Deviant Behavior: Exam 1

Deviance Defintion

Behavior, beliefs, or conditions that break social norms and cause disapproval or negative reaction

Individual Agency

Individual ability to make choices and influence life outcomes

• Personal troubles

Social Structure

Patterns and social arrangements which influence life outcomes

• Public Issues

What do we understand something as an issue vs. trouble?

• Values

• Cherished and supported → well-being

• Cherished and threatened → crisis

• Not cherished nor threatened → indifference/ apathy

Psychological Explanations

Unit of Analysis is the individual

• Individuals are solely responsible for deviant actions

• Personality is the major motivator

• Deviants suffer from personality disorders

Psychoanalytic Models (Freud)

Criminal drives and urges vd. socialization

An imbalance of “id” (devil) or “superego" (angel)

Cognitive Development

Deviance is a form of arrested development

Deviance is a product of a malfunctioning brain chemical

ADHD: Autism, Psychopathology

The biological and psychological perspectives locate deviance in the individual

The ability to mitigate deviance lies

What do we mean by deviance: Absolutist/Essentialist Perspective

Clear and obvious to all members of society in all situations

Deviance is objective and inherent

Relativist/Constructionist Perspective

Deviance is created by making rules and applying them to certain people at certain times in certain locations

Deviance is relative and built

4 Types of Institutional Social Norms

Folkways

Mores (Mor-rays)

Laws

Taboos

Folkways

Shared customs of a group

• Not morally significant but important for acceptance

Mores (mor-rays)

Norms of morality; “right or wrong”

Laws

Norms enforced by the state

Taboos

Norms that result in societal exclusion when violated

ABC’s of Deviance

• Attitudes

• Behaviors

• Conditions

Attitudes

Belief systems and ideas that violate norms

Behaviors

Actions that violate norms

Conditions

Norm-violating statuses innate to an individual

Ascribed Deviant Status

Statuses someone is born with or into

Example: Race, ethnicity

Categories of Deviance: The Three S’s

Sin

Sick

Selected

Sin

Deviance is understood as violations of religiously inspired morality and order

Sick

Deviance is attributed to or described medical terms

Selected

Deviance is understood as choices made that violate social norms

Functionalism

A seminal theory in the field of sociology, it has been used to explain a wide array of social phenomena since its development in the nineteenth century

Social Facts

Phenomena that are properties or patterns of society rather than of individual members of society

Collective Consciousness

A shared system of values and beliefs in which the boundaries of right and wrong. Powerful social force

Serial Killer Identity

A collapse of the boundary between human and monster

The Normal and the Pathological

Crime/Deviance is normal

A society without crime is impossible because people differ

Change in the amount of crime indicates change in society

Crime is not pathological, therefore, punishment is not a cure

Pathological: Making something sick

Crime is necessary in a healthy society

Egoism

too little social integration (interaction)

Anomie

too little social regulation (rules)

Fatalism

too much social regulation (/Is there anything else to do? No room for change)

Altruism

Too much social integration (People are tied too closely to their groups; cultish behavior)

Deviance occurs when collective conscience is weak in society

• Egoism

• Anomie

• Fatalism

• Altruism

Deviance is due to alack of internalized and external controls

Boundary Maintenance

Helps establish and clarify social norms for the majority

The Functions of Deviance

• Boundary Maintenance

• Unites the community

• Adaptive Function

Adaptive Function

Deviance produces social innovation and change

Merton’s Structural Strain Theory

Society has culturally approved goals

And socially approved means

Modes of Adaptation

• Conformity

• Ritualism

• Innovation

• Rebellion

• Retreatism

Conformity

Non-Deviance

Ritualism

Accept the means, reject the goals

Innovation

Accepts the goals, reject the means (challenging)

Rebellion

reject/change the goals, reject/change the means

Retreatism

Reject the goals, reject the means

Anomie in Modern Society

Economic Anomie

Technological Anomie

Cultural Anomie

Economic Anomie

Economic success often takes precedence over community well-being

Technological Anomie

Technological innovation has revolutionized communication

Digital Disconnect

Erosion of traditional bonds and boundaries

Cultural Anomie

Diverse perspectives and values coexisting

Individuals grapple with conflicting societal expectations

The Seven Ingredients of a Drug Scare

1. A kernel of truth

2. Media magnification

3. Politico-moral entreprenuers

4. Professional interest groups

5. Historical context of conflict

6. Linking the drug to a “dangerous class”

7. Scapegoating

A Kernel of Truth

Some real behavior/event exists at the root; drug use itself isn’t invented

Media Magnification

A worse-case incident gets dramatized and recast as representative of an “epidemic”

Politico-moral Entreperneurs

Powerful people who condemn the drug, often with financial or political interests in doing so

Professional Interests Groups

experts (medical, legal, educational) who claim ownership of the problem because defining it gives them authority to prescribe the fix

Historical Context of Conflict

The scare tends to erupt during a period of broader social/generational/ cultural tension

Linking the drug to a “dangerous class”

Tying drug use to a marginalized or feared social group (racial, ethnic, class-based)

Scapegoating

The drug gets blamed for a wide range of unrelated public problems, deflecting attention from structural causes

Berger and Luckmann: Social Construction of Reality

Externalization

Internalization

Objectivation

Externalization

“It is there”; offers a theory, subjective, objective knowledge

• Subjective

• Schools: reptition

• Media

• Friends, Family, Peers

• Politicians, Celebs

• Religion

Internalization

“It is there in me”; Who I am through interactions

Objectivation

“It is there for everyone”

Two Types of Social Construction

• Weak Social Constructionism

• Strong Social Construstionism

Weak Social Constructionism

• Brute Facts

• Institutional Facts

Brute Facts

Basic, fundamental, and don’t rely on other facts

Example: It’s a chair because it’s a chair

Institutional Facts

Social conventions and rely on other facts

Example: Money, Password on your phone, etc

Strong Social Constructionism

• All reality is constructed and shaped through things like language and habits

• Knowledge is a construct

Social Constructionist Perspective on Social Problems Stages

• Claims-making

• Media Coverage

• Public Reaction

• Policymaking

• Social Problems Work

• Policy Outcomes

Stage 1: Claims-Making

• Valence Issues (Problems everyone should recognize)

• Position Issues (Making a claim about a problem that is only going to appeal to some people/groups)

Stage 2: Media Coverage

Landmark Narratives. (Take a story, take the unusual part of it, and put it in the media “Clickbait”)

Stage 3: Public Reaction

Aware of things

Stage 4: Policymaking

Has to be a rule

Stage 5: Social Problems Work

Professional Organization

Example: Police, Social Workers, NGOS)

Stage 6: Policy Outcomes

Public Reaction to Policy

Evidence of Effectiveness

Redefinition of the Problem

Social Problems (Objectivists)

Concretely real conditions that harms human life and well-being on a large scale

• Structural Functionalist → Dysfunctions, Social Disorganization, Value Conflicts

Cohen (1972) Dynamics of A Moral Panic

• The Mass Media

• “Moral Entrepreneurs”

• Societal Control Culture

• Public Opinion

The Mass Media

Exaggeration and Distortion → Prediction → Symbolization

Moral Entreperneurs

Individuals or groups that campaign to eradicate immoral or threatening behavior (folk devil

• Typically, marginalized populations