dramaturgy

Meaning: Dramaturgy, developed by Erving Goffman, compares everyday life to theater. People are actors who play roles before an audience and use setting, appearance, and manner as props and costume to shape how others see them. This effort is called impression management. On the front stage, a person performs to the expectations of the role. On the back stage, out of the audience's view, the person can relax, drop the act, and prepare.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a waiter who is polite in the dining room but jokes and complains in the kitchen, or a job candidate who dresses formally for an interview. You label front stage versus back stage or name impression management. Questions may also ask which perspective studies small-scale interaction: dramaturgy falls under symbolic interactionism, a micro-level theory, in contrast to the macro-level views of functionalism and conflict theory.

Common confusion: Dramaturgy does not claim that people are fake or deceitful; it says that presenting a self to an audience is a normal part of social life. Front and back stage depend on who is watching, not on the place itself, so a kitchen becomes front stage if a customer walks in. Also keep it separate from Cooley's looking-glass self, which concerns how self-concept forms from imagined judgments of others.