Emersonian Private Behavior in Goffman’s Analysis
When Erving Goffman wrote The Presentation of Self in 1956, his intention was to help people learn techniques that would help them sustain favorable impressions communicated to others in any social situation, including contingencies that he believed common enough to apply to many people (15). Little did he know perhaps that decades later, his theories will continue to hold interest in the field of sociology. In fact, as early as 1970, Joan Emerson wrote her own expanded exploration of the Goffmanian theories in her classic article “Behavior in Private Places”. In the following ...