Researchers can chose between overt (open) and covert (secret) participant observation, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses, but they evidently share characteristics also. Participant observation permits the researcher to change the direction of research in the light of circumstances because pre-judgement of issues is avoided. The closeness of the researcher (as participant) to the subjects leads to a higher quality and depth of information; the researchers’ role as observer (combined with participant) encourages empathy, again adding to the quality of evidence. (website: 2005: p.3)
Goffman chose covert participant observation, working as an Assistant Athletics Director for three years at the asylum. By using participant observation Goffman allowed himself more flexibility in his research. He could follow different leads, even new ones, and react to events. Participant observation allows the researcher to relate statements or claims made by subjects to their actual behaviour (which a simple interview, for example, would rule out); participant observation, in Goffmans’ own terminology, allows the researcher to get ‘backstage’. (Lecture2: 2005)
Participant observation permits the researcher to gain knowledge of day to day patterns of behaviour and informal codes of behaviour such as the ‘ward system’ described by Goffman. This system is one which ‘the inmate learns to orient himself in terms of’ (Goffman: 1961: p.148), one of punishments and privileges depending upon obedience to rules.
This particular method holds some advantages over overt participant observation, an important one being the elimination of the observer effect – or Hawthorne effect: the subjects changing their ‘normal’ behaviour as a result of being aware they have become subjects of a study. (Giddens: 2001: p.649) As covert participant observation entails becoming part of a group and the observer effect is not present, richer, more reliable evidence can be collected. Goffman had access to the physical, verbal and expressive behaviour of the patients at the asylum. (Lecture2: 2005) By then combining his role as participant (understanding things form the subject’s point of view) with his role as observer (possessing sociological insight) Goffman could reach a fuller understanding of events that the subject may not understand. (website: 2005: p.12) However, by not revealing himself as a researcher, Goffman immediately restricted his means of data collection: he could not for example arrange interviews or question people directly about their actions. Thus Goffman must have used considerable intellectual sophistication in order to gain information. (Lecture: 2005)
Participant observation as a method does have its problems, one being the restriction to small-scale studies and the following lack of representativeness. (Website: 2005: p. 3.) In Goffmans case however, further studies and investigations yielded similar results and even led to reforms in the area of mental health care. Additionally there are downfalls to Goffman’s use of covert participant observation, as opposed to overt participant observation. In a practical sense, because Goffman could not openly record data, he had to rely on his memory when writing his field diary at the end of each day. Thus any reader must trust that the researcher has correctly remembered and interpreted behaviour, events and experiences, something more difficult with covert participant observation due to restrictions in questioning. This questioning of accuracy and interpretation can lead to questioning the validity of research. (Website: 2005: p.14.) On an ethical level, covert participant observation can be seen as spying on and exploiting the subjects for the researcher’s means. (Website: 2005 : p.14.)
While Goffman did join the social group of the mental asylum, he did so as a member of staff not as a patient. This suggests he could not therefore have fully understood the social world from the patients’ viewpoint. Rosenhan’s pseudo-patients experiment ( Rosenhan, 1981) perhaps better serves the purpose of describing mental patients’ experience of the ‘self’. Rosenhan sent eight pseudo-patients claiming to be schizophrenic to various mental hospitals. Every pseudo-patient (except one) was admitted, diagnosed and treated as a schizophrenic; they all experienced first hand what Rosenhan called depersonalisation (Rosenhan: 1981: p. 316) and Goffman detailed as a series of mortification rituals (Branaman and Lemert: 1997: p. iv). The organisation of the institution worked to relieve the staff of the problems of restricted space and a small budget. These rituals described by Goffman exerted maximum control by staff over the submissive ‘depersonalised’ patients. The illumination of this problem led to the reforms in mental health care practices and policies. (Lecture 1: 2005). However, had Goffman not been a member of staff at the asylum it is unlikely he could have gained access to various resources, such as the patients’ case studies he mentions (mainly in the footnotes) in The Moral Career of the Mental Patient (1961), thus reducing the data. Additionally, despite being a member of staff and not a patient, Goffman’s findings closely matched those of others e.g. Rosenhan and Belknap ( lecture 1: 2005) which perhaps speaks volumes of his research skills and intellectual sophistication.
Williams (1988: p. 73) argues that sociology is about re-ordering and attaching different significances to what we already know. He goes on to say that sociological methods must then allow for this re-ordering efficiently and reliably. This would appear to be what Goffman was doing when he used participant observation to achieve his ‘major purpose in Asylums. . . to demonstrate the self’s entanglement with institutionally based supports and constraints’ (Branaman and Lemert: 1997: p. x).
To conclude, Goffman’s role as the researcher as participant observer in his work on asylums, was to actually become the research tool itself in a bid to understand the motives and meanings behind the patients’ behaviour: ‘to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self’ (Branaman and Lemert: 1997: p. xiii). By using subjective sociology ( in the form of covert participant observation) Goffman avoided pre-judgement of the issue at hand, and afforded himself more flexibility in his research. Participant observation meant he could really get ‘backstage’ and obtain a rich, reliable and detailed pool of evidence. Goffman could match actual behaviour with past claims or statements, and by combining his roles of participant and observer, come to a clear understanding of the patients’ actions. Inevitably there are disadvantages to this method, both practical and ethical such as the implications of small scale studies. I suggest that perhaps had Goffman been a patient rather than a member of staff he could have gained a much clearer understanding of the patients’ viewpoint and structure of ‘self’. Nonetheless, as other studies yielded similar and supporting results, and Goffman’s study led to reforms in mental health care, this matter seems largely irrelevant now. Thus Goffman’s role of participant observer made him not only the research tool, allowing him to accomplish his personal task of building an image of the structure of the ‘self’ (through experience), but also it seems turning him into a vehicle for reform.
Bibliography
Branaman, A. & Lemert, C. (eds): 1997: ‘Goffmans Social Theory’ (introductory essay) The Goffman Reader: Oxford, Blackwell
Giddens, A: 2001: Sociology: Cambridge, Polity
Goffman, E: 1961: ‘The moral career of the mental patient’ Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates: New York, Doubleday
Lecture1, 18/01/2005. Lecture2, 20/01/2005: Edinburgh University (Tom McGlew)
Rosenhan, D: 1961: ‘Being Sane in Insane Places’ in Grusky, O & Pollner, M (eds): 1981: The Sociology of Mental Illness: London, Holt, Rinehart & Winston
Williams, R: 1988: ‘Understanding Goffman’s methods’ in Drew, P & Wotton, A (eds): Erving Goffman: Exploring the interaction order: Oxford, Polity
Website: 17/02/2005:
