Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradioy.
Speaker 2: And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and we're putting on our best
Speaker 2: faces in this episode of Stuff you.
Speaker 1: Should Know right our front stage self.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and speaking of stage check, I have a great
Speaker 2: intro to this. I believe it was Rush who first
Speaker 2: said all the world's is stage, and the men and
Speaker 2: women on it are merely players or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, performers and portrayers. Yeah, each another's audience.
Speaker 2: Is that what he says? I never knew, and I've
Speaker 2: never bothered to look up the lyrics because there's definitely
Speaker 2: some words in there. I'm like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: Geddy Leek just said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that's right.
Speaker 2: It's a great, great song, Limelight, very well written, what
Speaker 2: very original stuff. Yeah, so we're talking about impression management today, right, Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: And what do you think about it?
Speaker 1: Well? I think that I just the more I've done
Speaker 1: this show over the years, the more I realized that
Speaker 1: I could have been a sociologist. Oh yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: this stuff fascinates me to no end. I took one
Speaker 1: sociology class in college, and that's it. And I remember
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, when very little outside of
Speaker 1: English major classes interested me. I was like, man, this
Speaker 1: is super interesting to me, but not enough to pursue it.
Speaker 1: But human behaviors is endlessly fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things, sociology gets beat up
Speaker 2: and edged out and elbowed in the face by psychology
Speaker 2: a lot unfairly, I think too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not talking about social psychology, no, be clear, sociology.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if sociology started out, we should say basically
Speaker 2: examining massive institutions. It was macro sociology religion, like economics, politics,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and just how people behaved and
Speaker 2: interacted or how people came together to form these institutions.
Speaker 2: And then the guy we're going to talk about today
Speaker 2: came along and he's like, let's kind of zoom in
Speaker 2: a little more. And like you were saying, he kicked
Speaker 2: off this this type of sociology that examines like people,
Speaker 2: just interactions, very small interactions that sometimes we don't even
Speaker 2: know what we're doing. And apparently you're very interested in that.
Speaker 1: I am, And you know what, it seems like the
Speaker 1: more I've learned about Irving Goffman through today's research, and
Speaker 1: you know, researching him a little further. Like he's a
Speaker 1: Canadian American sociologist, and this is like the mid twentieth century,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties ish when he started doing a lot of
Speaker 1: this work. He seems to me like someone who was
Speaker 1: just fascinated by human behavior, even more even in a
Speaker 1: way that like other sociologists weren't, especially at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, he yeah, And he also I read
Speaker 2: that he developed like a real sympathy for the people
Speaker 2: who were pushed to the fringes of society unfairly, basically
Speaker 2: across the board. So he was not only like a
Speaker 2: really good sociologist and very intuitive, and apparently had a
Speaker 2: really interesting writing style too. He loves a good like
Speaker 2: turn of phrase. He was also like a very empathetic,
Speaker 2: good person. That's what I can tell.
Speaker 1: Oh, man, I'm so glad I didn't hook my wagon do.
Speaker 2: The wrong dude, right, But no, you hooked his to
Speaker 2: the right guy.
Speaker 1: And when it's somebody from the nineteen fifties, you never
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen there. We should probably say
Speaker 1: we're talking about though, impression management or self presentation or
Speaker 1: perception management is basically these are terms that he all
Speaker 1: came up. He came up with all of these essentially,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just how you present to others. And
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of it.
Speaker 1: But how much you might think about that, how much
Speaker 1: is automatic, how much is intuition, how much of it
Speaker 1: is authenticity. It's super fascinating to me. I just I
Speaker 1: love this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of it. I mean, when we
Speaker 2: start talking about it too, it'll just seem very common sense, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course you're going to you know, mind your p's
Speaker 2: and cues and sit up straight and be friendly in
Speaker 2: a job interview. And that is a type of impression management.
Speaker 2: But it is way more granular than that, to the
Speaker 2: point where like, if you're into language linguistics that kind
Speaker 2: of thing, the entire purpose of a conversation is to
Speaker 2: exchange information like I know this now I'm sharing it
Speaker 2: with you. The other person says, thank you very much,
Speaker 2: And that's what a conversations for as far as impression
Speaker 2: management goes. And Irvin Goffman and his Milk conversations are
Speaker 2: essentially performances that two people share and do for one another.
Speaker 2: That helps create a version of ourselves that we kind
Speaker 2: of walk around with, and that that changes. And there's
Speaker 2: very little point to a conversation other than that it's
Speaker 2: a radically different view of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think it's interesting, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is all just precursor stuff that we're babbling on about.
Speaker 1: But when you said it just seems like instinct or whatever,
Speaker 1: would you say, common sense to do these things? Not everybody,
Speaker 1: my friend, And that is something that I've gotten better
Speaker 1: about over the years. It used to be something that
Speaker 1: really bothered me, and I would you know, leave an
Speaker 1: interaction with somebody or something and with Emily and be
Speaker 1: like god, like just social cluelessness is such a turn
Speaker 1: off for me, like read the room, buddy, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But then the more I've gotten older and
Speaker 1: the more we've all learned about different neurodiversities, I've definitely
Speaker 1: found myself in a place where i'd try to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this person's deal is, Like they
Speaker 1: may be struggling just to present themselves as you know,
Speaker 1: passing or masking, and you know, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about all this stuff in a situation just to sort
Speaker 1: of get by. So I try to really keep that
Speaker 1: stuff in mind these days.
Speaker 2: For sure. And I feel like there's different tranches. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's the one you just describe. There's people who this
Speaker 2: is so effortless too, they don't even have to think
Speaker 2: about it, and they're just great basically across the board.
Speaker 2: Then there's everybody else in the middle. Some people in
Speaker 2: the middle are better at it than others. Some people
Speaker 2: think too hard about it and they become obvious and
Speaker 2: clumsy and essentially though no one can escape it, I
Speaker 2: think is my point. There's nobody out there who doesn't
Speaker 2: engage in some sort of impression management essentially their entire lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and neurodiversity society again, which we'll talk about. There
Speaker 1: are also people who aren't neurodiversity who were just glueless
Speaker 1: a holes. And I have found too in my life
Speaker 1: that I believe narcissism plays a part. I think narcissists
Speaker 1: have a much harder time because they're generally just have
Speaker 1: their heads up, their own buttson or so about the
Speaker 1: self that they are off. And the ones that I found,
Speaker 1: if they don't have some sort of you know, nerdivergence.
Speaker 1: That's the reason why they are like they are, maybe
Speaker 1: because of narcissism, because you know, usually the reply after
Speaker 1: someone is like read the room, buddy, they're like, what.
Speaker 2: What, I'm perfect, what do you mean read the room?
Speaker 2: You read the room exactly. So let's get into it
Speaker 2: and we'll start with Goffman and where he got his
Speaker 2: start again, this is Irving Goffman, groundbreaking sociologist. He started
Speaker 2: off doing field work in a Scottish village and rather
Speaker 2: than figuring out how the city council worked for that
Speaker 2: or the village elders basically kept everybody in line, he
Speaker 2: just ameshed himself in the village and just paid attention
Speaker 2: to how people interacted with one another. And really like,
Speaker 2: that's a very anthropological way of studying. Is very not
Speaker 2: how they did it at the time among sociologists. So
Speaker 2: here's groundbreaking. He essentially went like, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: this field and just put it, take it in a
Speaker 2: different direction. So let's go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. He wrote a book in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: six called The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. What
Speaker 1: a great title, No Colon's it's exactly what it says.
Speaker 1: It is a very big book in the world of sociology,
Speaker 1: and the International Sociological Association named it as a tenth
Speaker 1: most important sociology book of the twentieth century. And in
Speaker 1: this book is where he touched on what you talked
Speaker 1: about with this sort of performance aspect of our everyday
Speaker 1: lives with He didn't invent it, you know, it was
Speaker 1: an existing concept, but dramaturgical theory, which is what you said,
Speaker 1: like we're all sort of operating on a social script,
Speaker 1: sort of like the terminator, Like it's pretty limited. You
Speaker 1: don't have endless options, like maybe you should say one
Speaker 1: of these four things at this dinner party when someone
Speaker 1: brings up a thing. And even if it's a brand
Speaker 1: news situation, you're drawing on the scripts that you've used
Speaker 1: over and over in your life to work out how
Speaker 1: to inner act in the scene.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, And it's also, yeah, it's been shaped by
Speaker 2: interactions with other people. It's shaped by what you've seen
Speaker 2: on TV, which can be very dangerous because stuff that's
Speaker 2: like hilarious on a sitcom does not necessarily translate well
Speaker 2: into real life. It's like you're being a huge jerk
Speaker 2: or you're not really that funny. You know, in the
Speaker 2: case of somebody who models themselves after friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, pull my finger doesn't always break the ice.
Speaker 2: No, pull my finger always works. Okay, great, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so what his point was in the dramaturgical theory, And
Speaker 2: like you said, he didn't invent it, but if you
Speaker 2: if you look into it, he's basically like he's the
Speaker 2: guy who took it and ran with it. Yeah, no
Speaker 2: matter where you are, you're performing, and depending on where
Speaker 2: you are you're going, your performance is going to be different. Right,
Speaker 2: So if you're sitting there at school, you're gonna act
Speaker 2: different than you do at a bar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, sure, ideally, yeah, you wo hope for sure.
Speaker 2: And then if you're at work, you know you're going
Speaker 2: to act a little different from that too. And it's
Speaker 2: essentially even when you're hanging out with your closest friends,
Speaker 2: sociologists believe that you're still performing in some way, shape
Speaker 2: or form, just probably less than you normally do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some think even when you're by yourself that
Speaker 1: that still informs how you talk to your little person
Speaker 1: on your shoulder, right, which is really interesting. He talked
Speaker 1: about appearance and like clothing even and how they will convey.
Speaker 1: And when we say actor, we're just talking about a person,
Speaker 1: but in his context of it all being a performance,
Speaker 1: he'd called them actors. But you know, your your costume
Speaker 1: that you put on is going to convey like maybe
Speaker 1: your social status, maybe what kind of job you have.
Speaker 1: There's you know, there's that outward appearance, and then there's
Speaker 1: the manner in which you deal with someone. And obeying
Speaker 1: the sort of societal rules in a social situation is
Speaker 1: a big time thing. And if you start to do
Speaker 1: things that don't comply with what people generally expect in
Speaker 1: you know, at a dinner party or on an elevator
Speaker 1: or something like that, it can upset people around you.
Speaker 1: I think the interesting thing that I took from that is,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of common sense, but when you're writing,
Speaker 1: like a screenplay or something like dramatic writing or a play,
Speaker 1: the most interesting characters are usually people that do things
Speaker 1: that surprise you, or that fly in the face of
Speaker 1: maybe a social norm, or make a decision that's unexpected.
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting that in drama it makes
Speaker 1: for very compelling characters, but in real life we kind
Speaker 1: of don't want that generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Manic Pixie dream Girl.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know what you mean by that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know what that term means, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how it relates to this.
Speaker 2: Oh they're always doing like crazy stuff that like makes
Speaker 2: the protagon or fall in love with them or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha. So in terms of a script,
Speaker 1: that might be engaging even within the world of the script,
Speaker 1: whereas in real life, I don't know, a man at
Speaker 1: Pixie dream Girl might go over, but the person saying
Speaker 1: pull my finger the dinner party may not.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny that you say drama too, because to me,
Speaker 2: where in my mind was comedy, Like almost all comedy
Speaker 2: is a person behaving in a way that is violates
Speaker 2: the situation that they're in, violates the scene and the
Speaker 2: script that they're supposed to be saying. That's all from
Speaker 2: Adam Sandler to late Adam Sandler, right, it's all basically that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the basis of joke telling. Really
Speaker 1: is the unexpected thing happens super interesting.
Speaker 2: And then one other thing too. He made a really
Speaker 2: good point. He said that the characters or the people
Speaker 2: who are interacting and again just essentially performing that they're
Speaker 2: trying to come to a common definition of the situation
Speaker 2: is what he called it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that expected norm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so like if you see, say, a scene
Speaker 2: on TV, it's just such a perfect analogy because that's
Speaker 2: essentially what he's talking about. And there's just one dude
Speaker 2: standing at a bus stop and it's a businessman. Say
Speaker 2: that scene is in a superposition. It hasn't been defined
Speaker 2: yet because there's only one person, and by the entrance
Speaker 2: of the next person, that's when the scene will start
Speaker 2: to be defined. If it's that guy's boss, he's gonna
Speaker 2: act totally different than if it's a pickpocket or something
Speaker 2: like that. So the scene hasn't been defined yet. But
Speaker 2: regardless of how it ends up, like what scene it is,
Speaker 2: both are playing their role essentially that we just innately
Speaker 2: know almost not innately because it's learned, but it becomes
Speaker 2: just second nature for most people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. He also thought that, you know, there's
Speaker 1: obviously verbal and nonverbal parts to this, with body language
Speaker 1: and how you dress and all that stuff. But Goffman
Speaker 1: himself thought that the non verbal part did I say
Speaker 1: non purple?
Speaker 2: If you did? It was lost on me. But I
Speaker 2: like non purple more Okay.
Speaker 1: I think I might have said non purple anyway, which
Speaker 1: is basically every other color but purple. Yeah. He thought
Speaker 1: the non verbal part was the most significant because it's
Speaker 1: harder to fake, which I think is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: And that also, like, while you're performing quote unquote again,
Speaker 1: do we need to keep saying that, like people know
Speaker 1: what you mean?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean we could just say interacting with
Speaker 2: another person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, while you're interacting as the actor, right, you may
Speaker 1: be aware that you have like a goal in mind,
Speaker 1: like I got a you know, I met this thing,
Speaker 1: I got a present really well, or you may not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you may not have a goal. It may be,
Speaker 2: as we'll see, you're just trying to keep from freaking
Speaker 2: the other person out, you know, like you're not trying
Speaker 2: to get anywhere. You're not trying to advance or get
Speaker 2: something from the person or make somebody think that you're great,
Speaker 2: but just being engaged, forced into a social interaction like
Speaker 2: that you have to perform a certain way or else
Speaker 2: the other person is going to be weirded out, is
Speaker 2: going to want to get away from you. Sometimes people
Speaker 2: get really upset when somebody violates norms. And I think
Speaker 2: you can, really you can. This explains it a lot,
Speaker 2: because it's like someone is expecting somebody to behave in
Speaker 2: a certain way. That person purposefully doesn't behave in that way.
Speaker 2: Then the people around them might get angry at that person,
Speaker 2: even though they might just be being themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or get scared. Like you know, when you get
Speaker 1: on an elevator by yourself and there's only one person
Speaker 1: on there, you act in a certain way as an
Speaker 1: almost way to say you're safe right now. You don't
Speaker 1: need to worry about me. I'm just going to my room.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not that guy that's going to
Speaker 1: be some weirdo on the elevator. I promise you're okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even like try to strike up a conversation
Speaker 2: like that that's unnerving and disarming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think definitely not as much for
Speaker 1: me as for some people. Because I was raised in
Speaker 1: the South, I'm more used to that. And definitely also
Speaker 1: in an enclosed space like an elevator, the norms are
Speaker 1: much different than like walking down the street or something.
Speaker 1: For sure, you know you're trapped basically in that little.
Speaker 2: Box, right, Yeah, you have a captive audience.
Speaker 1: And now I'm panicking.
Speaker 2: So, just to kind of wrap up the whole dramaturgical
Speaker 2: theory part, Goffman said, we have our front stage selves,
Speaker 2: which I think you referred to earlier.
Speaker 1: Right, that's us right now, and that's what we do
Speaker 1: on our job every day.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, but I feel like we're not that much
Speaker 2: different in real life. No.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons this show works, I think, and why a lot
Speaker 1: of podcasts work is because people are their more true selves.
Speaker 1: But it's also sort of the best version of our
Speaker 1: true selves, Like we're not the jerks that we can
Speaker 1: be in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a really great point that we'll see later. Like,
Speaker 2: just because you're doing this doesn't mean you're a phony
Speaker 2: or inauthentic. You're just drawing on the parts of yourself
Speaker 2: that are already there that apply to the situation best
Speaker 2: in presenting those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And I said we I meant me you're
Speaker 1: not a jerk. And so I'm just speaking for myself.
Speaker 2: Hey man, I'm always happy to be included with you.
Speaker 2: I'm along for the ride.
Speaker 1: Well, everybody compete like that here and there. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm saying, right right, I know what you're saying. You
Speaker 1: don't have to explain it to me, all right, I
Speaker 1: was explaining to everyone else. Didn't think I was just
Speaker 1: dragging you down with me.
Speaker 2: So you've got front stage selves. This is when you're
Speaker 2: you're on stage, you're really out there. There's backstage when
Speaker 2: you're hanging with your homies. Yeah, homeboys, homegirls, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: and just general homies, maybe your family. If you get
Speaker 2: along with your family, and you might feel comfortable and
Speaker 2: calm around them, So that would be your backstage self.
Speaker 2: But note this, he's not saying front stage self, and
Speaker 2: then yourself, it's still a backstage self. You're still attached
Speaker 2: to the stage. You're still in the theater. Yeah, even
Speaker 2: when you're hanging out with your homies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. And then there's the off stage, and
Speaker 1: that's when it's just one on one this is the best,
Speaker 1: and that's still a kind of performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This example is just so it just nails it.
Speaker 2: When you're a teacher and you see your student at
Speaker 2: the grocery store, yeah, see him, ir L, that's like
Speaker 2: that's just such a jarring thing to see as a kid.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I think it's thrilling, it's exciting because they
Speaker 1: don't exist outside of that role.
Speaker 2: No exactly. So now you see them and they're not
Speaker 2: dressed like they normally are. Oh, they're friendly to your
Speaker 2: mom or something like that. There, and then they're buying
Speaker 2: olives too, and they look like they're really into the
Speaker 2: figuring out which all ofs they want, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just for the kid. For the teacher, you still
Speaker 2: have to comport yourself in a way that's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to just start cussing in front of
Speaker 2: the student and just talk like I might normally talk.
Speaker 2: I still have to pretend or act like I do
Speaker 2: when I'm this kid's teacher. But that's still it's like
Speaker 2: a it's it doesn't necessarily fit the grocery store stage,
Speaker 2: so that teachers in a really weird position, right then, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be off stage interactions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: I love that. One time for a break, Yes, all.
Speaker 1: Right, we're just getting cooking, everybody, So come back more
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about yourself, right for.
Speaker 2: This learning stuff from Josh Chimes stuff you shun all right.
Speaker 1: So one of the keys to Goffman's theory is how
Speaker 1: important it is to avoid being embarrassed or embarrassing others.
Speaker 1: He talked about face work like saving face or losing face,
Speaker 1: not wanting to be embarrassed, but also he wrote about
Speaker 1: just the your facial expressions, especially in intern of how
Speaker 1: you disagree with somebody, even if you say the words
Speaker 1: that you think are the right way to disagree with someone,
Speaker 1: but your face as WTF like that conveys a confusing message.
Speaker 1: So even the facial expressions you make have to be considered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that speech plus nonverbal that equals your performance, right, Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: It's funny to see people who are trying to say
Speaker 2: something but their facial expression just something matchup.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's a problem I've had to work
Speaker 1: on in my own marriage with not being the best communicator,
Speaker 1: which you know, which is Emily being like, well, you're
Speaker 1: saying one thing, but that's not what I'm getting.
Speaker 2: I'm right. Ah, yeah, No, I don't want to play
Speaker 2: red dead redemption.
Speaker 1: That's always true the opposite, that is right.
Speaker 2: So the other point of that, in addition to that
Speaker 2: nonverbal use of face, you said, also you're trying to
Speaker 2: help people save face, right, So I said earlier that
Speaker 2: you might be forced into a social to act in
Speaker 2: a social situation a certain way just because you don't
Speaker 2: want to freak out your friend's mom who you saw
Speaker 2: at the mall by acting bizarrely or you know, in
Speaker 2: a different way than you should. Similarly, if your friend's
Speaker 2: mom at the mall falls like slips and falls in
Speaker 2: the middle of the mall and is embarrassed, you are
Speaker 2: going to do something that your performance calls for you
Speaker 2: to do something to help her save face as well.
Speaker 2: That's part of face work.
Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, for sure. And face work is another dramatic term.
Speaker 2: Oh is it? I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think face work and body work that's all
Speaker 1: a drama thing.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Is there a thing how to move.
Speaker 1: Within your space? Yeah, private parts work, so to Goffman,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it could be an obvious thing, like
Speaker 1: if you're you know, on a first date or something
Speaker 1: like that, or like you mentioned earlier job interview, like
Speaker 1: that's the super obvious situation, but a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's you know, it's really everyday interactions still count.
Speaker 1: H And there's a philosopher name Lucy McDonald who was
Speaker 1: writing about like when somebody falls down in public, almost always,
Speaker 1: the very first thing that will happen is that person
Speaker 1: will look around to see if anyone saw them, and
Speaker 1: based on that, it's going to change their reaction. And
Speaker 1: it reminded me of that story up told before about
Speaker 1: in college when I saw the guy bust bust his
Speaker 1: butt on a bike in Athens and the books went
Speaker 1: spilling all over the sidewalk, and this dude just opened
Speaker 1: one of the books, laying on his side with his
Speaker 1: bike will spinning, act like he was reading it. And
Speaker 1: It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: then the other day, on my new bike, I tried
Speaker 1: to do a wheel slide in a gravel parking lot
Speaker 1: and I busted my butt and fell. I didn't go,
Speaker 1: you know, ass over apple cart, but I hit the dirt.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I did, as a fifty four
Speaker 1: year old was look up and see if anybody saw me.
Speaker 2: You didn't jump up and say I meant to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, if somebody had been had seen me, I would have,
Speaker 1: but nobody saw me, so I just sat there and
Speaker 1: was like, no one nuts.
Speaker 2: Right, So if you do that, like say, if people
Speaker 2: do see you, you might like look back, like closely
Speaker 2: at the ground, like what did I strung over?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with this bike?
Speaker 2: Or you might say like I hate Mondays or something
Speaker 2: like that. And what you're doing is something you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: You're reassuring people like I'm not a threat to you
Speaker 2: or to the social order. That was just a total accident. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it might seem like that person is overly self
Speaker 2: conscious or something like that, or they might be a
Speaker 2: little neurotic. I feel like they have to do that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the philosopher Lucy McDonald that you mentioned also points
Speaker 2: out that that's actually not what's going on. That everybody
Speaker 2: feels like they need to do that, and that it's
Speaker 2: a rational response to the social expectations that we have
Speaker 2: of one another. So it just kind of reveals this
Speaker 2: social intelligence that most people have that is you don't
Speaker 2: even know that you're doing in a lot of cases,
Speaker 2: and that you feel even compelled to do internally. Like
Speaker 2: when I do that, if I'm so embarrassed, I will
Speaker 2: blurt something out like oops, or I hate Mondays, and
Speaker 2: it feels like it's coming up from you know, my
Speaker 2: guy yea, and then out of my mouth like it's
Speaker 2: not something where I'm like, I better say something really quick,
Speaker 2: just an involuntary reaction essentially, because it's so ingrained.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're not a sociopath.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like to think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like to think so too. It's funny thinking
Speaker 1: about that guy in Athens it fell. He didn't even
Speaker 1: look around because it wasn't like, oh did someone see me?
Speaker 1: Because hundreds of people for sure saw him.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It was like a crowded campus. So I felt bad
Speaker 1: for the guy, but it was hysterical. And one day
Speaker 1: I'm gonna meet that person, I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder what he's doing now.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if I was at a party one
Speaker 1: day and somebody was telling that story, like one time
Speaker 1: in college, I wrecked my bike, and after I was reading.
Speaker 2: A book, what would you do? Would you buy him something?
Speaker 1: I would hug him immediately and be like I saw that,
Speaker 1: and I've been telling that story for forty years.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Forty No, not even thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty's about right. Yeah, and you would be like,
Speaker 2: I'm not a hugger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then I've screwed up yet again. Uh.
Speaker 2: So I said that when people fall in there, they're
Speaker 2: saying like oops, or I hate mondays, they're looking at
Speaker 2: the crack or they're going through their book whatever. They're
Speaker 2: reassuring people that that they're actually normal. And the norm
Speaker 2: in countries like the US, say in the West, is
Speaker 2: what's called civil and attention to where you ideally you
Speaker 2: acknowledge the presence the existence of another person so that
Speaker 2: you're you're on a subway with and then yeah it
Speaker 2: ends there. Right. Something that I find dismaying is I
Speaker 2: see more and more that acknowledgment doesn't even happen. It's
Speaker 2: just totally ignoring one another. And that, man, that gets me,
Speaker 2: especially if you not at somebody else and they just
Speaker 2: ignore you. I think that is awful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean not to be old man here, but
Speaker 1: cell phones and smartphones have definitely played a part in that,
Speaker 1: I think because people escape into the comfort of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just look at this instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and they're just like, oh, what's on my phone?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if you were raised in the South
Speaker 1: or have lived in the South, then you're more comfortable
Speaker 1: with more acknowledgment and maybe even a brief conversation with
Speaker 1: a stranger. Sure, that can be very off putting for
Speaker 1: people that aren't used to that. So I try to
Speaker 1: remember that when I am going to maybe have had
Speaker 1: a drink or two and I struck up a conversation.
Speaker 2: With someone I don't know on an elevator.
Speaker 1: I've done that too. I did it last week in fact.
Speaker 2: So speaking of elevators, Chuck, you've mentioned going into an
Speaker 2: elevator and turning around, and what a violation of the
Speaker 2: social order that is the elevator Is this perfect little
Speaker 2: encapsulation for sociolists, no man to study, because we just
Speaker 2: know what to do. When somebody gets on an elevator
Speaker 2: and there's already people on there, everybody spreads out, rearranges
Speaker 2: himself to make room for this person in their personal space.
Speaker 2: And it's not like we're like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go over here. You go here, and then when somebody
Speaker 2: the next person comes on, you get off, and then
Speaker 2: this person's going to go where you were. It just happens,
Speaker 2: and it's a beautiful synchronized effort, right.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: But when sociologists get on elevators and they turn around,
Speaker 2: there's apocryphal story about Irvin Goffman doing that and studying
Speaker 2: and people just flipping out by it.
Speaker 1: Now they don't turn around. They just go straight in
Speaker 1: and stand there looking at the rear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, exactly, Yeah right, not well put So that's
Speaker 2: actually not just what sociologists like to do. It was
Speaker 2: like a big one on Candid Camera back in the
Speaker 2: day for a while. Yeah, and there was one Candid
Speaker 2: Camera episode where they did the opposite where the elevator
Speaker 2: was already had a bunch of people on it, but
Speaker 2: they were facing the rear when the door's opened and
Speaker 2: the person who was being I guess pranked came on.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get on that elevator car.
Speaker 2: So this person they got on, and they kind of
Speaker 2: looked like they didn't know what to do for a second,
Speaker 2: and then they turned and they faced.
Speaker 1: I knew it. Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was almost like they thought that they hadn't
Speaker 2: gotten the revised pages that day and everybody else did,
Speaker 2: so they just needed to go along with it because
Speaker 2: they didn't want to upset the apple cart. Things had changed.
Speaker 2: This is not what they expected, but they weren't about
Speaker 2: to be the one who just stuck to the original
Speaker 2: Norman upset everybody else.
Speaker 1: Wow did they yell out, can I have the new sides.
Speaker 1: Please take someone to fly those in line. That's really
Speaker 1: funny and that doesn't surprise me. And I bet the
Speaker 1: live audience at Cannon Cambridge just got a big old hoo.
Speaker 1: Do you laugh on that?
Speaker 2: One man?
Speaker 1: So there was a guy named Harold Garfinkel and others
Speaker 1: socioists that would I mean, he called them breaching experiments,
Speaker 1: but it's really messing with people. And he did things
Speaker 1: like that like sit down on the escalator or just
Speaker 1: like point at somebody. And I'm not a big fan
Speaker 1: of those kind of experiments.
Speaker 2: No, but they're all over YouTube people doing that. I
Speaker 2: bet it's pretty funny. But yeah, if you're ever in
Speaker 2: a mall and somebody sits down on an escalator or whatever,
Speaker 2: it's probably a sociologist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If not just politely go in any other direction.
Speaker 2: Well no, that's why you carry a water gun around
Speaker 2: with you. You just scored them in the house a
Speaker 2: few times and say stand.
Speaker 1: Up, super soaker.
Speaker 2: So there's ways that we figure out how to perform because,
Speaker 2: like I said, a lot of it just seems ingrained.
Speaker 2: A lot of it requires thought too, especially if you're
Speaker 2: trying if you have a goal, like you're trying to
Speaker 2: become a member of a country club, which everybody's been
Speaker 2: through that, yeah, Yeah. And these two researchers, they were
Speaker 2: psychologists back in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety, Mark Leary and
Speaker 2: Robin Kowalski. They basically figured out how we do this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and they broke it into two things.
Speaker 2: There was impression motivation, why you're doing this? An impression
Speaker 2: construction how you're doing this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as far as motivation, it's based on a
Speaker 1: few factors. One is how relevant a person thinks their
Speaker 1: images to achieve this goal. So, in other words, does
Speaker 1: it really matter here how I'm acting to get what
Speaker 1: I want? How valuable the goal is, which is do
Speaker 1: I this is something I really want? Am I trying
Speaker 1: to get a job or just whatever? Something a little
Speaker 1: less stakes? And then finally, the extent to which they
Speaker 1: believe they're not currently being perceived in the most useful way.
Speaker 1: In other words, how much do I need to pour
Speaker 1: it on here to get what I want?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like, how am I being perceived? And what do I
Speaker 1: need to do to change that?
Speaker 2: Right? Exactly? So you put all those together and that's
Speaker 2: your motivation for figuring out some impression management. Again, This
Speaker 2: is the ones where you're like actually giving thought to it, right,
Speaker 2: Impression construction, how you actually care this stuff out. They
Speaker 2: broke into five little parts. One is your self concept, right,
Speaker 2: So you're going to base how you carry this out
Speaker 2: on how you feel you are. So you're trying you're
Speaker 2: starting with your authentic self ideally, right, because people value authenticity.
Speaker 2: People don't want to just keep up a lie. Again,
Speaker 2: that's a half hour sitcom right there, because it always crumbles.
Speaker 2: It always crumbles everybody in real life and on sitcoms.
Speaker 1: In twenty two minutes and then it gets resolved.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. So your self concept is where you're going
Speaker 2: to start, and you're going to kind of draw from that.
Speaker 2: Imagine a big steamer trunk on stage that carrot tops
Speaker 2: going through, just pulling a bunch of props out of.
Speaker 2: That's what you're doing when you first start to figure
Speaker 2: this out. That's going through the steamer trunk of your
Speaker 2: self concept.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, are you saying right now we are
Speaker 1: a carrot.
Speaker 2: The entire world is yeah, all the world to stage,
Speaker 2: and we are merely carot carrot tops.
Speaker 1: Then there's the desired identity. So you're trying to protect
Speaker 1: an identity, and you base that on what like what
Speaker 1: you what you want people to think you like and
Speaker 1: don't like, or what you want to be or don't
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 2: Be, right, So you might really try to distance yourself
Speaker 2: from something you don't want to identify with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, oh boy, how about that John Legend that
Speaker 1: was random and all that immense talent, Like, get over it, buddy.
Speaker 2: You want to be very careful with this. This is
Speaker 2: one of those things that shows what a tightrope you
Speaker 2: can be walking when you're purposefully constructing impression management. If
Speaker 2: you're in that case yucking someone's yam, that can turn
Speaker 2: people off and ruin all of the other stuff that
Speaker 2: you just did. So it can backfire.
Speaker 1: Someone opens up their jacket and they're wearing the John Legend.
Speaker 2: Right, or you accidentally say it to John Legend because
Speaker 2: you didn't recognize him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why I pulled him out. I
Speaker 1: know nothing much about him other than La La land
Speaker 1: in the fact that he's super talented.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, he was perfect, I mean totally neutral. Everybody
Speaker 2: loves him like it was just that was great, non
Speaker 2: controversial in almost any way. Yeah, right, he's managed to
Speaker 2: distance himself from his wife's public persona. So yeah, non controversial.
Speaker 2: Who is she Chrissy Teagan?
Speaker 1: Oh? I know that name, but I don't know much
Speaker 1: about her either.
Speaker 2: That's fine, all right, moving on. Yeah, So the next
Speaker 2: one is target value, and it's basically saying, like, you're
Speaker 2: just going to take those things from your steamer trunk
Speaker 2: of your authentic self and you're going to adorn yourself
Speaker 2: with the ones that make the most sense for this
Speaker 2: identity that you're trying to be viewed with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but based on what you think they want, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But again, this is not where you're just like,
Speaker 2: you know, stealing stuff from other people and making it
Speaker 2: your own. You're going ideally, you're going into your own
Speaker 2: authentic self and saying this one makes the most sense
Speaker 2: to what this person's going to expect or want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like aligning yourself with someone else's value is
Speaker 1: ideally stopping short of, like, you know, doing something that's
Speaker 1: not an authentic Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's one thing I think we should say at
Speaker 2: this point, because it's really easy to just assume like
Speaker 2: this is what everybody should be doing, and I think
Speaker 2: it's worth questioning. It's not inherently a good thing to
Speaker 2: change yourself or to rearrange yourself. It can be a
Speaker 2: bad thing, but it can also be a good thing too.
Speaker 2: So just know, we're not saying like you should be
Speaker 2: out doing Yeah, it should really be thinking about what
Speaker 2: you have inside yourself that you can impress other people with.
Speaker 2: That's not what we're saying. But people do do that,
Speaker 2: and that's falls under the umbrella of impression management.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're saying, this is what Leary and Kowalski have
Speaker 1: noticed happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, blame it on them and the rain.
Speaker 1: And then there's current Oh I'm sorry, I skipped one,
Speaker 1: didn't I roll constraints presenting yourself in a way that's well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the same thing as target value, except
Speaker 1: target values a little less that I want to align
Speaker 1: myself with what you may be into, yeah, and a
Speaker 1: little more of just like the general expectations of a social.
Speaker 2: Role, right, Like you would wear a top hat in
Speaker 2: a monocle to a meeting with a bunch of bankers
Speaker 2: because that's what they would expect.
Speaker 1: You to do, exactly.
Speaker 2: And then there's current social image, which is what you
Speaker 2: perceive of yourself and if other people, if you think
Speaker 2: other people perceive you in a way you don't like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some other techniques that they've you know
Speaker 1: that people can use flattery, of course, we'll get you everywhere, ingratiation,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Conforming to expectations. That's kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, the other stuff I think, like role constraints
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And then a big one is
Speaker 1: like suppressing your emotion and maintaining your self control. Like again,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean to be anauthentic, but that just means like,
Speaker 1: read the room. Is it time for me to be
Speaker 1: overly emotional about something or is it not? Do I
Speaker 1: need to kind of put a little net for now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're triggered and you have a temper because
Speaker 2: people are taking too long in the grocery store line,
Speaker 2: don't push a whole load of groceries back into an
Speaker 2: aisle and shout a curse word and storm out. Oh
Speaker 2: I've seen it in real life. Actually, Oh I'm sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like what is going on? Buddy?
Speaker 1: It's hard to not think just constantly what's wrong with people?
Speaker 1: But you know what the fact is, again, as I
Speaker 1: get older, there's a lot wrong with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So I try to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's got some sort of burden they're carrying, and
Speaker 2: some people are more vocal about it than others. I
Speaker 2: guess that's a very nice way to say some people
Speaker 2: misproject it in the wrong way more loudly than others.
Speaker 1: That's another way to say it.
Speaker 2: There's also one called basking and reflect a glory, which
Speaker 2: is basically like hanging out with somebody who's a great
Speaker 2: example of the kind of self you want to be
Speaker 2: identified as. Yeah, not necessarily good. It's much better to
Speaker 2: blaze your own trail, make your own version. But I
Speaker 2: kind of I get it. The one that's just not
Speaker 2: good at all is the downward comparison, which is putting
Speaker 2: someone down to show that you're not like them at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not a good thing to do. And again,
Speaker 1: all of this convey Like, to convey all this stuff,
Speaker 1: you got to have a pretty good cognitive empathy and
Speaker 1: pretty good self monitoring. You got to be able to
Speaker 1: read the room, read social cues, regulate your emotions. And again,
Speaker 1: I think this is why people with like a narcissistic
Speaker 1: personality disorder may have a harder time, may have more
Speaker 1: difficulty doing stuff like this for sure, another break.
Speaker 2: Have forty minutes in, let's take our second break.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be back. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a little beefy, guys, but we're into it, you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, So just real quick before we keep going on,
Speaker 2: it's worth mentioning that forming an online identity is essentially
Speaker 2: it's like a whole new can of worms. Yeah, as
Speaker 2: far as sociology is concerned, we just couldn't do it before,
Speaker 2: and it allows you to do things, try on new
Speaker 2: things and ways that we it was just impossible to previously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But that yeah, that's that could be
Speaker 1: a shorty or something on its own.
Speaker 2: Huh h for sure.
Speaker 1: Should we talk about authenticity though a little.
Speaker 2: More, Yeah, because again this is everybody wants to be
Speaker 2: viewed as authentic, and just the fact that you've realized
Speaker 2: now that you're performing at all times can make you
Speaker 2: feel like you're not authentic. But we're here to tell
Speaker 2: you you're still authentic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. There have been researchers that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it kind of depends you can there are a lot
Speaker 1: of ways to I don't like saying skin a cat anymore.
Speaker 1: To tackle the cat. Now, there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to pet the cat.
Speaker 2: We're not saying skin the cat anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it just occurred to me.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty horrific thing to think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know where that came from, but sure either,
Speaker 2: I guess I can get on board with that.
Speaker 1: All right, there's a lot of ways to pet a cat.
Speaker 1: Actually there's only one way, and that's with the grain.
Speaker 1: But anyway, how about skin your knee? Sure, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to skin your knee, Like fifty four
Speaker 1: year old wrecking is new BMX bike exactly. Some people
Speaker 1: say there's a real distinct distinction between self presentation, which
Speaker 1: is like the influence that you're feeling by pressure and
Speaker 1: the effort that you're putting out, and then self expression,
Speaker 1: which is your authentic self. But there are psychologists or
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, yeah, I guess psychologists in this case a
Speaker 1: guy named Barry R. Schlinker, who says that actually self
Speaker 1: presentation is everyone does it in all social interactions, like
Speaker 1: even if you're married, you're influencing each other and behaving
Speaker 1: in a certain way. It may not even require like attention,
Speaker 1: and probably doesn't if you're married, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're being an authentic if you're still doing that kind
Speaker 1: of within your marriage.
Speaker 2: No, and even like within yourself, Like when we did
Speaker 2: the Inner Dialogue episode, we talked at some point about
Speaker 2: how even when you're talking to yourself, that inner voice
Speaker 2: is often shaped by external forces. And some sociologists say, yeah,
Speaker 2: even it goes even that far. That's how far the
Speaker 2: self is shaped by these scripts and these performances and everything,
Speaker 2: that even when you're alone, you still might find yourself
Speaker 2: engaging in some performance or another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the stuff that we feel like is automatic
Speaker 1: and you kind of touched on this earlier is maybe
Speaker 1: not automatic. You may not even realize that this is
Speaker 1: stuff that you've been practicing your whole life. I think
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever had a kid has seen that kid
Speaker 1: like practicing faces in the mirror. There's some I mean
Speaker 1: a very tropy movie scene is someone who practices a
Speaker 1: scene in the mirror of like interacting with someone like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me get that chair for you, and practicing a smile.
Speaker 1: I mean, Nathan Fielder has a whole show about this
Speaker 1: called The Rehearsal. It's fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that guy.
Speaker 1: Are you watching the new season yet.
Speaker 2: No, no, is that the one that's an actual like
Speaker 2: it's fiction?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, that was the one he did with
Speaker 1: Emma Stone. This is the rehearsal season two, which is
Speaker 1: he sets up these elaborate rehearsals for everyday live stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: you should check out season one and then just steamroll
Speaker 1: into season two. It's fascinating sociological stuff.
Speaker 2: Nice. I definitely will. Yeah, do you ever rehearse what
Speaker 2: you're going to say? I know you rehearse like what
Speaker 2: you're doing next, like if you're cooking something, You've said that, right,
Speaker 2: But do you ever like practice in your head what
Speaker 2: you're going to say, like even mundane stuff like what
Speaker 2: am I going to say to this venience store clerk
Speaker 2: when I go to check out?
Speaker 1: Now, all that stuff is pretty innate for me.
Speaker 2: That's very lucky.
Speaker 1: But again, maybe innate from years and years of practice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's possible, or maybe you were just born with it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's maybe Lane. So you mentioned the automatic stuff
Speaker 2: that is essentially breathing, Like if you look at how
Speaker 2: it's how Schlinker describes it. He's describing the same thing
Speaker 2: as breathing, like it's just that automatic and that automatic
Speaker 2: mode can be in a like high gear or low gear.
Speaker 2: And typically if you're backstage hanging out with your friends, embarrassment. Again,
Speaker 2: the driver here is preventing embarrassment, preventing from embarrassing yourself,
Speaker 2: preventing embarrassing other people or making them feel embarrassed by association,
Speaker 2: Like you're preventing embarrassment. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: it's easier to hang out with people in your backstage
Speaker 2: mode is because the stakes are low. Embarrass yourself, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter nearly as much as if you embarrass yourself,
Speaker 2: you know, if you pee your pants into job interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Although the funny ironic thing for us is, and
Speaker 1: I believe anyone that performs on stage literally backstage sometimes
Speaker 1: can be some of the most anxious when people are
Speaker 1: sent back there, like you know, oh, the company wants
Speaker 1: to send back these strangers you don't know like that.
Speaker 1: That's the almost the height for me of like a
Speaker 1: boy here, I got to turn and turn on the chuck,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just want to apologize for the group
Speaker 2: of City Bank cardholders from like ten years ago and
Speaker 2: we had a meet and greet with and it was
Speaker 2: very awkward so sorry, guys, you never really got me.
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's why we don't do meet and greet anymore.
Speaker 1: It's just, yeah, we just want to be backstage with
Speaker 1: our homies exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's also we can also automatically go into
Speaker 2: a much more performative mode when the sticks get a
Speaker 2: little higher. Yeah, but either way it's still automatic. So
Speaker 2: Schlinker is like, Nope, we're really kind of performing almost
Speaker 2: at all times. And then there was a scholar of
Speaker 2: gender named Judith Butler and by what was I mean is?
Speaker 2: And Judith Butler said, everything about you is shaped by
Speaker 2: sociological forces, including gender. That people learn how to behave
Speaker 2: according to what society says it's their gender is, or
Speaker 2: what's expected of that gender, and that that's just how
Speaker 2: we learn to behave certain ways according to gender.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of grown
Speaker 1: men who have a story where they're like when I
Speaker 1: was in the third grade, I played with dolls and
Speaker 1: I got made fun of and because that wasn't the
Speaker 1: socially acceptable, you know, masculine construct And from that day forward,
Speaker 1: I started doing things to where I fit in a
Speaker 1: little more on the playground, and that shapes how they are,
Speaker 1: you know, decades later sometimes.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, carried over from the playground into the rest
Speaker 2: of their life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this stuff is all changing for the better,
Speaker 1: I think, but it's still it's not like it's been eradicated,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And speaking of gender too, I wondered if you
Speaker 2: know how some people are just deeply offended by people
Speaker 2: who are gender fluid, like to the point where you're like, what,
Speaker 2: you don't even know this person, why do you hate
Speaker 2: this so much? It may be wonder like if the
Speaker 2: person who's so offended by it is upset because that
Speaker 2: other person is flagrantly violating a social script and it's
Speaker 2: making them and other people uncomfortable. And that brings up
Speaker 2: a further point too, Who's which is more valuable that
Speaker 2: person's authentic self that they're gender fluid or the comfort
Speaker 2: of everybody else, the strangers around them, which one is
Speaker 2: more valuable? Who should win out in that case? If
Speaker 2: there's a conflict like.
Speaker 1: That, absolutely, I mean sadly stuff like that is being
Speaker 1: literally litigated. But also the idea of changing social norms,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you're not rolling with the changes
Speaker 1: that are happening in society, you may find yourself on
Speaker 1: an island of in acceptance and loneliness, but that may
Speaker 1: be fine with you because you may want to be like, no,
Speaker 1: things were better the old way.
Speaker 2: At the same time, too, you can't change social norms
Speaker 2: without violating them. They tend to just kind of stay static,
Speaker 2: and to make them dynamic, they have to be violated.
Speaker 2: And anyone who's seen the movie Pleasantville knows that that
Speaker 2: can turn out pretty good.
Speaker 1: You may end up in color one day.
Speaker 2: Man, that was a good movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was pretty good. I haven't seen that in
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw it a couple of years ago. I've
Speaker 2: watched it every example years.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I've only seen it once.
Speaker 2: Oh you should keep waking. Just buy the DVD. Go
Speaker 2: old school, all right.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of movies that kind of
Speaker 1: dance around this stuff, like The Truman Show and just
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like this is just ripe ground
Speaker 1: for comedy and drama.
Speaker 2: I agree, Chuck Rife, ripe right purple.
Speaker 1: So you know, I mentioned Neurodiversiens earlier and just sort
Speaker 1: of my and I, you know, when I was doing
Speaker 1: this research, I had that awakening of like, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been much more cognizant of that kind of stuff as
Speaker 1: I've gotten older, and that stuff is more in the
Speaker 1: forefront and diagnose more and more about like understanding that, Hey,
Speaker 1: that person that I think is like men read the room,
Speaker 1: why are you acting like that? They may have something
Speaker 1: going on neurodivergently, there may be a genuine mental illness there.
Speaker 1: Goffman argued that if you have a mental illness or
Speaker 1: any sort of thing a disability, or if you are
Speaker 1: in housed, or you're obese or a drug user, that
Speaker 1: all just lumps you in as a as a as
Speaker 1: a thing I mean a stigma, which we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about in a second, basically, but and ends
Speaker 1: up sort of creating the symptom of that thing just
Speaker 1: because you're put in that box.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so anybody who's who has a social stigma
Speaker 2: like you just mentioned, you rattle off that list. They're
Speaker 2: what Goffman called discredited. They don't have they're not they
Speaker 2: have less value according to society if you this is
Speaker 2: where he developed that empathy from researching this stuff. I bet,
Speaker 2: especially based on something like someone's ethnicity or whether they're handicapped,
Speaker 2: or whether they're homeless or whatever, that the idea that
Speaker 2: they have less value socially speaking in this in this
Speaker 2: sense is totally unfair because the social norms that we
Speaker 2: create are generally arbitrary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, and in not all cases. But you,
Speaker 1: impression management is a is a tool that people can
Speaker 1: use to get over or hide those stigmatized features. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't get super into code switching, but that could
Speaker 1: be a pretty interesting short stuff to accompany this. I
Speaker 1: think that is the idea, and it's not specific to
Speaker 1: the African American community, but it is. If you talk
Speaker 1: to a group of African Americans in the United States
Speaker 1: today or you know, for many years now, they will say, no,
Speaker 1: code switching is how we get by in white America basically.
Speaker 1: And that's the idea that you may change the way
Speaker 1: you talk when you're around white people, or change the
Speaker 1: way you act then you normally would when you're in
Speaker 1: you know, around your family and friends or your own community.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's a big, big thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's a great example of it. You could
Speaker 2: also be like, my last name sounds pretty ethnic, and
Speaker 2: I want to change it so that people call me
Speaker 2: back for job interviews. There's a lot of stuff you
Speaker 2: can do, so you're not you're covering your stigma, so
Speaker 2: you're not an automatically discredited person. But according to Golfman,
Speaker 2: you're discreditabull. If you're found out, you will be stigmatized.
Speaker 2: So sure, it's a terrible situation all around, just to
Speaker 2: stigmatize groups based on our betray you social norms. I
Speaker 2: hate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember in elementary school. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: name her name name because I don't know if she
Speaker 1: would want this out there, but there was a girl
Speaker 1: from you know, an Indian American girl in our school
Speaker 1: that came back after a summer with an Americanized first name.
Speaker 1: And so she was that from fourth grade till SENI
Speaker 1: year in high school when we graduated together and I
Speaker 1: lost touch with her, and like five or six years ago,
Speaker 1: my good friend in Boston said, oh, well, so and
Speaker 1: so is in town. I said, oh, is she going
Speaker 1: by that name now again? And she went back to
Speaker 1: her you know, she grew up a little bit and
Speaker 1: was like, no, that is that's my name, That's my
Speaker 1: Indian name. And it just made me feel really good
Speaker 1: that she reached that point, you know, good. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was great. So at you know, the furthest end of this,
Speaker 1: I guess spectrum as autism. And we've talked about autism
Speaker 1: here and there, but a lot of times, if you
Speaker 1: have autism, you might have difficulty responding in what people
Speaker 1: might consider an appropriate way in a social situation. And
Speaker 1: masking is a big can be a big part of
Speaker 1: self presentation when it comes to people with autism.
Speaker 2: Yes, but there's autism researchers Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose,
Speaker 2: and they make they go to great pains to basically
Speaker 2: say masking is different than impression management, right. Impression management
Speaker 2: is something everyone has to do. Masking is specific to
Speaker 2: typically neurodivergent people to where they are protecting themselves by
Speaker 2: pushing down their actual identities and hiding it at all
Speaker 2: costs because they're afraid of being stigmatized because they've been
Speaker 2: taught over the years that that's not they're not acceptable
Speaker 2: as they are. And so those are those are two
Speaker 2: really different things, even though they seem pretty like they
Speaker 2: have a lot in common.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And masking, you know, there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of people who mask. We talked about that in
Speaker 1: the sociopath episode once again and got emails from people.
Speaker 1: They're like, I'm a sociopath and I put on a
Speaker 1: big performance, so people don't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're just always walking around like I love
Speaker 2: you man. Right, Yeah, just one note about autism, which
Speaker 2: obviously deserves its own episodes still coming down the pike
Speaker 2: one day. Don't worry about that. But you were talking
Speaker 2: about just kind of learning. As you get older, you
Speaker 2: know that you can't just you can't just make assumptions
Speaker 2: about people based on their ability to interact socially. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you want to develop a familiarity and empathy for
Speaker 2: people with autism, I think you could do a lot
Speaker 2: worse than starting with Love on the Spectrum all seasons,
Speaker 2: Australian version and American version.
Speaker 1: I think that is very sweet because that is like
Speaker 1: the fifth time you've recommended that show to people.
Speaker 2: People need to watch the show. It's so great. This
Speaker 2: season in America deserves an Emmy. It's a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: I've still never seen it.
Speaker 2: You really should. I think you'd love it. All right,
Speaker 2: So I guess, Chuck, since I did my every tenth
Speaker 2: episode mention of Love on the Spectrum, it's time for
Speaker 2: listener mail.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I love the show is about popcorn. By
Speaker 1: the way, Okay, just finished the podcast on popcorn. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of a segment I saw years ago on
Speaker 1: Alton Brown's Good Eats Alton Brown at Lanton and I
Speaker 1: did a little work on that show back in the day.
Speaker 1: It's a prop Scott Nice while not directly related to popcorn,
Speaker 1: and Alton was a good due to work with. By
Speaker 1: the way, nice, while not directly related to popcorn. In
Speaker 1: this particular episode, the show's resident food anthropologists related to
Speaker 1: a factoid on Montezuma's revenge. They thought mona Zuma's real
Speaker 1: revenge was allowing the conquering Spaniards to return to Spain
Speaker 1: with maize without the knowledge of nixtimalization, which resulted in
Speaker 1: widespread pelligra or palagra, causing dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and eventual
Speaker 1: death due to a lack of essential nutrients. Nyssen and
Speaker 1: trip to Fan in their diets. Nixt to molization is
Speaker 1: a traditional Mesoamerican process used to prepare maize and other
Speaker 1: grains for consumption, involving cooking the grain and an alkaline solution,
Speaker 1: typically limewater, which then allows for the outer paracarp the
Speaker 1: skin to be easily removed. The process significantly improves the
Speaker 1: digestibility and nutritional value of the grain. And that is
Speaker 1: from Bob.
Speaker 2: Bob, that was a great email. Yeah, well a top
Speaker 2: notch one. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.
Speaker 1: I agreed.
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Bob and send us
Speaker 2: a really interesting, top notch email, we love that kind
Speaker 2: of thing, you can send it off to stuff podcast
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.