Abstract
Sociologists have gained great purchase from Edgerton’s (1967) introduction of “the cloak of competence” as an analytical concept, particularly those in the study of deviance and health interested in presentations of self as “normal” and those who have studied professional socialization. Our concern in this paper is with the opposite process—the presentation of an incompetent or less than competent self. Situating our analysis within the sociology of everyday life and performing a meta-analysis of a range of studies, we show that displays of incompetence or diminished competence are as pervasive and integral a feature of social life as displays of competence. We explore the wide variety of situations in which social actors engage in displays of diminished competence and make the case for studying them more systematically as a way of understanding the full range of presentational strategies social actors employ. We conclude by suggesting that incompetence/competence are best viewed as a continuum along which individuals seek to position themselves, engaging in “cloaking behavior” to either maximize or minimize their displayed level of competence. We also discuss the relevance of these conceptual ideas to those concerned with the dynamics of social inequality, and the doing of gender, race, class, power and resistance, suggesting that greater attention to cloaking behavior may serve as a bridge between interpretive and structural approaches in sociology.
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Notes
Columbo is the title character of an American television series (1971–2003). With his rumpled raincoat, ever-present cigar, and bumbling demeanor, this friendly, disheveled, homicide detective is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Presenting himself as absentminded, he shrewdly solves all of his cases.
In studying those with intellectual deficits, Edgerton (1993, p. 6) states that he intended to “contribute knowledge towards a sociology of incompetence.” By this he meant that he wanted to encourage further study into how those who are viewed as incompetent manage those perceptions. We too see ourselves as contributing towards a sociology of incompetence. However, we distinguish our goals from Edgerton’s in that our interest is not in those who eschew labels of incompetence, but seek them out.
There is also a critical counter-tradition to the interpretive approach in which we situate our work. Like the interpretive approach to everyday life, the critical approach represents a variety of theoretical perspectives, including feminism, cultural studies, poststructuralism, and postmodernism (see Gardiner 2000). Critical approaches seek to deconstruct, subvert, and emancipate people from the institutionalized and taken for granted power relations in everyday life.
Goffman (1959, p. 35) noted that many if not most self-presentations had an idealized quality to them. Idealization refers to a self-enhancing tendency of individuals to present self in the most positive, favorable, admirable and competent manners possible: “when the individual presents himself before others, his performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behavior as a whole” (Goffman 1959, p. 35). But Goffman was also well aware that engage in the opposite process—negative idealization. If idealization is an attempt to present and claim the admirable traits of a social world, negative idealization involves an enactment of the less desirable, lower status ones (see Goffman 1959, pp. 38–40). “Reverse passing,” or “the concealment of creditable facts” (Goffman 1963a, p. 42), is a related concept. For some examples of incompetence cloaking cited by Goffman, see Goffman (1959, pp. 18, 38–40, 59–60, 89–90; 1963a, pp. 42, 94–95, 109–110; and 1969, pp. 20, 22).
This list is neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. Rather, it represents an analytical framework for identifying, classifying, and studying the presentation of less than able selves. We expect future research will revise, refine and extend our conceptual categories, contributing to a more comprehensive theory of competence cloaking behavior.
As children’s frequent untactful remarks demonstrate, feigning ignorance is a presentational skill that is learned as they become more attuned to the social and moral order of everyday encounters.
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Acknowledgments
Larry Nichols made several helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft that markedly improved our paper. We also thank Robert Prus, Kathy Bischoping, Neil McLaughlin, Ben Kelly, Michael Adorjan, Roger Pizzerro, and Rachel Barken for suggesting examples of cloaking behavior.
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McLuhan, A., Pawluch, D., Shaffir, W. et al. The Cloak of Incompetence: A Neglected Concept in the Sociology of Everyday Life. Am Soc 45, 361–387 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9240-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9240-y