Sociology of Deviance and Social Control

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes on deviance, social control, stratification, urban sociology, and sociological theories.

Deviance

Collections of beliefs, behaviors, persons, or conditions that a society disvalues or simply finds offensive.

Statistical Approach to Deviance

An approach defining deviance as departure from the average, where rare or infrequent behaviors are deviant and normal is what most people do; it lacks meaning.

Absolutist Approach to Deviance

An approach claiming universal absolutes that all should adhere to, where violations constitute deviance regardless of culture; it clouds objectivity.

Reactivist Approach to Deviance

An approach where behaviors are defined as deviant based only on social reaction to them and being labeled as deviant by others.

Normative Approach to Deviance

An approach defining deviance as a violation of a norm (a standard of thought, behavior, or speech in a given circumstance).

Comprehensive Definition of Deviance

The violation of a norm that brings negative consequences if deviance occurs.

Societal Deviance

Actions, beliefs, or traits widely believed to be deviant by an entire society.

Situational Deviance

Behaviors or beliefs seen as deviant only in certain groups or specific situations.

Subculture

A culture within the dominant culture whose members participate in larger society but have specific unique beliefs, behaviors, and conditions.

Counterculture

A group that rejects and withdraws from the main culture, opposes the dominant culture, or tries to radically transform it.

Norm Promotion

The relative ability to promote one's norms over competing ones, implying that deviance is created through a political process.

Social Control

Deliberate attempts to change behavior so that it becomes normative.

Indirect Social Control

Internalization of group norms through socialization, leading individuals to conform because they want to.

Direct Social Control

External pressures via sanctions from others, leading individuals to conform because they have to.

Informal Sanctions

Unofficial actions of groups or individuals reacting to behavior, which work well among people who know each other well.

Formal Sanctions

Official group expressions meant to convey collective sentiments, necessary in complex, modern, urban societies where people interact with strangers.

Convergent Cities

An urban layout prior to the 1950s in the U.S. where economic, political, and social activity converged to the city centers.

Divergent Cities

An urban layout where economic, political, and social activity diverged away from the city center.

Exurbs

Far away suburbs characterized by long commutes.

Tribal Stigma

Stigma passed down generationally among a group, reinforced by institutional discrimination that makes it seem natural.

Just-World Hypothesis

The belief that if bad things happen to people, they probably deserve it.

Master Status

A social status around which all other statuses of an individual are organized, often resulting from the reactions and labeling of others.

Rationalisations (Stigma Management)

Excuses an individual makes after being detected in order to manage stigma.

Neutralisations (Stigma Management)

Excuses an individual tells themselves prior to acting in order to neutralize guilt.

Anomie (Merton)

A form of societal malintegration where culture (societal goals) and social structure (socially approved means for obtaining goals) are out of balance.

Innovation (Merton's Adaptation)

A mode of adaptation to strain where an individual accepts cultural goals ($+$) but rejects socially approved means ($-$).

Ritualism (Merton's Adaptation)

A mode of adaptation to strain where an individual rejects cultural goals ($-$) but accepts socially approved means ($+$).

Retreatism (Merton's Adaptation)

A mode of adaptation to strain where an individual rejects both cultural goals ($-$) and socially approved means ($-$).

Rebellion (Merton's Adaptation)

A mode of adaptation to strain where an individual rejects and substitutes both cultural goals ($-/+$) and socially approved means ($-/+$).

Zone II (Zone of Transition)

The lower class zone in Park and Burgess' concentric zone theory characterized by high levels of immigrants, turnover, population density, mobility, poverty, crime, and physical dilapidation.

Collective Efficacy

A neighborhood's ability to assert informal social control.

Differential Association Theory

Edwin Sutherland's theory stating that deviance is learned through communicative interaction with others in intimate personal groups.

Techniques of Neutralization

Sykes and Matza's 5 excuses (denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victim, condemnation of condemners, appeal to higher loyalties) used by teens to neutralize guilt before drifting into delinquency.

Social Control Theory

Travis Hirschi's (1969) theory stating that individuals conform because they are bonded to society through attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Primary Deviance

Common deviance most people engage in occasionally that does not negatively impact self-concept unless caught and labeled. (Lemert 1951)

Secondary Deviance

The development of a deviant self-concept after being caught and labeled, trapping the individual in a deviant role (also termed role engulfment). (Lemert 1951)

Retrospective Interpretation

A modern labeling theory term for reconstructing a labeled individual's past to fit their new label.

Selective Perception

A modern labeling theory term for viewing present behaviors of an individual entirely within the context of their assigned label.

Blocked Opportunity

The state of being unable to perform normal social roles due to deviant labeling.

Role Imprisonment

The condition of being trapped in a deviant role.

Techniques for Resisting Labels

Methods used by individuals to resist being labeled, including rationalisations, claiming rehab or cure, and flight.

status

any social position- student, child, parent

roles

norms for statuses

agents of social control

individuals tasked with giving out sanctions

concentric zone theory

Park and Burgess (40s)

Who studied the historical change in chicago?

Shaw and Mickey

Labeling Theory

the application of stigmatizing labels can be an independent cause of deviance.

What did Becker think in regards to secondary deviance.

The final step in becoming a secondary deviant is joining an organized deviant group

Goode on homelessness

long term homeless are rare, and are more likely to be males with less education and have drug or mental problems.

Elective Affinity

classes with high social and economic privilege will assign religion the function of legitimating their own life pattern and situation in the world (Weber)

Amartya Sen on Poverty

Poverty causes someone the inability to go anywhere without shame.

Diego Zavaleta on Poverty

Extreme inequality results in social ostracism

Positivism

studies society and deviance through objective and empirical methods using natural sciences.

Tannenbaum on Labeling

Criminalizing the youth will encourage deviance further.