Impression management

The dramaturgical approach is broken down into two parts. It's broken down into a front stage and a back stage. And the front stage is essentially a performance that you put on in a social setting. And the back stage is a place where you can just be yourself when the act is over. So the tool that we use to make ourselves presentable on the front stage and to look appealing is called impression management. And impression management is really our attempt to control how others see us. And this makes sense, because we want to be viewed in a positive way by those around us. So there are many different social situations that require different scripts from you as an actor. And so there are multiple front stages. And you have to play a different role every time. So let's start a story with our guy over here who's already on this front stage. He's already pretended to like baseball to gain friends to go to a game with them. But there have been other front stages in his life. So let's take a look at a few. So maybe earlier in his life he was the captain of a football team. And this required him to get everyone fired up for the game. He had to get his troops ready and he had to lead the team to victory. But that was during the week at his school. So then, maybe he goes on the weekends and he volunteers at a hospital. And he works in patient transport. So he's wheeling patients around and taking them out when it's time to go home. And this is a very different stage than his previous one because now his main job is to sort of be there for the patients and to comfort them and to understand their situation. And just really offer them any help that he can as a volunteer. So this is very different than his first situation. But then maybe after he's done volunteering at the hospital, he goes to school after the weekend to visit a professor. And maybe his chemistry professor is very well connected. And she knows a lot of people. And he has his eye on a particular school that he wants to get into and he needs a letter of recommendation. So the chemistry professor can really offer him that letter of recommendation and if he can manage to get it, maybe he has a much better chance of getting into that graduate school. So he pretends to be interested in her research and goes and does research with her. Even though maybe he doesn't like it at all. But he acts interested because maybe he wants to give that impression to the teacher. He says, "Hey, I'm really interested in research. "I'm a very curious student." And at the end, really his plan the whole time is to just get that letter of recommendation. And after that, he's really really excited because he finally worked up the courage and he asked out a girl that he's had a crush on for a long time. You know, he's really been working up the courage and he finally did it. And for some reason, she said yes and he sort of panicked and doesn't know what to do. But, he does his best. He gets her some flowers. He's going to pay for dinner. He'll open the door. He'll greet her at the door. Shake her father's hand. He's very traditional. He's very excited. But he's nervous. So, he goes ahead and he gets her the flower and he wants to put on his best face. He wants to put the best version of himself out there that he can. So that's a big thing there. He's going to want to brush his teeth. He's going to want to take a shower. And the big take away here is, look, there are multiple front stages here. And they all require a different script. And this back stage, that's a completely different area. There's one back stage, and that's a very private area of his life that probably only a few people really know about that are very close to him. So in the back stage, this is really where you work on your impression management. That's where it's all tied together. So here, maybe, people put on makeup. They look at themselves in the mirror. They try on a lot of different outfits before going out and hanging out with their friends. Because they want to look okay. And this is all done in the back stage. So you can really think of the back stage as sort of like, your training area, your dojo for impression management. And then you use that impression management in the many different social situations in your life. And that's a very interesting thought. So that is how impression management relates to the front stage and the back stage.