideas, although, they are useful, there are limitations. The idea that during interactions, everyone plays the part of both actor and audience, fails to point out the fact that interactions are often improvised and unrehearsed, without prior thinking of our reactions. This suggests that interactionism lacks structure as a theory—there is also evidence to support this from Larry Reynolds (1975). A study was conducted in which 124 interactionists, of which, 84 responded, were asked to identify the concepts they felt were essential in theories, 38 chose ‘role, 37 chose ‘self and 37 chose ‘interaction’.