Abstract. The Social Trance: Attentional Norms and Credibility in Face-to-Face Interaction
Whenever we talk to each other, complex social norms govern how we organize our attention. These norms help us to coordinate our activity and express respect for the other. Here I argue that these norms have a further function: they facilitate our ability to project our own and assess each other’s credibility.
Drawing on the work of the sociologist Erving Goffman, I propose that speakers are socially obligated to “get lost” or become immersed within an interaction (Goffman 1959, 1961, 1963, 1967, 1971). When a speaker achieves what Goffman calls “spontaneous involvement,” she suppresses her awareness that her interlocutor is evaluating her social performance and so acts in a seemingly unselfconscious or “spontaneous” manner. A speaker in this state will have more difficulty controlling the information that she “gives off” within the interaction. Therefore, a speaker who seems credible while spontaneous involved in the interaction is more likely to be a credible.
I hypothesize that the degradation of attentional norms in many contemporary Western societies has led to an environment of lower overall trust and greater difficulty in achieving long-term cooperative relationships.
About: Sam Berstler is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at MIT, specializing in the structure of everyday interactions. Berstler's research focuses on figures like H.P. Grice, Georg Simmel, and Erving Goffman, with a forthcoming book, The Philosophy of Erving Goffman, under contract with Routledge. Berstler holds an M.A. in English from Harvard and later transitioned to philosophy, earning a PhD from Yale. Before joining MIT, Berstler worked as a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in the Princeton Philosophy Department.
For more about Sam Berstler, see the webpage.
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