Data Workshop Assignment

"ANALYZING EVERYDAY LIFE: Impression Management in Action”

Due Wed., October 5^th

This research assignment asks you to complete the "ANALYZING EVERYDAY LIFE: Impression Management in Action” Data Workshop featured in Chapter 5 of the textbook. This assignment is due at the beginning of class on Wed., October 5^th. No late papers will be accepted. The assignment is worth 25 points.

Here are some additional guidelines to help with completing the assignment:

• This assignment is from ideas in chapter 5: The Self and Interaction.

• Please follow carefully the instructions below. You should address all of the questions and prompts, and any other instructions that apply.

• Make sure that you have sufficient data and have completed the first-hand research required.

• Papers must be typed.

• Papers must be stapled. I will deduct 2 points for unstapled papers.

• The questions below should be answered thoroughly. Points will be deducted if you do not expand on your answers. I would say each bullet point should be answered in at least 5-7 complete sentences.

This exercise in ethnography is designed to help make your own impression management visible – and to help you see how integral it is to your everyday life. You will observe yourself acting and interacting in two different social situations and will then do a comparative analysis of your presentation of self in each setting. Observing one’s own behavior is a variant of the ethnographic method you read about in Chapter 3 known as autoethnography.

Step 1: Observation

Choose two different situations that you will encounter this week in everyday life, and commit to observing yourself for 30 minutes as you participate in each. For example, you may observe yourself at work, at a family birthday celebration, at lunch with friends, in your math class, riding on the bus or train, or watching a softball game. The two situations you choose don’t need to be extraordinary, in any way; in fact, the more mundane, the better. But they should be different from one another.

Step 2: Analysis

After observing yourself in the two situations, answer the following questions.

· What type of “front” do you encounter when you enter each situation?

· How does the “region” or setting (location, scenery, and props) affect your presentation of self there?

· Can you identify “backstage” and “frontstage” regions for each situation? Which of your activities are preparation and which are performance?

· What type of “personal front” (appearance, manner, dress) do you bring to each situation?

· How are your facial expressions, body language, and so forth (“expressions given off”) different in each situation?

· What kinds of things do you say (“expressions given”) in each situation?

· How do you modify what you do and say in each situation? Are there things you say or do in one that would be inappropriate, strange, or even absurd in another?

· Who are you in each situation? Do you present a slightly different version of yourself in each? Why?