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The Dramaturgic Self
Introduction:
Within society we are define by who we present ourselves to be. Society is full of actors.
This is a statement that stems from the information that I have gathered about the “dramaturgical
self”. It is a concept that discusses the ways we interact with one another, and the presentation of
ourselves that we manage while we are “on-stage” (Brissett & Edgley, 2005). My interest in this
concept has led me to examine the ways in which the concept of ‘dramaturgic self’ is being
defined and pursued in sociological research. Using dramaturgic self, dramaturgy, dramaturgic
analysis, and dramaturgical sociology interchangeably; I discussed five research studies that
defined dramaturgy and shaped their research based on their definition. To begin the examination
of the dramaturgic self, I must first discuss the concept of self in dramaturgical sociology.
Self within the dramaturgical perspective:
The concept of self is simultaneously social and subjective; the self exists in social life
(Charmaz, 2007). Erving Goffman (1959) observes that whenever we are in the real or imaginary
presence of others, our behavior has social meaning and a promissory character. Our actions
express ourselves and give an impression of self to others, whether favorable or not (Goffman,
1959). Goffman argues that people intend to bring about a certain impression of self. How we
approach other people derives from the nature of the shared situation. Yet they realize that we try
to make favorable impressions on others. Thus, our audience looks for cues we give off as well
as what we say. Despite intentions and staged performances, social actors give off unwitting
messages about themselves (Goffman, 1959). The dramaturgical perspective brings the occasion
of the scene and its structure into grasping the self.
Dramaturgic Self:
Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (PSEL 1959); argues that dramaturgy is
about the actor's impression management. The strong connection to dramaturgy towards his
career is caused by the organizing metaphors he used, many of them taken from the theater –

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front and back stage, script, and role. Goffman expressed how actors display order and ordering
conventions in many situations, with an eye always to ways humans adapt, interpret, read off,
and make sense of others’ behavior (Manning, 2007). This does not assume life-as-chaos, nor
does it require positing people as “puppets”, but it does assume that we (the actors) act to display
for others and to elicit a response (Manning, 2007).
In Brissett and Edgley’s book of Life as a theater (2005), they discussed a perspective on
the world and the self within it, which renders life as a theater in which a show is staged. They
discussed dramaturgic self as being on stage and argue that the self you present to the audience
while “on stage” is not the real you. The ideal of being “on-stage” and “back-stage” are concepts
that are very similar to Goffman’s “front stage/back stage”. An example giving in Life as a
Theater is of African Americans as being to some extent performers. Among themselves (off
stage / back stage) they would be relaxed they would mock the “type” of personalities they are
obliged to assume when they’re ‘on’.
They point out that under some circumstances in everyday life the actor becomes, is, or is
made aware of an actual or potential disagreement between his “real” and his “projected” selves,
between his “self” and his “character” (Brissett et al. 2005). He consciously orients himself to
narrow, sustain, or widen this discrepancy and thereby achieves a sense of “playing the role” or
“managing a character,” he is “on” in the sense intended here (Brissett et al. 2005). The actor
experiences the constraints of “dramaturgic loyalty” (Brissett, D., & Edgley, C., 2005) in order to
maintain the self-presentation he/she wishes to keep.
Going off on the presentation of self, I found a few articles that study the dramaturgical
approach of presenting one’s self. The first I will mention is a research titled “Self presentation
through appearance: a manipulative vs. a dramaturgical approach.” In this study the Tseëlon, E
(1992) focus on the meaning of self-presentation through personal appearance while contrasting
two approaches to self-presentation: an inter-actionist interpretation of the dramaturgical
metaphor as elaborated by Goffman and the impression management model advanced by certain
strands of psychological social psychology (Tseëlon, E. 1992).
He defined dramatization as the control of the style of performance, and an irrelevant to
issues of sincerity. The essence of self-presentation is that it is just as important to represent

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one’s self as possessing a certain quality as to actually possess a quality one is claiming. The
research method used was open-ended questionnaires in the research attempted to identify the
respondent’s (British women) subjective definitions of the boundaries of their self in relation to
dress and appearance.
The analysis of the responses was organized along the lines of 3 propositions- 1.
Sincerity is indicated through lack of presentational efforts in front of familiar others, 2.
Duplicity is indicated through one’s attempts to present and improved image in front of less
familiar others, 3. Conscious attention to one’s appearance (i.e. physical appearance) indicates
an intention to conceal, or to present a false image- in order to identify which of the contrasting
accounts of human self-presentation (dramaturgical or manipulative) can be supported.
Based on his definition of dramaturgy, Tseëlon pursued the research towards the way
these women saw the actual style of the other “actors” not towards their actual performance.
Meaning the way these women saw each other was the way they perceived the situation. Thus
the researcher concludes that based on the open-ended questionnaires of British women, the
overview characterized in the impression management of their ‘character’ was highlighted and
provided support for a dramaturgical interaction alternative as compared to manipulative.
Taking on a whole other approached towards the dramaturgic self; I read an interesting
research study titled “A Dramaturgical Analysis of Male Strippers” (Tewksbury, R. 1994). The
researcher approached dramaturgical sociology as defining dramaturgy as the study of managed
identities and presentations of self. This study argues that deviance and deviants can be usefully
studied using a dramaturgical approach and presents an investigation of one previously
neglected, supposedly deviant social context: all-male strip shows-- assuming that behavior is the
product of pre-determined social scripts with a goal "to describe the techniques of impression
management employed in a given establishment, the principal problems of impression
management in the establishment, and the identity and interrelationships of the several
performance teams that operate in the establishment" (Goffman, 1959).
The researcher discussed two general perspectives of dramaturgical analysts. One that
argues that the dramaturgy is merely a metaphor for social life and that the conceived interaction
are "true performances," this approach locates social life in structure, labels, rational free-will, or

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other organizing phenomena that are best understood when cast in a theater analogy (Tewksbury,
1994). The other dramaturgical proponents, holds a straight-forward view of "life as theater,"
arguing that contextually-bounded interactions are staged productions. This approach focuses on
roles and normative expectations for presentations and the restraints such roles and norms have
on actions and interactions. The researcher believes that when both perspectives are used
together that dramaturgy is most useful and thus conducts his study using both perspectives.
Tewksbury analysis focuses on the distribution of activities across interactional stages
(region dynamics), processes for defining regions and the structured, interactional constraints,
and opportunities encountered by actors in each interactional region. His analysis focuses
simultaneously on region dynamics and dancers' identity constructions.
In his research approach, he observed 5 male strippers who work at gay male strip clubs.
He became very involved in the ordeal of stripping by attending shows and rehearsals and
helping out whichever way he can. Often he assisted with pre-show preparations, helped mediate
nightclub interactions, and coordinated costuming, music, and staging. He became friends with at
least 50 strippers all who knew his role as a participant observer. He noted the front and back
stage performances of the strippers through his observations.
He defined front-stage performances as those designed and presented for consumption by
either a specified or a generalized audience and back stage as "a place, relative to a given
performance, where the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted"
(Goffman, 1959). He also described “off-stage” regions as those located physically, temporally,
and/or behaviorally separate and distinct from a given identity. Primarily, in the reality of a male
strip shows as defined by Tewksbury, the front stage is the public presentational arenas; the back
stage is the areas devoted to the preparation of front-stage performances, and off-stage is the
areas removed, both physically and substantively, from particular front stages.
He viewed the social actions of the strippers as managed identity performances varying
both in formality and in recognition of formality and contrivance, and by using layered
interpretations of actor’s and audiences’ actions, he argues that a bridge can form between the
approaches of dramaturgical analysis. He concluded that male strippers experience interactional

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regions (during and away from nightclub performances) in ways that significantly affect both
personal- actual- and public- virtual- social identities.
Correspondingly, both region dynamics and constructed identities affect the stripper’s
behavioral presentations. Subsequently, these factors affect identity. Each stage calls forth a
range of identity management processes. Tewksbury’s definition of dramaturgy as the study of
managed identities and presentations of self was vague enough to allow him to explore the two
perspectives of dramaturgy (a social metaphor and life as an actual performance or theatre
show). This, in turn, allowed him to yield that the performances of the strippers were drawn on
multiple aspects of their actual self and on varying perceived ascriptions from audience members
observing their performance or ‘show’. These factors, then, produce “a male stripper's virtual
social identity” (Tewksbury, 1994).
Tewksbury was very involved in his research about the social interactions of male
strippers to the point that he helped design and constructs costumes, recruited dancers, traveled
and even helped mediate nightclub interactions, and coordinated costuming, music, and staging.
However, the strippers knew his role, his character, as an observer. I became curious of the
impression management of those who infiltrate into a different stage, with different actors, and
manage a false character that is deliberately “made up.”
Jacobs, B.A. (1992) studied the undercover infiltration of cops as related towards
dramaturgical theory. The study is titled Drugs and Deception: Undercover Infiltration and
Dramaturgical Theory. Jacobs’ research revolved around the concept of "interaction as
infiltration," a new perspective at that time of dramaturgical theory which considers the
relationship between structural and qualitative aspects of role performances (Jacobs, 1992).
"Interaction as infiltration," is defined in the study as the process by which actors
penetrate closed groups and/or subcultures. Interactional strategies used by undercover narcotics
agents during covert drug transactions were addressed using information obtained in interviews
with 35 agents over a 3-month span. Four narcotics were examined: marijuana, Lysergic acid
diethylamide (LSD), crack cocaine, and heroin. The intensity or degree of the drugs was also
important in this study. Moving from marijuana to LSD to crack cocaine to heroin required

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increasing levels. The agents infiltrated the subcultures of drug dealers at different levels
depending on the drug.
In infiltrating, the subcultures of these four drugs, agents deploy any number of verbal
and nonverbal techniques. In everyday interaction, these techniques are used to present idealized,
fault-free images of self to audiences (Goffman, 1959). By concealing faults or the image that
the agents did not want the drug dealers to see, they inherently deceive others as to their true
nature- according to Jacobs’s analysis of the matter. Besides the idealized self, the agents can
perpetrate more manipulative deceptions and thereby gain some strategic advantage over the
drug dealers.
The concept of infiltration as a perspective of dramaturgy allowed Jacobs to expand on
the undercover work narcotic agents do as an example of understanding the way we navigate
between different “stages” or “acts” in order to manipulate others. In Haas, J et al. (1982)
research titled “Taking on the role of doctor: a dramaturgical analysis of professionalization”, the
researchers discussed the ways we navigate through different scripts until we reach the ideal role,
i.e. physician. Hass, J et al. (1982) elaborate on the dramaturgical sociology as a given the idea
that conduct can be viewed as a performance in which a script has to be enacted in such a way as
to make the performance of a role credible to an audience.
Professionalization is also discusses as a type of activity in which managing impressions
and role playing are basics and, therefore, one which the theatricality of social interaction is
especially clear (Hass, J et al. 1982). The professors elaborate that a dramaturgical analysis of
professionalization ‘reveals a symbolic-ideological and interactional hidden curriculum that
requires newcomers and profession to develop a protective shell in order to maintain control of
professional roles, relationships and identities’.
Their research traced the professionalization of a group of medical students using
theatrical parallels to show how critically professionalism involves performance. They expressed
that the high drama is played out before an audience of peers, patients, and hospital and
university staff members. It was interesting to read about their discussions on the scripts that
medical students go through as they become professionals. To name a few, they discussed the
“audition” as admission to medical school; costumes, props, and vocabulary the symbols of

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professionalism as attending medical school and doing clinical runs; stage fright as the anxieties
in learning the medical culture during clinical runs; and memorizing the lines: preparing for the
licensing examination.
The researchers are convinced that their analysis of the process of professionalization
supports the ideal of life is theater “and all the men and women are merely players.” The
concluded that professional behavior, like acting, involves establishing proper relationship with
audiences; and that the control and manipulation of settings, props, costume, script and dialogue
is crucial to the professional’s communication of his proper enactment of the role he has taken
on. Thus, concluding that professionalization can be fruitfully analyzed as a progression in which
the newcomers are forced to give an even more convincing and correct performance in a role that
has a specific honor or high status. (Hass, J et al. 1982)
Conclusion:
Although these research studies are not as current, they are all very interesting and
provide different perspectives of the dramaturgical self along as redefining it. I have learned a
great deal by reading and studying how the researchers have used their definitions in pursuing
their research questions.
References:
Brissett, D., & Edgley, C. (Eds.). (2005). Life as theater: A dramaturgical sourcebook.
Transaction Books.
Charmaz, Kathy. "Self." Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Ritzer, George (ed). Blackwell
Publishing, 2007. Blackwell Reference Online. 02 November 2013
http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g978
140512433125_ss1-68
Goffman, E. (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor, Garden City, NY.
Haas, J., & Shaffir, W. (1982). Taking on the role of doctor: A dramaturgical analysis of
professionalization. Symbolic Interaction, 5(2), 187-203.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/si.1982.5.2.187

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Jacobs, B. A. (1992). Drugs and deception: Undercover inflitration and dramaturgical theory.
Human Relations, 45(12), 1293. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/231416419?accountid=14585
Manning, Peter Kirby. "Dramaturgy." Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Ritzer, George (ed).
Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Blackwell Reference Online. 02 November 2013
http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g978
140512433110_ss2-43
Tewksbury, R. (1994). A dramaturgical analysis of male strippers. Journal of Men's Studies,
2(4), 325. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/222611113?accountid=14585
Tseëlon, E. (1992). Self presentation through appearance: a manipulative vs. a dramaturgical
approach. Symbolic Interaction, 15(4), 501-514.