See also
Wikiquote has quotations related to Deference .
Deference (also called submission or passivity) is the condition of submitting to the espoused, legitimate influence of one's superior or superiors. [1] Deference implies a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior, out of respect or reverence. Deference has been studied extensively by political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists.
Smolenski (2005) examines deference in colonial Pennsylvania, to see how claims to political authority were made, justified, and accepted or rejected. He focuses on the "colonial speech economy," that is, the implicit rules that determined who was allowed to address whom and under what conditions, and describes how the qualities that inspired deference changed in the province from 1691 to 1764. The Quaker elite initially established a monopoly on political leadership based on what they believed to be their inherent civic virtue grounded in their religious and social class. By 1760, this view had been discredited and replaced with the consensus that civic virtue was an achieved, not an inherent, attribute and that it should be demonstrated by the display of appropriate manliness and the valor of men who were willing to take up arms for the common defense of the colony. Further, Pennsylvanians came to believe that all white men, not just wealthy property owners, were equally capable of achieving political voice. Martial masculinity, therefore, became the defining characteristic of the ideal citizen and marked a significant transformation in the way individuals justified their right to represent the public interest. [2]
Erving Goffman, a Canadian-born sociologist and writer, explored the relationship between deference and demeanor in his 1967 essay "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor". [3] According to Goffman, a person with a poor demeanor will be held in lower esteem by society. The opposite is true for a person with a good demeanor: society will hold them in a higher esteem. An example of this situation can be seen through the way a person acts in a social setting. e.g. a man pulling out a chair for a woman at a restaurant. On the other end of the spectrum, a person not bathing before they go to a fancy dinner party. These examples can be defined as presentational deference. Demeanor does not only limit itself to the actions of an individual, but also the appearance of an individual. A person offers themselves to a social group through a good appearance or a well demeanored appearance. When an individual has a well demeanored appearance it makes interaction between people easier. After a person is socially accepted to a group, it is expected that they will conform to interactional norms. Through acting on those norms, people receive deference.
There is ongoing debate among psychologists as to the extent to which deference in a relationship is determined by a person's innate personality type or is the result of a person's experiences and conditioning. In interpersonal relationships, a partner can assume a submissive role to fit in or to make themself acceptable to the other partner, [4] which can be a benign aspect of a relationship. On the other hand, it may be an indication of an interpersonal problem, such as partner abuse. If one or both of the people are experiencing chronic, pervasive emotional distress then the sex partners or individuals may require psychological evaluation.
In interpersonal relationships, some people prefer or are willing to adopt a submissive role in sexual activities or personal matters. The level and type of submission can vary from person to person, and from one context to another; and also is dependent on the other partner being willing to assume control in those situations. Some people can include occasional acts of submission in an otherwise conventional sex life, or adopt a submissive lifestyle.
Submission is also a common behavior in the animal kingdom, with a prevalence that spans the whole vertebrate-invertebrate gamut. Signs of submission are used either to preempt dangerous combat (in which case they usually appear at the beginning of an encounter) or to establish a dominance hierarchy (in which case they usually appear after the encounter). Often the behaviors used to appease the opponent or yield to his authority are of a stereotyped nature (e.g., bowing of the head, crouching, prostration, placing the tail between the legs, lying on ones back, grooming) but can sometimes develop into elaborate ritualistic performances (e.g., food supplication by the submissive animal, regurgitation of food by the dominant and ingestion of the regurgitated food by the submissive). It is believed by some researchers that part of the instinctive machinery subserving these behaviors is related to that used to evade or withstand predator attacks where similar behaviors appear (e.g., crouching, prostration, lying on the back). [5] Other researchers have speculated what functions, if any, these behaviors may play in modern humans and come up with several possibilities (mostly from an evolutionary perspective); that they help in the establishment of parent-child attachment and pair bond formation, [6] that they promote the development of theory of mind, [7] that they play a role in the emergence of language, [8] and that they may lay behind the higher cooperative and communicative abilities of humans. [9]
In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century".
Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members who treat others well and take initiative. This is one explanation for its apparent cross-cultural universality. On the other hand, while people with higher status experience a litany of benefits—such as greater health, admiration, resources, influence, and freedom—those with lower status experience poorer outcomes across all of those metrics.
Female submission or femsub is an activity or relationship in which a woman submits to the direction of a sexual partner or has her body used sexually by or for the sexual pleasure of her partner. The expression is often associated with BDSM, where submission to such activity is usually voluntarily and consensual. Submission usually involves a degree of trust by the woman in her partner. The dominant partner is usually a man, but can also be another woman, or there can be multiple dominant partners simultaneously. The submissive woman may derive sexual pleasure or emotional gratification from relinquishing control to a trusted dominant partner.
In micro-sociology, interactionism is a theoretical perspective that sees social behavior as an interactive product of the individual and the situation. In other words, it derives social processes from social interaction, whereby subjectively held meanings are integral to explaining or understanding social behavior.
Impression management is a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It was first conceptualized by Erving Goffman in 1959 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and then was expanded upon in 1967.
Interpersonal attraction, as a part of social psychology, is the study of the attraction between people which leads to the development of platonic or romantic relationships. It is distinct from perceptions such as physical attractiveness, and involves views of what is and what is not considered beautiful or attractive.
Dominance and submission (D/s) is a set of behaviors, customs, and rituals involving the submission of one person to another in an erotic episode or lifestyle. It is a subset of BDSM. This form of sexual contact and pleasure has been shown to please a minority of people.
Microsociology is one of the main levels of analysis of sociology, concerning the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale: face to face. Microsociology is based on subjective interpretative analysis rather than statistical or empirical observation, and shares close association with the philosophy of phenomenology. Methods include symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology; ethnomethodology in particular has led to many academic sub-divisions and studies such as micro-linguistical research and other related aspects of human social behaviour. Macrosociology, by contrast, concerns the social structure and broader systems.
Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective that analyzes micro-sociological accounts of everyday social interactions through the analogy of performativity and theatrical dramaturgy, dividing such interactions between "actors", "audience" members, and various "front" and "back" stages.
Face is a class of behaviors and customs, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual, and its image in social groups.
Kneeling is a basic human position where one or both knees touch the ground. According to Merriam-Webster, kneeling is defined as "to position the body so that one or both knees rest on the floor". Kneeling with only one knee, and not both, is called genuflection.
The interpersonal circle or interpersonal circumplex is a model for conceptualizing, organizing, and assessing interpersonal behavior, traits, and motives. The interpersonal circumplex is defined by two orthogonal axes: a vertical axis and a horizontal axis. In recent years, it has become conventional to identify the vertical and horizontal axes with the broad constructs of agency and communion. Thus, each point in the interpersonal circumplex space can be specified as a weighted combination of agency and communion.
In BDSM, Master/slave, M/s or sexual slavery is a relationship in which one individual serves another in a consensual authority-exchange structured relationship. Unlike Dominant/submissive structures found in BDSM in which love is often the core value, service and obedience are often the core values in Master/slave structures. The participants may be of any gender or sexual orientation. The relationship uses the term "slave" because of the association of the term with ownership rights of a master to their slave's body, as property or chattel. While male "masters" will usually be referred to as "Master", whether or not female Masters are referred to as "Master" or "Mistress" may depend upon whether they identify as following the leather subculture or BDSM path, or simply preference.
Identity negotiation refers to the processes through which people reach agreements regarding "who is who" in their relationships. Once these agreements are reached, people are expected to remain faithful to the identities they have agreed to assume. The process of identity negotiation thus establishes what people can expect of one another. Identity negotiation thus provides the interpersonal "glue" that holds relationships together.
Interpersonal compatibility or interpersonal matching is the long-term interaction between two or more individuals in terms of the ease and comfort of communication.
Power and dominance-submission are two key dimensions of relationships, especially close relationships in which parties rely on one another to achieve their goals and as such it is important to be able to identify indicators of dominance.
Stigma management is the process of concealing or disclosing aspects of one's identity to minimize social stigma.
Social rank theory provides an evolutionary paradigm that locates affiliative and ranking structures at the core of many psychological disorders. In this context, displays of submission signal to dominant individuals that subordinate group members are not a threat to their rank within the social hierarchy. This helps to achieve social cohesion. According to social rank theory, anxiety and depression are natural experiences that are common to all mammalian species. It is the pathological exaggeration of anxiety and depression that contributes to psychological disorders.
Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior is a 1967 book by Erving Goffman.