Why does anyone participate in image management?

Why does anyone participate in image management?
People are prone to looking for details about someone who joins or enters their presence. Information on his or her socioeconomic background, attitudes toward them, and trustworthiness may be requested. The information gathered is then used to describe the situation and type of interaction that will follow. As a result, the person manages their impression to achieve a reasonably comfortable position to ensure that superior knowledge is collected from them (Goffman, 1959).
The ability to be highly respected by others motivates people to manage their impression. It can also be in an individual’s best interests to make others feel as though he or or she holds them in high regard. Furthermore, People manage impressions to ensure harmony in their interactions in such a way that they are flawless and can be sustained for a relatively more extended period. Individuals might want to control how people are going to treat them in response. Hence they manage expressions. People can control responsive treatment by conveying impressions of their interests that evoke specific reactions from people (Goffman 1959).

Definition of the situation is a situation is defined when someone enters in the midst of others. Individuals can project and explain the position in the way they express themselves and act which could be consciously or unconsciously. The other people though passive in defining the situation also play a crucial role since they elicit responses and initiate lines of response (Goffman, 1959). A working consensus is an actual common ground that is created that entails all parties agreeing with the aim of avoiding an open conflict in the definition of the situation. It involves suppression of immediate, genuine emotions and projection of what might be accepted by all at least in the initial stages of interactions (Goffman, 1959). Therefore, each person is entitled to advance matters that are of immediate importance to him but should not do the same on issues that are not of direct relevance to the rest of the group. On the other hand, Preventive strategies are tactics used by individuals to protect themselves from the projection of definition by others. They are employed to avoid the embarrassment that is caused by the wrong description of the situation (Goffman, 1959). According to Goffman, there are three sources of scripts that determine what role that people should play in a given performance and these are, the individual’s personality, the social interactions, and the society. These three factors dictate how an individual behaves and acts in the presence of others.

Girl Hunting is the practice by which adolescent heterosexual men actively and search for sexual partners of the opposite sex in clubs and other commercial entertainment joints. According to Grazian (2007), the purpose of girl hunting is male social bonding implying that males practice this behavior not so much as to obtain sexual partners but to create a sensual reputation and a peer status among his audience who are his fellow male friends. The emotional struggle and logistical support required in the endeavor of girl hunting, encourage men to walk in numbers for safety such that the whole ritual is done collectively enjoying social and psychological resources created by the group cohesion (Grazian, 2007). The routines that precede girl hunting are characterized by homosocial emotional and friendship ties as the males joke around about their sexual experiences and anticipations.

Some of the interactional rituals and performance indulged by men when they go girl hunting in nightclubs include the collective ritual of confidence building, competitive jockeying and one-upmanship and pregaming which involves the use of alcohol and having fun with the boys in a frenzy of loud music. This kind of research seeks to establish how males behave and what motivates their behavior. For instance, men are interested in sexual conquest of many women. This would explain why most men cheat in marriages.

References

Goffman, Erving. (1959). The Presentation of self in Everyday life. Sage Publications, Inc.

Grazian, David. (2007). The Girl Hunt: urban Nightlife and The Performance of Masculinity as a Collective Activity. Sage publication, inc