Final answer:
Erving Goffman's early work focused on social interaction and self-presentation through the framework of dramaturgy, using theater as an analogy for the ways individuals manage impressions and perform roles in everyday life.
Step-by-step explanation:
The main focus of Erving Goffman's early work, particularly in his seminal book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1958), was to explore how individuals interact and present themselves in social situations. Goffman used the metaphor of the theater to describe how people perform various roles in their everyday lives, a concept he termed dramaturgy. This dramaturgical analysis views social interaction as a series of performances, where individuals use various forms of impression management to control how they are perceived by others.
Goffman's work expands upon Charles Cooley's concept of the looking-glass self, which posits that we develop our self-image through our interpretations of how others perceive us. Goffman took this further to argue that our social life is a series of dramatic performances. He suggested that in these performances, we are like actors on a stage using various strategies to manage the impressions we make, to ensure these align with our desired self-presentation. Our interactions can be understood as a continuous process of managing these performances: Each situation is a new scene, and individuals perform different roles depending on who is present.
To illustrate, Goffman noted that our behavior might change depending on the social context; the way a person acts around colleagues may differ significantly from their behavior with family or on a date. This process involves a level of improvisation as we navigate the uncertainties of social interactions and adapt our roles accordingly. Thus, Goffman’s early work deeply explores the nuanced ways in which we engage with society and the sociological significance of the self in daily interactions.