Sociology - Chapter 5: Deviance and Defiance

Deviance

Behaviors and beliefs that violate social expectations and attract negative sanctions

Social Deviance

The violation of norms, including mores, folkways, and taboos

Criminal Deviance

Referring specifically to acts that break laws

Stigmatization

A process by which physical traits or social conditions become widely devalued

Criminalization

Collectively defining a trait or condition as criminal

Medicalization

Involves collectively defining physical traits or social conditions as an illness

Strain Theory

The idea that deviance is caused by a tension between widely valued goals and people’s ability to attain them.

If you are a ritualist….

You will take a retail job, work it without any hope that it will ever pay enough to enable you to afford an apartment. You accept the failure to achieve your goal

If you are a conformist…

You will take the retail job, but with hope. You show up, do your job, go home. But you will do it believing that hard work will eventually bring you  a promotion to be able to pay for that apartment

Innovation

Involves accepting the valued goals but doing something deviant to attain them.

Retreatism

The rejection of valued goals and a decision to opt out of trying to attain them

Rebellion

Also reject valued goals, but instead of simply opting out of society all together, they work to change societies by replacing the existing social goals with different ones

“If your inability to afford an apartment inspires you to reject it as a valuable goal and join a commune that embraces collective living, you are a…

Retreatist

If your response is to reject the goal, then work to convince everyone else that it’s not valuable, you are a…

A Rebel

Differential Association Theory

The idea that we need to be recruited into and taught criminal behavior by people in our social networks

Social Disorganization Theory

The idea that deviance is more common in dysfunctional neighborhoods

Concentrated Poverty

A condition where 40% or more of residents live below the federal poverty line

Neutralization Theory

The idea that deviance is facilitated by the development of culturally resonant rationales for rule breaking

Denial of Responsibility

A claim that rule breaking is outside of a rule breaker’s control 

Denial of Injury

A claim that the rule breaking is allowed because no one is harmed

Denial of Victim

Is a claim that any harm that comes is deserved

Condemnation of the Condemners

Is a rejection of a critic’s moral authority to judge the rule breaker

Appeal to Higher Loyalties

The claim that rule breaking is justified in pursuit of a greater good

Neutralization Theory

A distinct sociological contribution to thinking about deviance for at least two reasons

• First, for a rationale to work, it must make sense not only to the rule breaker but also to others

• Second, we learn these rationales from other rule breakers: we get them from our social ties

Labeling

The process of assigning a deviant identity to an individual

Labeling Theory

When labels are applied to us, they influence our behavior

Primary Deviance

To describe the instance of deviance that first attracts a label

Secondary Deviance

To describe further instances of deviance prompted by the receipt of that label

Deviant Career

A life organized around a deviant identity

Structural Functionalism

The theory that society is a system of necessary synchronized parts that work together to create social stability

Collective Conscience

A societies shared understanding of right and wrong

Collective Effervescence

A strong, unifying, emotion experienced communally by a group

Anomie

Widespread normlessness or a weakening of or alienation from social rules

Conflict Theory

The idea that societies aren’t characterized by shared interests but by competing ones

Social Inequality

A condition in which wealth, power, and prestige are most readily available to people with privileged social identities

Defiance

It is deliberately rebellious

Historical Sociology

Involves collecting and analyzing data that reveals facts about past events with the aim of enhancing sociological theory