Embarrassment and the Analysis of Role Requirements Author(s): Edward Gross and Gregory P. Stone Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Jul., 1964), pp. 1-15 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2775007 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 11:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 137.99.63.107 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:13:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the americanjournal of sociology Volume LXX Number 1 July 1964 Embarrassmentand the Analysis of Role Requirements1 EdwardGross and Gregory P. Stone ABSTRACT Since embarrassment incapacitates persons for continued role performance, it can provide an indicator of basic requirements of role performance. Study of one thousand instances of recalled embarrassment revealed three major requirements: identity, poise, and confidence in established identity and poise. The analysis of identity reveals the significance of adjunct roles and reserve and relict identities. Disturb- ances of poise revolve about the handling of spaces, props, equipment, clothing, and the body. Viola- tions of confidence are prevented by performance norms. Finally, deliberate embarrassment is shown to have major social functions. Attitudes, in the view of George Herbert other things and carry other futures away Mead, are incipient acts. Meaningful dis- to other circles. course requires that discussants take one Poise is not enough. The futures that are another's attitudes-incorporate one anoth- presented, imperfectly realized, and re-es- er's incipient activities-in their conversa- tablished must be relevant. Relevance is tion. Since all social transactions are achieved by establishing the identities of marked by meaningful communication,dis- those who are caught up in the transaction. cursive or not, whenever people come to- Futures or attitudes are anchored in identi- gether, they bring futures into one anoth- ties. We speak of role as consensual atti- er's presence. They are ready, balanced, tudes mobilized by an announced and rati- poised for the upcoming discussion. The fied identity. In social transactions, then, discussion, of course, remands futures to a persons must announce who they are to momentary present, where they are always enable each one to ready himself with ref- somewhat inexactly realized, and relegates erence to appropriate futures, providing them in their altered form to the collective attitudes which others may take or assume. past we call memory. New futures are con- Often announced identities are complemen- stantly built up in discussions. Indeed, they tary, establishing the transaction as a so- must be, else the discussion is over and the cial relationship, for many identities pre- transaction is ended. Without a future, suppose counteridentities. Whether or not there is nothing else to be done, nothing this is the case, the maintenance of one's left to say. Every social transaction, there- identity assists the maintenance of the fore, requires that the participants be other.2 poised at the outset and that poise be main- tained as the transaction unfolds, until 2 Alfred R. Lindesmith and Anselm L. Strauss there is an accord that each can turn to assert that every role presupposes a counter-role. There is a sense in which the assertion is correct, 1 Revision of a paper read at the annual meeting as in Kenneth Burke's "paradox of substance," but of the Midwest Sociological Society, April, 1963. it may also be somewhat misleading in sociological 1 This content downloaded from 137.99.63.107 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:13:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2 THEAMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY Furthermore, all transactions are trans- 800 students enrolled in introductory soci- actions through time. It is not enough that ology courses; and (2) about 80 students identity and poise be established. They enrolled in an evening extension class. Not must be continuously reaffirmed, main- solicited, but gratefully received, were tained, and provisions made for their repair many examples volunteered by colleagues in case of breakdown. Role performers and friends who had heard of our interest count on this. We attempt here to limn in the subject. Finally we drew upon many the structure of transactions by examining recollections of embarrassmentwe had ex- instances where identities have been mis- perienced ourselves. Through these means placed or forgotten, where poise has been at least one thousand specimens of embar- lost or destroyed, or where, for any reason, rassment were secured. confidence that identities and poise will be We found that embarrassments fre- maintained has been undermined.We have quently occurred in situations requiring in mind instances of embarrassment,wheth- continuous and co-ordinated role perform- er or not deliberately perpetrated. ance-speeches, ceremonies, processions, or working concerts. In such situations em- EMBARRASSMENT AND THE ANALYSIS barrassment is particularly noticeable be- OF ROLE REQUIREMENTS cause it is so devastating. Forgetting one's Embarrassment exaggerates the core di- lines, forgetting the wedding ring, stum- mensions of social transactions, bringing bling in a cafeteria line, or handing a col- them to the eye of the observerin an almost league the wrong tool, when these things naked state. Embarrassment occurs when- occur without qualification, bring the per- ever some central assumption in a transac- formance to an obviously premature and tion has been unexpectedly and unquali- unexpected halt. At the same time, mani- fiedly discredited for at least one partici- festations of the embarrassment-blushing, pant. The result is that he is incapacitated fumbling, stuttering, sweating4-coerce for continued role performance.3Moreover, awareness of the social damage and the embarrassmentis infectious. It may spread need for immediate repair. In some in- out, incapacitating others not previously stances, the damage may be potentially so incapacitated. It is destructive dis-ease. In great that embarrassment cannot be al- the wreckage left by embarrasmentlie the lowed to spread among the role performers. broken foundations of social transactions. The incapacity may be qualified, totally By examining such ruins, the investigator ignored, or pretended out of existence.5 For can reconstruct the architecture they rep- example, a minister, noting the best man's resent. frantic search for an absent wedding ring, To explore this idea, recollections of em- whispers to him to ignore it, and all con- barrassment were expressly solicited from spire to continue the drama with an im- two groups of subjects: (1) approximately aginary ring. Such rescues are not always 'Not all incapacitated persons are always em- analysis. Specifically, there is a role of cigarette barrassed or embarrassing, because others have smoker, but the role is not really dependent for its come to expect their incapacities and are conse- establishment on the counter-role of non-smoker quently prepared for them. in the sense that the parental role is dependent upon child roles and vice versa. Thus, in some 4 Erving Goffman, in "Embarrassment and Social social transactions the establishment and mainte- Organization," American Journal of Sociology, nance of one identity may be very helpful for the LXII (November, 1956), 264-71, describes these establishment and maintenance of a counter-iden- manifestations vividly. tity; in other transactions, this may not be the case 'A more general discussion of this phenomenon, at all (see Lindesmith and Strauss, Social Psy- under the rubric civil inattention is provided in chology [New York: Dryden Press, 1956], pp. 379- Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places (New 80; and Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), pp. 83-88 and [New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945], pp. 21-58). passim. This content downloaded from 137.99.63.107 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:13:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions EMBARRASSMENTAND THEANALYSIS OF ROLEREQUIREMENTS 3 possible. Hence we suggest that every en- others also presumably best fitted to the during social relation will provide means of occasion. When one is "not himself" in the preventing embarrassment,so that the en- presence of others who expect him to be tire transaction will not collapse when em- just that, as in cases where his mood car- barrassment occurs. A second general ob- ries him away either by spontaneous seizure servation would take into account that (uncontrollable laughter or tears) or by some stages in the life cycle, for example, induced seizure (drunkenness), embarrass- adolescence in our society, generate more ment ensues. Similarly, when one is "shown frequent embarrassmentsthan others. These up" to other parties to the transaction by are points to which we shall return. the exposure of unacceptable moral quali- To get at the content of embarrassment, fications or inappropriate motives, embar- we classified the instances in categories that rassment sets in all around. However, the remained as close to the specimens as pos- concept, self, is a rather gross concept, and sible. A total of seventy-four such catego- we wish to single out two phases that fre- ries were developed, some of which were quently provided focal points for embar- forced choices between friends, public mis- rassment-identity and poise.6 takes, exposure of false front, being caught Identity.-Identity is the substantive di- in a cover story, misnaming, forgetting mension of the self.