College Drinking And The Idea Of "Face"

Face – This is how a college student might come off or present himself/herself to others. This can be style of clothes, personality, attitude, first impression, body language, race, culture, and where they are from.

Face-Kinds:

1. Avoidance Process – This is when someone tries to avoid a situation. Any college student can decide to avoid peer pressure, or refuse another drink. Anything to avoid something you do not want to come into contact with. It is up to the individual to know when to say no and have the guts to avoid any type of situation they do not want to be involved in.  This can be anything from avoiding to go to a party by making up an excuse to avoiding taking another drunk by acting too drunk.  Many actions can fall under the avoidance process.

2. Studied Non Observance – This is when someone pretends to not even notice something that just happened. An example could be when one person sees a male student vomiting and pretends to not even notice because you don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable or because you do not want to help him.  Another example could be when someone sees a guy taking a girl out of the party who is clearly too drunk but does want to become involved so pretends to not notice.

3. Corrective Process – This is when someone tries to let another person know that they’re breaking a social norm. For sure many college students do this to help out their peers or help a stranger out to not look so bad in front of the others present at the party. An example might be that a guy tells his other friend that he still has a bit of puke on this mouth and shirt, or a girl letting her other girl friend know that her underwear is showing. Anything that might avoid breaking a social norm in the back/front stage.

Maintain Face – Anything to justify what you just did. Someone could laugh it off, pretend nothing happened, or just go with it.  An example could be when someone makes a very awkward comment at a party and everyone maintains social control and carries on as if nothing happened.

Wrong Face – When someone does something that is outside the social norm, or in other words, breaking the social norm.  This could come in a variety of forms at a party.  Any person that is clearly out of place or acting completely out of the ordinary could be considered to have wrong face.