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Christ C 1987 Laughter of Aphrodite: Reections on a Journey to the Goddess. Harper & Row, San Francisco Christ C 1997 Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. Routledge, New York Conkey M, Tringham R 1995 Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the contours of feminist archaeology. In: Stanton D, Stewart A (eds.) Feminisms in the Academy. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI de Alwis M 1999 Motherhood as a space of protest: Womens political participation in contemporary Sri Lanka. In: Jerey P, Basu A (eds.) Resisting the Sacred and the Secular: Womens Acti ism and Politicized Religion in South Asia. Kali for Women, New Delhi, India di Leonardo M 1998 The Three Bears, The Great Goddess, and the American temperament: Anthropology without anthropologists. In: di Leonardo M (ed.) Exotics at Home: Anthropologies, Others, American Modernity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 79144 Eller C 1993 Li ing in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Mo ement in America. Crossroad, New York Eller C 2000 The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an In ented Past Wont Gi e Women a Future. Beacon Press, Boston Erndl K 1997 The Goddess and womens power: A Hindu case study. In: King K (ed.) Women and Goddess Traditions: In Antiquity and Today. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN Galland C 1998 The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion. Riverhead Books, New York Grey M 1988 Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera. New Victoria Publishers, Norwich, VT Gross R 1998 Soaring and Settling: Buddhist Perspecti es on Contemporary Social and Religious Issues. Continuum, New York y Hallstrom L 1999 Mother of Bliss: Anandamay_ Ma (1896 _ 1982). Oxford University Press, New York Kinsley D 1989 The Goddesses Mirror: Visions of the Di ine Feminine from East and West. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY Motz L 1997 The Faces of the Goddess. Oxford University Press, New York Narayanan V 1999 Brimming with Bhakti, embodiments of Shakti: Women of power in the Hindu tradition. In: Sharma A, Young K (eds.) Feminism and World Religions. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY Pande M 1990 Girls. In: Holmstrom L (ed.) The Inner Courtyard: $ Stories by Indian women. Virago Press, London Pathak Z, Sengupta S 1995 Resisting women. In: Sarkar T, Butalia U (eds.) Women and Right-Wing Mo ements: Indian Experiences. Zed Books, London Puttick E 1997 Goddess spirituality: The feminist alternative? In: Puttick E Women in New Religions: In Search of Community, Sexuality, and Spiritual Power. St. Martins Press, New York, pp. 196231 Sax W 1991 Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage. Oxford University Press, New York Sered S 1994 Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women. Oxford University Press, New York Shaw M 1994 Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Shiva V 1988 Staying Ali e: Women, Ecology, and Sur i al in India. Kali for Women, New Delhi, India Sjoo M 1992 New Age and Armageddon: The Goddess or the $ $ Gurus? Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future. The Womens Press, London Wul D 1997 Radhas audacity in K, rtan performances and , , womens status in Greater Bengal. In: King K (ed.) Women and Goddess Traditions: In Antiquity and Today. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN

R. F. McDermott

Goman, Erving (192182)

The work of the sociologist Erving Goman is regarded as a classic by most of his professional colleagues. Randall Collins (1988, p. 41) even considers him the greatest sociologist of the latter half of the twentieth century. Gomans inuence, particularly on many younger researchers, is still powerful at the beginning of the twenty-rst century and is by no means restricted to sociology. Gomans works have been inuential in numerous parallel disciplines, above all in social psychology, linguistics, philosophy, literature studies, pedagogics, psychiatry, and media studies. It cannot be denied that Goman made important empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions. The following essay will discuss them against the background of a short biographical sketch and relate them to relevant sociological contexts of discussions.

1. Biographical Sketch
Erving Goman was born in the small Canadian town of Manville on July 11, 1922, the son of RussianJewish immigrants. He began his academic career at the University of Toronto, where he took his BA in 1945. After completing his sociology studies at the University of Chicago, USA, where he primarily studied under Everett C. Hughes and W. Lloyd Warner, he took up his rst post in Scotland, UK. From 1949 to 1951 he worked at the Department of Social Anthropology at Edinburgh University. After that he returned to Chicago, where he gained his doctorate with his thesis Communication Conduct in an Island Community, which he had prepared in Scotland. The empirical basis of his dissertation, which was supervised by W. Lloyd Warner, Donald Horton and Anselm L. Strauss, was a eld study on the Shetland Islands. Following a spell as research assistant at the Department of Sociology at Chicago University, where his research included social stratication, Goman was employed as a Visiting Scientist in the Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda (Maryland) from mid-1954 to the end of 1957. During this time Goman carried out a one-year study in a mental hospital. This study on the basis of participant observation formed the essential foundation of his book Asylums (1961a). In 1958 Goman transferred to Berkeley as Assistant Professor of 6297

Goman, Er ing (192182) Sociology and member of the Center for the Integration of Social Science Theory at the University of California. From 1962 he was a Full Professor in Berkeley. In 1968 he accepted the Benjamin Franklin Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he substantially advanced his research program and wrote his chef doeu re Frame Analysis (1974). His works, which reached a wide academic and nonacademic audience and have been translated into many languages, earned Goman numerous honors. He received a number of prestigious awards and was Visiting Professor at several universities at home and abroad. In 1981 Goman became President of the American Sociological Association (ASA). At the peak of his powers after an academic career of almost 30 years, Goman died on November 20, 1982. Georg Simmel (see Simmel, Georg (18581918)), structural functionalism (Alfred Radclie-Brown, Talcott Parsons (see Mead, George Herbert (18631931))), representatives of the Chicago School (George H. Mead (see Mead, George Herbert (18631931)), Charles H. Cooley, Louis Wirth et al.), existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre), ethology, ethnomethodology (Harold Garnkel, Harvey Sacks), and sociolinguistics (Dell Hymes). But Goman never regarded his theoretical references, models and metaphors as ends in themselves, they were rather means to the end of discovering and describing social order. 2.2 Approaches, Positions, and Results In the following attempt to briey summarize and appraise Gomans work, a number of key sociological terms either coined or redened by Goman will be used as a guideline. 2.2.1 Dramaturgy. Goman became known for his analysis of social life based on the model of the theater (see 1959), and his model has remained inuential. It is too simple to speak of Gomans work, as for example Jonathan Turner does, as the dramaturgical school of interactionism, but it can be demonstrated that the dramaturgical perspective consistently played an important role for Goman. It can similarly be proved that Gomans dramaturgical approach partly anticipated and formed a basis for many of his later constructs. This particularly applies to his works on strategic interaction, ritual, territoriality, identity, and stigma. Within the context of the theater model Goman reconstructed above all the strategies of social face work: forms of concealment, lying, self-stylizing, mystication, the manipulation of facades, etc. His aim here was not just to show how individuals, selsh subjects in the ght for social recognition, attempt to present themselves in the best light; rather he constantly also saw dramaturgical everyday life as producing and reproducing social order, a restrictedly open and widely endangered process that is to be permanently established. Gomans dramaturgical approach and his later reections on social territories (1971) and frames (1974) also help us understand the spatial organization (social ecology) of modern society. For example, it becomes clear that normality is a ctional impression to be produced by dierentiating distinct spheres of perception, audiences, and representations; it is the foundation for the actors basic social trust. Gomans dierentiation between frontstage and backstage (see 1959) became famous in this context. 2.2.2 Roles and identities. Gomans early works in particular are to be seen in the context of role theory,

2. Gomans Work
2.1 Research Program and Intellectual Context Gomans main theme was the forms of immediate social interaction, face-to-face encounters. He saw in them a specic type of social system and a sociological eld in its own right. In his Presidential Address delivered at the end of his term as President of the American Sociological Association shortly before his death, he declared: My concern over the years has been to promote acceptance of this face-to-face domain as an analytically viable onea domain which might be titled for want of any happy name, the interaction ordera domain whose preferred method of study is microanalysis (Goman 1983, p. 2). This programmatic description of his position does not mean that Goman regarded the interaction level as completely autonomous or socially fundamental. Rather he stressed the manifold relativity of the autonomy of the interaction order. In many places in his works Goman pointed out its historical variability as well as links (a loose coupling) between the microlevel of the interaction and social macro-structures (e.g., social stratication or bureaucratic organization). However, Goman did not systematically consider the historical and social conditions and dependencies of his subject. Rather he was primarily concerned with observing and discovering seemingly insignicant aspects of daily behavior. He focused on tiny moments of peoples behavior, which they themselves nd more or less natural and are unaware of: eeting glances, physical contact and distance, apologies, greetings, compliments, silence, etc. All Gomans works, 11 books in total, are consistently oriented towards this empirical reality, but from the start Goman also adopted means of interpretation from various sociological schools and traditions, including above all the classics William James (see James, William (18421910)), Emile Durkheim (see Durkheim, Emile (18581917)) and 6298

Goman, Er ing (192182) inuential at the time, which he criticized and developed further. Goman treated role analysis primarily as interaction analysis, investigating the functioning and organization of the actual practice of performing a role against the background of its normative frame. Thus Goman developed concepts of patterns and styles of behavior, including the term role distance (see 1961b), which has meanwhile acquired the status of a basic sociological term and which refers to a way of behavior which comments on the role and primarily serves either the interaction system or the selves relevant in the situation. For example, Goman described a ve-year-old boy riding a roundabout horse who by little irreverences in his behavior demonstrates that his current role does not correspond to his true, more adult self. In Stigma (1963), Goman dierentiated the term self in the context of an identity theory which distinguishes three types of identity in a basic sense that is still valid at the beginning of the twenty-rst century: (a) social identity as a persons role set, (b) personal identity as a persons synchronic and diachronic individuality ascribed to him by observers, and (c) ego identity as a persons inner self-reference. Goman used these concepts of identity together with the instruments of his dramaturgical approach above all in analyzing stigmatized deviations and deviants. He focused on the techniques of information control and emotion management of the stigmatized people as well as on the consequences of the stigmatization for their identities and socialization. day interaction. Every person appears as both subject and object of a ritual language, a language of politeness, decency, and tact, but also on occasion of contempt, wounding, humiliation, etc. (see Goman 1967). At the end of his career Goman elaborated his early ritual model to include ethological and frame theoretical considerations, on the basis of which he analyzed gender interactions and the interpretative patterns they are based on (see 1979). Goman depicted gender as a combination of ritual styles of presentation representing beliefs about gender-specic essential attributes. These beliefs amount to a schematic asymmetry similar to that of the parent-child relationship. In daily interaction life and its media depictions (e.g., in advertising) men appear as superior beings to women by ritualizations of dress, physical contact, smiling, activity, etc.

2.2.3 Total institutions. Gomans book Asylums (1961a) represents an exception among his works in that it systematically goes beyond the interaction level. It describes a class of social organizations that has to do with conning, controlling and altering people, such as mental hospitals, prisons, convents, homes, barracks, concentration camps, etc. However, Gomans (1961a) investigated such total institutions, where the most elementary matters of course and norms of everyday interaction are broken, with the aim of exposing the interaction order and the self connected with it. Beyond that, Gomans analysis demonstrated that total institutions form an ambivalent milieu for socialization. On the one hand they act as machinery for disciplining and normalizing behavior and interaction. On the other hand these institutions damage the moral self, e.g., self-respect and modesty, through various forms of humiliation.

2.2.5 Strategic interactions. For Goman, ritualizations represented the most important social condition of prot-oriented strategic action on the level of interaction. Totally ignoring their contents, he analyzed this action within the framework of a model of strategic interaction oriented towards game theory (see 1969). The main point of departure and aim of Gomans respective considerations were the social situation in which the subjects strive for control of the denitions of the other players or rivals. Following on from his dramaturgical approach, Goman above all investigated the conditions of competence and limits of impression management, the strategically relevant interpretations of expression (e.g., of the body), the logic of reciprocal strategic observation and assessment, as well as the complexity of meaning and virtuosity of strategic moves. The empirical basis of the investigation consisted in particular in self-descriptions by a wide variety of strategic subjects (spies, condence tricksters, adulterers, politicians, etc.). Goman translated their practical knowledge of action (knowledge of cleverness) into the categories of his analytic description, e.g., a typology of strategic moves.

2.2.4 Ritualizations. In his work Goman repeatedly dealt with the moral sides of the interaction order. For Goman the self is a moral fact which implies rights and duties when showing respect and which can be observed in ritual practices and codes of every-

2.2.6 Frames and framing subjects. Frame Analysis (1974) can be regarded as Gomans main theoretical work, because it integrates, or could integrate, the many various analytic perspectives and terminological distinctions of his earlier works. Frame Analysis itself therefore forms something like a frame. It is characterized by two basic orientations. On the one hand, the interest is directed at structures and procedures for establishing meaning which are eective in generating normality in social situations and which are valid, independent of these situations. On this level, which can be compared with the grammar 6299

Goman, Er ing (192182) of a language, Goman revealed basic types of meaning and complex possibilities of transforming meaning (play, experiment, demonstration, etc.). On the other hand, on the level of the concrete situative events he aimed both at normal uncertainties, dangers, and the pressure to conform, as well as at extreme forms of abnormality, such as the negative experiences of inmates of mental hospitals, whose habitual framings, which have proved their worth in everyday life, fail in the institution. The individual, whom Goman revealed as the subject of the framing, is characterized by enormous powers of judgment and virtuosity, particularly in functionally complementing rules and also in manipulating them. 2.2.7 Forms of talk. In his last period, Goman built on earlier studies and particularly concerned himself with conversations. The main result of this work is his book Forms of Talk (1981), which Goman specically placed in the context of Frame Analysis, one chapter of which was already devoted to conversations. Gomans late focusing on conversations can be seen in connection with the emergence of conversation analysis as a branch of ethnomethodology, which he approved of, but also criticized (see Bergmann 1991). In contrast to conversation analysis, which tends to conceptualize the process of communication as an autonomously organized system, Goman stressed the importance of ritual order, which is always culturespecic and which permits selves and consequently psychological states to develop. Goman basically rejected the assumption by conversation analysts that sections of a conversation can be analyzed without reference to their situational and extra-situational contexts. Moreover, Goman was mainly interested in a sociological approach to the contextuality of social processes. Frame Analysis represents this approach. 2.3 Gomans Methods Gomans work is essentially the result of the authors talents, in particular his personal sensitivity, the subtlety of his powers of observation, and his ability to classify his material in his search for order. He displayed these talents in the course of practical research, which struck most observers as unconventional, even puzzling. Among the most irritating points are Gomans data, whose heterogeneity can hardly be exceeded. In his works the reader comes across personal everyday experiences, novels, autobiographies, the daily press, essays by lm critics, photographs, etc. In many other respects Goman also deviated from the normal forms of sociological discourse. He abbreviated the traditional terminological vocabulary of his eld, avoided lengthy argumentation, frequently changed perspective, focused on seemingly unimport6300 ant details, commented in an autoreective manner on his own work, made ironic remarks and repeatedly told or referred to stories. What is most important is that Goman did not conform to any methodological canon, rather his methods entirely depended on the subject. This meant rst of all that it was necessary to forgo certain traditional research methods. For example, the fact that those patterns of behavior that interested Goman were generally unconscious ones meant that interviews were largely or totally impossible. Goman himself described his procedure as primarily naturalistic. The scope of what he meant by that ranged from participant observation (even in his own everyday life) to work with audio-visual recordings. His aim was always to get as close as possible to social nature and to capture it as accurately as possible. On the other hand Goman tried to achieve analytic distance and obtain information by various forms of alienation. Alongside systematic work with models such as that of the theater, his most important technique was the strategy of alienation, which Paul Drew and Anthony Wootton (1988, p. 7) called the investigation of the normal through the abnormal. Goman employed totally dierent forms of abnormality, such as stigmatizations, espionage, accidents, or celebrities as approaches to the logic of everyday normality. In order to convert into texts the results that were generated by his methodological dialectic of approaching and distancing Goman combined two strategies. On the one hand he developed a formal analytical language which contains the basic features of the interaction order and the self connected with it. On the other hand he employed a strategy of thick description (C. Geertz). By using a literary style, a metaphorical language suited to the specic subject, and extensive quotations from his material, cleverly combined with his analytical observations, he succeeded in making his subject appear alive and viewing it in a new light.

3. Gomans Importance for the Social Sciences Today

It is not easy to judge how relevant Gomans work is for the social sciences at the beginning of the twentyrst century; its main signicance probably lies in his contribution to discovering the interaction order. In this way Goman opened up a specic research area and at the same time provided central categories and strategies for exploring it. But quite apart from interaction sociology, Goman also had a strong inuence on a number of other research areas and he remains inuential today. This is especially true of many aspects of research into identity and socialization. Of prime importance among them are Gomans reections on institutional control and

Goodness of Fit: O er iew discipline procedures, and on subjectivity. Goman is especially appreciated today in research on normality and deviation as well as in gender studies, where some of his works are still standards now. In addition, he has a signicant inuence not only on the level of the everyday interaction order, but also on the sociology of certain social elds of action (politics, advertising, science, etc.) and in media research, where many of Gomans analytical instruments have proved to be valid. Furthermore it can be seen that recently Gomans works have increasingly been read and discussed from the point of view of general theories of civilization and society. For example, parallels have been drawn and connections made with the works of Norbert Elias (see Elias, Norbert (18971990)), Michel Foucault (see Foucault, Michel (192684)), and Pierre Bourdieu (see Willems 1997). In general it is a remarkable fact that widely diering and contrasting schools have incorporated parts of Gomans works. The spectrum of positions Goman is relevant for, ranges from modern systems theory through critical theory, right down to the rational-choice approach. Just as the reactions to Gomans work have been wide-ranging and many-sided, so evaluations of its scope and its identity have diered greatly. While most people see the importance of Gomans work essentially on the level of empirical micro-observation, others (e.g., Anthony Giddens) believe that in it there is to be found a systematic theory that goes beyond the level of micro-sociology and is highly signicant for the development of the social sciences. Similarly, various labels have been attached to Gomans thinking (symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, role theory, structuralism, ethnomethodology, etc.). No matter how the situation of his reception is to be judged, it cannot be denied that Goman left behind a series of studies that are still relevant and inuential today and a network of concepts that is both highly complex and highly integrated. Perhaps an equally important part of his legacy is the paradigm he provided by the style and ethos of his research.
Goman E 1961b Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, IN Goman E 1963 Stigma. Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Prentice Hall, Englewood Clis, NJ Goman E 1967 Interaction Ritual: Essays on the face-to-face Beha ior. Doubleday Anchor, New York Goman E 1969 Strategic Interaction. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA Goman E 1971 Relations in Public. Microstudies of the Public Order. Harper and Row, New York Goman E 1974 Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harper and Row, New York Goman E 1979 Gender Ad ertisements. Macmillan, London Goman E 1981 Forms of Talk. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK Goman E 1983 The interaction order. American Sociological Re iew 48: 117 Manning Ph 1992 Er ing Goman and Modern Sociology. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA Willems H 1997 Rahmen und Habitus. Zum theoretischen und methodischen Ansatz Er ing Gomans: Vergleiche, Anschlusse W und Anwendungen. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., Germany

H. Willems Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Goodness of Fit: Overview

Many statistical methods make assumptions about, or have consequences for, particular distributions of certain quantities. Goodness-of-t methods assess the extent to which such assumptions or consequences are supported by the data. Similarly, in the process of model search or model selection within a particular choice of statistical distribution or model form, goodness-of-t approaches are used to guide the process of arriving at a sensible parsimonious model that captures the main features of the data. This article describes the general philosophy of assessing the goodness of t of models and distributions in the context of statistical analyses. The following sections address, in turn, the distinction between signicance tests and goodness-of-t tests, the role of alternative test criteria, and distributional plots for assessing goodness of t, the role of frequentist goodness-of-t criteria in model selection, as well as Bayesian approaches. Because there is an inevitable trade-o between the desire for model parsimony and models that t well, it seems wise to give up the notion that a model might be true, and instead think about choosing a model because its usefulness is reasonable. For a detailed consideration of some specic tests and diagnostic measures in the context of assessing the adequacy of distributional assumptions see Goodnessof-t Tests and Diagnostics. For detailed uses of the dierent approaches to goodness of t see Multi ariate Analysis: Discrete Variables (Loglinear Models); Linear Hypothesis: Regression (Basics); Linear Hypothesis: Regression (Graphics). 6301

Bibliography
Bergmann J R 1991 Gomans Soziologie des Gesprachs und $ seine ambivalente Beziehung zur Konversationsanalyse. In: Hettlage R, Lenz K (eds.) Er ing Gomanein soziologischer Klassiker der zweiten Generation. UTB, Bern, Stuttgart, Germany, pp. 30126 Collins R 1988 Theoretical continuities in Gomans work. In: Drew P, Wootton A (eds.) Er ing Goman. Exploring the Interaction Order. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 4163 Drew P, Wootton A 1988 Er ing Goman. Exploring the Interaction Order. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 113 Goman E 1959 The Presentation of Self in E eryday Life. Doubleday Anchor, New York Goman E 1961a Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Doubleday Anchor, New York

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences

ISBN: 0-08-043076-7