Sociology Chapter Five NotesStudying daily life teaches us:- About ourselves as social beings and social life- How humans act creatively through social interaction to shape reality- Social interaction- the process by which we act and react to those around us- Irving Goffman’s concept of civil inattention- Civil inattention- the process whereby individuals in the same physical setting demonstrate to one another that they are aware of each other’s presence- About large scale social systems and institutionsNonverbal Communication- Face, gestures, and emotions in face-to-face interactions- Facial expressions of emotions are partially innate- Body gestures or postures are cultural- Use of emoticons in email- Telephone communication can be difficult because nonverbal communication is absentErving Goffman- Social interaction is like living life on a stage- Roles of an actor social roles- Status and social position- Impression management- preparing for your performance- Being aware of our performance depends on the situation- Individuals are fragile and vulnerable- We are always trying to avoid embarrassment- Unfocused interaction- no direct communication- Focused interaction- direct conversations- Encounters- incidence of focused interaction- Audience segregation- Front stage- where we perform for others, play our role, response cries EX oops!- Back stage- areas that are separate from the front stage- This is where we go to relax- “be ourselves”- Performance depends on contextHarold Garfinkel- Ethnomethodolgy- Study of how people make sense of what others say and do in the course of daily social interaction- Interactional vandalism- When a person of lower status breaks the rules of every day social interaction that are of value to the more powerful- Personal space- Intimate up to 1.5 feet- Personal-1.4 to 4 feet- Social-4 to 12 feet- Public-12+ feet- Time-space dimension of social interaction- Regionalization- Division of social life into different regional settings or zones- Think of your house or how you interact with friends- Clock time- Copresence- We desire face to face interaction- Compulsion of proximity- Why do we feel the need to interact in person?Gender and Verbal Communication- Also nonverbal communication- Women and men in public- Blacks and whites in public are different
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