Everybody is an Actor

Ah my first Blog post. At first I will admit I didn't like the idea of blogging, but now that I am here there is something quite satisfying about being able to discuss my opinion on the topics at hand. 

The topic to start it all off is about the 'self' and what this actually looks like. The reading for this topic by Goffman was quite a lengthy and wordy piece to read. As I do not want this post to also become lengthy and wordy I am going to avoid referring to the text too much. What I found to be the most interesting from both the lectures and the readings is the idea that we create a new 'self' for each of the different social environments we find ourselves in.

Each of our different social environments tend to have different social expectations and norms from which we shape an ideal 'self' for that environment. This basically means that we behave in a different way depending on the social environment we are in. To make this a whole lot more understandable consider this: You are going over a fellow students house to work on your group presentation, you do not know them well, you are asked to sit on the lounge. In this circumstance you sit straight with your feet on the floor. How does this differ to how you would sit on your on lounge or a friends.
In this particular instance you have what I will call 'lounge manners' which you probably don't have in your own home, this is not because you were told how to sit by the fellow student but rather because social circumstances govern how you act (a new 'self') 

There are many other circumstances in which we create a new self, you don't have to look far in your own lives to see that you jump into different roles in different social circles just as an actor would on a stage.