Discussion questions for next week’s (this week for the online class) lecture on interaction (for the online class, post your comments to our discussion board this week):

How can understanding the social structure, the social positions, and the social roles that are relevant to an interaction help us to understand the behavior of individuals? Do you have any examples?

Do people put on performances in everyday interaction? In what ways? Give examples.

Do you think that style is important in conveying validity? That is, do you think that people with better style are more believable? Do you have any examples of this?

According to Goffman, we can have a cynical or sincere attitude toward our own performance. Are people that are cynical (in Goffman’s sense of the word) bad people? Why? Give examples from your own observations.

Have you yourself manipulated your own emotions? Have you seen other people manipulate their emotions? Again, Hochschild argues that there are legitimate reasons for doing this.