Social Interaction

Civil inattention: Erving Goffman created the concept of “Civil Inattention”. When passers-
by quickly glance at one another and look away again, they demonstrate civil inattention. We
require various types of civil inattention in many situations of our daily life. Civil inattention is
not the same as ignoring another person. Each individual indicates recognition of the other
person‟s presence, but avoids any gestures that might be too intrusive. When we are
communicating with or walking among total strangers, civil inattention is even more important.
When civil inattention occurs among passing strangers, an individual implies to another person
that she has no reason to suspect his intentions, be hostile to him or in any other way specifically
avoid him.

Image: A Public Bus is the Best Place to Practice Civil Inattention

The best way to see the importance of civil inattention is by thinking of examples where it does
not apply. When a person stares fixedly at another, allowing her face openly to express a
particular emotion, it is normally with a family member or a close friend. Strangers or chance
acquaintances, whether encountered on the street, at work or at a party, virtually never hold the
gaze of another in this way. To do so may be taken as an indication of hostile intent; for
example, racists have been known to give a hate-stare to passers-by from other ethnic groups.

Why Should We Study Daily Life?

It may seem to you that studying trivial or small aspects of daily life is totally meaningless or a
plain waste of time but it is of utmost significance. In fact, the study of such apparently
insignificant forms of social interaction is of major importance in sociology. Moreover, studying
daily life is one of the most absorbing of all areas of sociological investigation. there are three
reasons for this –
Image: “Cutting Cha” – a special form of tea which is sold in a glass, can tell us a lot about economic, social and political aspects of a society.

First, if we study our daily routines or activities, we can learn a great deal about ourselves as
social beings and about social life itself. Our lives are organized around the repetition of similar
patterns of behaviour from day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year. If you
want to learn a new skill, you have to incorporate practicing time for that in your daily routine. If
you want to change your habits, you have to change your daily routine. And remember that even
the most unruly and indisciplined person have a structured daily routine – he or she just doesn‟t
know it!

Second, the study of everyday life reaveals to us how human beings can act creatively to shape
reality. Although social behaviour is guided to some extent by forces such as roles, norms and
shared expetations; individuals perceive reality differently according to their backgrounds,
interests and motivations. Because individuals are capable of creative actions, they continuously
shape reality through the decisions and actions they take. In other words, reality is not fixed or
static; it is created through human interactions.

Third, studying social interaction in everyday life sheds light on larger social systems and
institutions. All large scale social systems, in fact, depend on the patterns of social interaction
that we engage in daily. This is easy to demonstrate. Remember how you behave with the most
powerful and reach people of your area. And now remember how you behave with the poorest
people of your area. Compare your two behaviours and you will understand how social status is
reflected in your everyday interaction with people.

Non-verbal Communication: Social interaction requires numerous forms of non-verbal

communication – the exchange of information and meaning through facial expressions, gestures
and movements of the body. Non-verbal communication is sometimes referred to as „body
language‟, but this is misleading, because we characteristicvally use such non-verbal cues to
eliminate or expand on what is said with words.
The Social Rules of Interaction: Our everyday interactions in social life are induced with
rules we follow consciously or subconsciously. We can call these rules “Social Rules of
Interaction”. Below we will discuss some concepts which will help us to understand how we
carry out or social interactions in daily life.

Ethnomethodology: Ethonomethodology is the study of the „ethnomethods‟ – the „folk, or

lay, methods – people use to make sense of what others do, and particularly of what they say.
The term ethnomethodology was coined by Harold Grafinkel. We all apply ethnomethodology in
our daily life – subconciously. Often we can only understand what is really being said in a
converstation if we put it in a proper context. Follow this example –

Abul: I have a 14 years old son.

Badal: Well, that‟s all right.

Abul: I also have a dog.

Badal: Oh, I am sorry!

Can you understand what they are saying? No. Probably not. But if I say that these are the
dialogues between a potential tenant and a landlord, then these dialogues would seem very
logical and sensible to you. That is how we use ethnomethodology. We place words and
sentences in proper context and we perceive the meanings of those words and sentences.

Shared Understandings: The most inconsequential forms of daily talk assume complicated,
shared knowledge brought into play by those speaking. In fact, our small talk is so complex that
it has so far proved impossible to program even the most sophisticated computers to converse
convincingly with human beings for very long. The words used in ordinary talk do not always
have precise meanings, and we 'fix' what we want to say through the unstated assumptions that
back it up.

Sometimes you ask a normal question like “how are you” and you expect the person whom you
are asking the question will say “I am fine, how about you”. But if the person states that “I am
very sad” and then starts stating why he is sad in a very descriptive and detailed way, you will
certaily feel uncomfortable. Why? Because it is a shared understanding in our society that we
will ask about well-being while meeting with an acquaintance for the first time in a day. And the
expected answer in this case is simple and postive in nature. If that shared understanding is not
followed by a person, we start to feel uncomfortable.

Interactional Vandalism: The term interactional vandalism describes a situation where a

subordinate person breaks the tacit rules of everyday interaction that are of value to the more
powerfuL The men on the street often conform to everyday forms of speech in their interactions
with one another, local shopkeepers, the police, relatives and acquaintances. But when they
choose to, they subvert the tacit conventions for everyday talk in a way that leaves passers-by
disoriented. Even more than physicalassaults or vulgar verbal abuse, interac-tional vandalism
leaves victims unable to articulate what has happened.

This study of interactional vandalism provides another example of the two-way links between
micro-level interactions and forces that operate on the macro- level. To the men on the street, the
white women who ignore their attempts at conversation appear distant, cold and bereft of
sympathy - legitimate 'targets' for such interactions. The women, meanwhile, may often take the
men's behaviour as proof that they are indeed dangerous and best avoided. Interactional
vandalism is closely tied up with overarching class, gender and racial structures. The fear and
anxiety generated in such mundane interactions help to constitute the outside statuses and forces
that, in turn, influence the interactions themselves. Interactional vandalism is part of a self-
reinforcing system of mutual suspicion and incivility.

Unfocused Interaction: Unfocused interaction takes place whenever individuals exhibit

mutual awareness of one another's presence. This is usually the case anywhere that large
numbers of people are assembled together, as on a busy street, in a theatre crowd or at a party.
When people are in the presence of others, even if they do not directly talk to them, they
continually communicate non-verbally through their posture and facial and physical gestures.

Focused Interaction or Encounter: Focused interaction occurs when individuals directly

attend to what others say or do. Social interaction will often involve both focused and unfocused
exchanges. An instance of focused interaction is an encounter, and much of our day-to-day life
consists of encounters with other people - family, friends, and colleagues – frequently occurring
against the background of unfocused interaction with others present on the scene. Small talk,
seminar discussions, games and routine face-to-face contacts (with ticket attendants, waiters,
shop assistants and so forth) are all examples of encounters.

Impression Management: Goffman and other writers on social interaction often use
notions from the theatre in their analyses. The concept of social role originated in a theatrical
setting. Roles are socially defined expectations that a person in a given status, or social position,
follows. To be a teacher is to hold a specific position; the teacher's role consists of acting in
specified ways towards her pupils. Goffman sees social life as though played out by actors on a
stage – or on many stages, because how we act depends on the roles we are playing at a
particular time. People are sensitive to how they are seen by others and use many forms of
impression management to compel others to react to them in the ways they wish.

Although we may sometimes do this in a calculated way, usually it is among the things we do
without conscious attention. When Philip attends a business meeting, he wears a suit and tie and
is on his best behaviour; that evening, when relaxing with friends at a football game, he wears
jeans and a sweatshirt and tells a lot of jokes. This is impression management.
Social Status: The social roles that we adopt are highly dependent on our social status. A
person's social status can be different depending on the social context. For instance, as a 'student',
you have a certain status and are expected to act in a certain way when you are around your
professors. As a 'son or daughter', you have a different status from a student, and society
(especially your parents) has different expectations for you. Likewise, as a 'friend ', you have an
entirely different position in the social order, and the roles you adopt would change accordingly.
Obviously, a person has many statuses at the same time. Sociologists refer to the group of
statuses that you occupy as a “status set”.

Ascribed Status: Ascribed status is a status that is assigned based on biological factors such
as race, sex or age. Thus, your ascribed statuses could be 'white', 'female' and 'teenager'.

Achieved Status: Achieved status is earned through an individual's own effort. Your
achieved statuses could be 'graduate', 'athlete' or 'employee'. While we may like to believe that it
is our achieved statuses that are most important, society may not agree.

Master Status: In any society, some statuses have priority over all other statuses and
generally determine a person's overall position in society. Sociologists refer to this as a master
status. The most common master statuses are those based on gender and race. Sociologists have
shown that in an encounter, one of the first things that people notice about one another is gender
and race.