Encountering Strangers in Public Places: Goffman and Civil Inattention

By Wayne Mellinger

Instructor, Antioch University

To live in the city is to live in the presence of strangers. For those of us living in cities, passing strangers on busy streets is unremarkable. We rush to our next appointment, preoccupied with our own thoughts, navigating through the crowded sidewalks. On “auto pilot,” we don't even think about our many brief encounters with unknown others in public spaces.

There is a norm of anonymity which governs behavior in public between strangers. Normally strangers quickly glance at each other and then look away. Through this ritual, which sociologist Erving Goffman calls “civil inattention,” we demonstrate that we recognize the other person's presence, are not seeking a sustained interaction, and have no hostile intention.

The Dictionary of Critical Social Science defines “civil inattention” this way:

A norm of mass market societies which requires one carefully avoid interaction with other's physically present. If the others are part of a social base, then civility would be required; if others are nonpersons, then one can be uncivilly inattentive, i.e., one can stare, push, look through, speak through or talk about others in that presence.

The norm is that strangers do not talk to one another. Typically at about eight to ten feet from one another we have a very brief exchange of eye contact, and then avert our eyes. In making eye contact, we acknowledge that we see the other person, and that we will not invade their territory. In averting our gaze, we display our lack of recognition of the other and our unwillingness to become more familiar. This type of facework creates a climate of minimal security, thus helping to keep down feeling of anxiety or fear. The ritual of civil inattention seems to suggest “you can trust me...I am not going to attack you”.

Of course, this norm is violated millions of times each day. Lost in a distant city, we approach a friendly face on the sidewalk and ask for directions. Stunned by the elderly man who just backed his car into a street light, we make a comment to a fellow witness at the gas stations at which we are pumping gas. Overcome by emotions at a friend's funeral, someone we have not meet, but clearly also known to the deceased, briefly consoles us. Wearing your favorite Hawaiian shirt at a street fair a person wearing the exact same shirt smiles and says, “Hey nice shirt!”

There are places at which encounters between strangers are more permissible, typically locations that imply pertinent information about the person— such as local gyms and airport waiting areas. Moreover, certain people are seen as more “open” than others, including women, (especially very attractive women, pregnant women, or those with small children), people wearing uniforms, and those who work with the public.

Through this simple interactional ritual we “do modernity.” Is this everyday micro-ceremony emblematic of our modern urban way of life? Are these anonymous encounters with countless others in public places somehow unique to modern cosmopolitan societies? Perhaps like Georg Simmel's “blasé attitude” they reveal our detachment from the world, display the impersonal nature of our societies and are indicative of the over-stimulation of crowds.

Obviously, we can only speculate about what public encounters were like among strangers in pre-modern societies. Swedish economist Axel Leijonhuvud's 1995 article “The Individual, the Market and the Division of Labor in Society” describes the life of Bodo, who lived in the Parish of St. Germain de Pres in medieval Europe, what is now a parish is in the heart of Paris. But in Bodo's time in was a rural parish distant enough from Paris that many of its people had never seen Paris.

Virtually everything Bodo consumed was produced by about 80 people that he probably knew better than we know any but a few people. Most of these villagers would likey have no sustained interactions with others. In his book, Trust, Russell Hardin discusses the role of trust in Bodo's village:

“If a stranger came from the outside into Bodo's village, the villagers would been very wary and careful in their deals with that person... they watch out.” (p. 10)

This sounds like a mode of interaction very different from Goffman's civil inattention and how we “do modernity” today. Rather than the averted gaze and trust-inducing nonchalance of our modern civil society, Hardin hints at a harsher form of facework in which eye contact is prolonged and attention heightened. This “uncivil attention” might have been a dominant mode of interaction between strangers in public places in pre-modern societies.

Brief encounters with strangers help to produce a “mass society.”

Comments

[Katharina]

Very interesting! I am living in Austria, but I have lived near Boston for a year and I can tell you there are big differences on how people walk around on the streets. In Boston I started to do a little experiment, I looked at strangers longer than usual and smiled at them, not a smile like "Hey, I know you" but just a random smile saying "I am happy". And I got tons of smiles back without questioning it. In Austria, Salzburg, I did that too for a while during the summer and it was rather frustrating.
People don't even look at you, if you sit in the bus, they avoid eye contact etc. And if I got the chance to smile at a stranger, they were confused most of the time, giving me a look like "what do you want from me?!" In very few occasions they smiled back, confused, but smiled back. I remember a guy screamed "girl why are you smiling, why are you so happy? I want to be happy too!"

I think that is really interesting, because it is somehow a hidden rule that one does not look at another for longer than a few seconds. And it is really interesting to "break" that rule and see the reactions!

[Spencer]

This makes something that not many people talk about more understanding. As a society we don't often talk to strangers, we try to avoid contact with them for the most part. What you said about us becoming more likely to hold our gaze longer could result in hostility, if people don't take the attention in the way it was meant to be then anger could be a result due to misunderstanding. However, if the person prolonging the attention is acting in an uncivil manner then that would create problems anyways. Interacting with strangers is a touchy task, you don't want them to feel uncomfortable but you also don't want to make them feel nonexistent.

[Wilson]

This is very true. Interaction with strangers is a very touchy thing to do. Eye contact, and the "head nod" (guys do it mostly) are the most typical ways of communicating with other people. The head nod, for example, can be taken in two different ways depending on the person. An upward nod generally is a way of acknowledging a friend or someone that the person has met before, while a downward nod is more like a way of saying hello and acknowledging the other person"s existence. Also, in my small town, everyone waves at people, even if you don't know the person. It is considered to be the polite thing to do. But when I'm in the city, I still wave at people (if I have the chance), but the reaction is very different. Instead of waving back, most people give me a semi-hostile look like "Why are you waving at me? I don't know you!"

[Kara]

I enjoyed reading this article because it showed that talking to strangers isn't that bad. Most of them are friendly and it can build up a "mass society." I think it all depends on the area though, where people might look at you strangly or just being hostile. I find it more difficult to talk to women strangers because most females are so judgemental and can't see past you.

[Psychology]

Yeap i agree with this post it's true words. Nice way of posting..
Psychology

[A Facebook User]

Awesome insights. As an urban planning student, I'm doing research on today's public spaces and this is a refreshing perspective, especially considering the an overwhelming number of views that blame technological advances for changes in human behavior.

[Fateme]

very interesting. i am a linguistic student from Iran and i am studing on Street Remarks.It is about verbal interactions between stranger men and women on the street and i have mentioned about Civil Inattention in my work.This article was so enjoyable for me.

[Zander]

Most of them are friendly and it can build up a "mass society." I think it all depends on the area though, where people might look at you strangly or just being hostile. I find it more difficult to talk to women strangers because most females are so judgemental and can't see past you.

[DURP]

Good advice.

[Tanui]

I think that is really interesting, because it is somehow a hidden rule that one does not look at another for longer than a few seconds. And it is really interesting to "break" that rule and see the reactions!

[Bethsaida]

It is very interesting to read all these comments about stranger's behavior. I'm from Mexico but living in Australia. Back in my country, I learn to identify the walk, look and other interesting behaviors of a stranger, which most of the times those moments were very confronting, but at the same time learning to survive danger.
When I arrived to Australia. It was so obvious to recognised a stranger danger individual.Therefore I needed to educate my kids to this regard and to differenciate forein and local danger.