"Knowing that his audiences are capable of forming bad impressions of him, the individual may come to feel ashamed of a well-intentioned honest act merely because the context of its performance provides false impressions that are bad. Feeling this unwarranted shame, he may feel that his feelings can be seen; feeling that he is thus seen, he may feel that his appearance confirms these false conclusions concerning him. He may then add to the precariousness of his position by engaging in just those defensive maneuvers that he would employ were he really guilty. In this way it is possible for all of us to become fleetingly for ourselves the worst person we can imagine that others might imagine us to be."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 236
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Erving Goffman
1922 – 1982
kanadisch-US-amerikanischer Soziologe
35 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Erving Goffman →
Related Quotes
"Approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint…"
"I mean this report to serve as a sort of handbook detailing one sociological perspective from which social life can b…"
"Society is organized on the principle that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral ri…"
"In many kinds of social interaction, unofficial communication provides a way in which one team can extend a definite …"
"In our society, defecation involves an individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with the cleanliness a…"
"Often, when two teams enter social interaction, we can identify one as having the lower general prestige and the othe…"
"In recent years there have been elaborate attempts to bring into one framework the concepts and findings derived from…"
"When an individual appears before others, he wittingly and unwittingly projects a definition of the situation, of whi…"
"The self... is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, to…"
"The degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experi…"