When two persons ‘interact’ with each other, each interacting person (called technically an ego) takes account of the other party (called technically alter). The ‘alter’ is not merely a physical object, but a person with a congeries of statuses, related attitudes, expectations, and with the capacity to pass judgement. The ego takes note of all these while transacting business with alter. Similarly, assuming the role of an ego, the alter takes note of all these features of his alter. In this sense, an interaction is a transaction where both parties don the roles of ego and alter by turn.
Figure 7.1 Situation of Social Interaction
The action initiated by individual A as an ego depends on the manner in which A perceives the other party–individual B called alter; similarly, the response of B–the alter–(while responding B becomes the ego) depends on how he/she (B) interprets the message and the status of the sender (A). The action of each of the two parties is thus based (i) on his/her attitude towards the other, and (ii) his/her expectations about the other’s possible reactions to him. Any wrong perceptions would lead to a crisis in the relationship. This is true when one is interacting with an unknown person, or with an acquaintance.
There is an oft told story of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. One of his admirers expressed the desire to personally pay him visit. He informed Vidyasagar of the schedule of his visit–the date, the train and the time of arrival. The visitor arrived by train at the appointed time. While climbing out of the first class compartment, he yelled for a coolie, but none was in sight. So he had to unwillingly unload his baggage onto the platform. A dhoti-clad passer-by offered to carry his baggage. The visitor accepted the offer. Upon reaching his destination the visitor took out his wallet to pay the porter. At that time, the stranger told him that he was Vidyasagar, and that he had come to the station only to receive him. The visitor felt sorry at the disrespect he had shown. But Vidyasagar calmed him.
There are several such stories associated with Vidyasagar. To quote one more instance: Vidyasagar learnt that a person of poor means had died in a distant locality and the widow did not have the means to arrange for her husband’s funeral. Not intending to hurt the self pride of the widow, Vidyasagar visited the house incognito and told the widow that he had come to return part of the money that he had borrowed from her husband, and was indeed very sorry to learn of his sudden demise. He gave a bundle of notes to the widow with the promise that the remainder of the sum that he owed would be repaid soon. The widow believed Vidyasagar and accepted the money that helped her arrange the funeral.
Both these are instances of mistaken identity that guided the interaction. The situation would have been different had the real identity of Vidyasagar known to the two parties–the visitor at the railway platform and the widow. The visitor could not recognize Vidyasagar and mistook him for a poor villager. Vidyasagar did not disclose his identity but recognized the visitor. The visitor suffered huge embarrassment. Similarly, it is quite possible that the widowed woman might have refused the monetary assistance had she known that the donor was a well-known philanthropist.
Robert Bierstedt has quoted a similar story from the United States, The Social Order. The story [C]oncerns the doctor who, upon completing his examination of a young woman, said,
‘Mrs. Jones, I have very good news for you.’
‘My name,’ the young woman replied, ‘is Miss Jones, not Mrs Jones,’
‘In that case,’ said the doctor, ‘I’m afraid I have very bad news for you.’
‘This is not a very good story’, says Bierstedt, ‘but it does illustrate the importance of status. The same physiological condition that in one status would be good news is bad news in another’ (Bierstedt, 1963: 257-58).
These small stories hint at a major sociological truism. A proper dialogue between two parties occurs only when their relative statuses and associated expectations are correctly known to each other. Mistaken identities lead to wrong behaviour.
Comparable situations appear constantly, if less dramatically, in the lives of all of us. A significantly large number of the social interactions between people in a complex society … are status interactions and not personal interactions. A contemporary college student, for example, has social relations with barbers, bank tellers, bus drivers, ticket takers, registrars, and deans. It is of vital importance to recognise that he can, and probably does, have social relationships with al of these people without knowing their names or indeed anything about them-except their status. Nor, in turn, do they need to know his name or anything about him-except his status (Bierstedt, 1963: 258).
It is for this reason that people carry status indicators with them.
One good example of a status indicator is that of dress diacriticals. The dress we wear announces our status as male or female. Men and women dress differently. In traditional India, a Hindu woman’s status as unmarried, married, or a widow could be told by the type of dress worn by her. Similarly, people of different Hindu sects could be identified by the type of Tilak (sandalwood paste marking) on the forehead. Circumcision among the Muslims distinguished them from the Hindus, and has been used as an identity indicator. A burqua distinguished a Muslim woman from Hindu one. Dresses also served to distinguish people of different regions even within the same country. A ban was imposed in France some 200 years ago prohibiting women from wearing trousers in Paris. It stipulated that any Parisiene wishing to ‘dress like a man’ must seek permission from the city’s main police station.3 In the changed circumstances, many of these traditional dress diacriticals are disappearing, and yet the so-called ‘unisex’ dresses also have some subtle clues to assist in the identification of the sex of the wearer. An obvious example is the placement of buttons on shirts and jackets–male dresses have them on the right side, female dresses on the left.
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