ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of a series of exploratory observations of face-to-face interaction between nursing staff and residents in a home for the aged, and attempts an interpretation of those results. It provides some insights toward answers to the foregoing questions and suggests some directions for future research into social interaction in homes for the aged. Insofar as types or styles of staff deportment are discernible, the next order of analysis is to determine their interrelationships and factors associated with variations in styles. The foregoing distinctions between styles of staff-to-resident deportment were based on an analysis of observations of staff-to-resident events without regard to differences in staff status. That self-other differences relative to the distribution of visible and degrading bodily attributes may have a bearing on styles of staff-to-resident deportment is suggested in E. Goffman’s discussion of mixed contacts between the “‘visibly’ stigmatized” and “normals.”
