How did Goffman study social interaction?
My primary method involved extensive, detailed ethnographic observation. I immersed myself in various social settings, from boardrooms to mental hospitals, meticulously observing the subtle cues and unspoken rules that govern interaction. I treated these everyday encounters as natural phenomena to be dissected, cataloging the patterns of behavior, the rituals, and the mechanisms of impression management. My goal was to derive general principles of social order from these micro-level observations.
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