stupid or at least hide my intelligence. A favorable reaction in the “social mirror”
leads to a positive self-concept; a negative reaction leads to a negative self-concept.This is never a finished process. We are constantly meeting new people and getting
new reactions, so we are revising our looking-glass self throughout our lives (Figure 3.1).
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), a sociologist, believed that our self arises
through taking on the role of others. Mead used interaction as the foundation for this
theory of the construction of identity: We create a “self” through our interactions with
others. (We will discuss Mead further in Chapter 5.) Mead said that there were two
parts of the self, the “I” and the “me.” The “I” is the self as subject, needs, desires,
and impulses that are not channeled into any social activity, an agent, the self that
thinks and acts. The “me” is self as object—the attitudes we internalize from inter-
actions with others, the social self. We achieve our sense of self-awareness when we
learn to distinguish the two.
Goffman and the “Dramaturgical” Self
Erving Goffman (1922–1982) went beyond the concept of the looking-glass self. He
believed that our selves change not only because of other people’s reactions but also
because of the way we actively try to present ourselves to other people. Early in life,
we learn to modify our behavior in accordance with what particular people expect
of us. Perhaps when I am with my buddies, I tell vulgar jokes and playfully insult them,
because they approve of this sort of behavior as a form of male bonding. However,
I would never consider such behavior when I am visiting my grandmother: Then I am
quiet and respectful. Goffman calls this impression management(1959). I am not
merely responding to the reactions of others. I am actively trying to control how oth-
ers perceive me by changing my behavior to correspond to an ideal of what they will
find most appealing.
We change our behavior so easily and so often, without even thinking about it,
that Goffman called his theory dramaturgy.Social life is like a stage play, with our
performances changing according to the characters on stage at the moment. Every-
one tries to give the best performance possible, to convince other “characters” that
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY 73FIGURE 3.1Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self