Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Lecture Notes
Chapter 2: Identities, Perceptions and Communication
Learning Objectives
1. Explain the basic assumptions of identity construction.
4. Explain how identities are transacted though self-disclosure.
5. Explain how identities are transacted in connection with other people.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
A. Identities are symbolic creations based on performance of personal roles, how people
perceive themselves, and how they want to be viewed by others.
B. Presence of identity work influences communication that takes place during an
II. Basic Assumptions of Identity Creation
A. Myth of the Core Self
i. People do not possess core, unchanging selves that influence actions and are
waiting to be revealed through disclosure.
ii. People’s biological makeup and physical characteristics influence the way they
communicate with others and vice-versa.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. If people had a core self, they would feel the same way, maintain the same
mood, and communicate accordingly all the time.
v. Different Situations:
vi. Different Relationships:
a. People transact multiple identities given many different relationships shared
with others.
vii. Different Evaluations:
a. People evaluate the same person in vastly different ways.
b. Varying evaluations of people happen quite frequently.
B. Culture and Identities
i. Cultural groups provide us with ways to describe and evaluate identities.
ii. Cultural groups to which you belong inform you about the proper ways to
C. Identities and Relationships
i. Identities are created in the context of personal relationships. Identities and
personal relationships are interconnected in various ways. Some identities are
ii. Identities are enacted through personal relationships. Personal relationships are
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
iii. We understand cultural understandings and evaluations of identities through
relationships.
iv. Certain identities might be considered more attractive than others. Someone might
D. Performance of Identities
i. Perform means that rather than having an identity, people are doing an identity.
ii. When people perform identities, they are not being fake and being dishonest.
III. Identities and Perceptions
A. Perceptions influence the development of identities and all meaning making.
B. Perceptions are based on relational and cultural understandings.
C. Selecting
i. Everyone selects and focuses more on some things than others.
ii. A person’s motives or needs at a particular moment in time will also influence our
v. Selective Perception:
a. We are more likely to perceive and focus on things that support our beliefs,
values, and attitudes.
vi. Selective Retention:
a. Also referred to as selective memory,
i. Schemata:
a. Mental structures that are used to organize information partly by clustering
associated material.
b. Information is stored in a relatively accessible manner.
ii. Prototype: The best-case example of something.
iii. Personal Constructs:
a. We evaluate and perceive the world through personal constructs.
b. We use bipolar dimensions to measure and evaluate things.
c. Whereas prototypes tend to be broad categories, personal constructs are
IV. Transacting Identities: Communication and Performance
A. Identities can be understood through perception, as being transacted symbolically
through communication with others. Performing personal identities, then, includes
B. Demographic-based identities are also performed or transacted. Cultural
understanding and norms influence the symbolic activities associated with these
categories.
C. Front and Back Regions
i. Sometimes identities are performed without great deal of purpose or strategy and
with purpose and are strategic. Other times, identity performance is very
purposeful and strategic.
ii. Goffman (1959) differentiated a front region and back region to social
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
V. Transacting Identities: Self-Disclosure
A. Self-Description or Self-Disclosure
i. Self-description is not really an individual identity but is more about group
membership. It usually involves information about self that is obvious to others
through appearance and behavior.
B. Dynamics of Self-Disclosure
i. The Value of Self-Disclosure:
a. Self-disclosure was seen as beneficial to identity construction. Sidney Jourard
(1964, 1971) originally wrote about self-disclosure as making your identity
ii. Good, Bad, or Nothing
2. You do not like what people are telling you or they disclose too much
information.
3. You simply do not care about what you are being told.
C. Disclosure and Privacy
i. Communication Privacy Management theory explains how people manage the
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
c. Turbulence may occur when boundaries come under attack or are revised or
due to changes in how a relationship is perceived.
D. Narratives
i. Self-disclosure may be accomplished through story form. We tell stories all the
time.
ii. Narratives about the same event will be told in different ways depending on the
audience.
iii. Constructing the Story:
a. Stories you tell are generally organized according to Kenneth Burke’s Pentad:
1. Act (what happened),
2. Scene (situation or location of the act),
b. We deem some elements most important and use them to help people
understand us better.
VI. Transacting Identities: Other People
A. Symbolic Self
i. Identity is a symbolic self that exists for other people; goes beyond what it means
to them. It is shaped by culture and the people you interact with, and this affects
ii. Symbolic interactionism: How broad social forces affect or even transact an
individual’s view of self.
a. People get their sense of self from other people and from being aware that
iii. Mead called this phenomenon the human ability to adopt an attitude of reflection
(symbolic interactionism), thinking about how you look in other people’s eyes,
or reflecting that other people can see you as a social object from their point of
view.
a. Mead also saw self as a transacted result of communicating with other people.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
B. Self as Others Treat You
i. Relationships connect through communication to the formation of one’s identity.
C. Altercasting
i. It involves the work that someone’s communication does to impose, support, or
reject identities of others.
ii. It refers to how language can give people an identity and then force them to live
up to the description, whether positive or negative (Marwell & Schmitt, 1967).