Deviance Post-Midterm Flashcards

Differential Association (Edwin Sutherland)

Challenged deterministic explanations; crime+ deviance is learned

The American Criminal (Earnest Albert Hooton)

Took physical and mental measurements of criminals and non-criminals, concluded that criminals are organically inferior in every way measurable

Sutherland’s 9 Propositions

1. Criminal behavior is learned

2. Criminal behavior is learned in communicational interactions with others

3. Learning occurs within intimate, personal groups

4. Learning includes: a) techniques of committing crime, and b) direction of motives, drives, attitudes

5. The direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legal code as favorable or unfavorable

6. Person becomes delinquent because excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to the violation of law

7. Differential associations differ in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity

8. Learning criminal behavior just like any other learning

9. Criminal behavior may be expression of general needs + values but not explained by these needs + values

Interactionism

Social behavior is a product of interactions among individuals within particular situations; behavior is guided by meanings already possessed but meanings are reinforced, modified, or produced in course of interaction

Social Learning Theory (Burgess + Akers)

Introduces psychological concept of operant conditioning to differential association; learning is enhanced by social and non-social reinforcement, which strengthens or encourages a behavior

Aker’s Four Concepts

1. Differential Association

2. Definition: Attitudes, beliefs, and rationalizations that define behavior as good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate

3. Differential reinforcement: The balance of anticipated and actual rewards and punishments that follow or are the consequences of behavior

4. Imitation: Observing modeled behavior, directly or indirectly

Sykes + Matza (Why do people commit deviance/break laws when they know it is wrong?)

Techniques for Rationalization:

1. Denial of responsibility

2. Denial of injury

3. Denial of victim

4. Condemnation of the condemner

5. Appeal to higher loyalties

Schully + Marola “Convicted Rapists”

Excuses+ justifications of convicted rapists

Excuses: appeals to forces outside of their control

Justifications: Attempt to present their behavior as situationally appropriate (victim seduces them; women who say no really mean yes; they actually enjoyed it)

“Sexual Assault on Campus” (Armstrong, Hamilton, Sweaty) Prevalence

25.9% of undergrad women sexually assaulted; college women more likely to be SAed than graduated women

Psychological approach: Focus on profiles of victims and perpetrators

Rape culture

A set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that trivializes and normalizes sexual violence, rape

Party Scenes

Controlled by men; assumption that partying+ drinking is pivotal part of college experience; university pushes students out of dorms to party

Erotic status: Men want to secure sex, women want attention

Production of Fun

College parties are a scripted event- characterized by shared assumptions/expectations of how to act/feel; cultural expectations of partying are gendered

Gender Beliefs

Men: Idea that men are “naturally” sexually aggressive; normalizes coercive behavior
Women: Idea that women are naatural “gatekeepers”; absolved men of responsibility

Student Responses

Most students blame the victim rather than the nature of the party scene itself; [party] situation generates a certain # of sexual assault victims

Labeling Theory (General)

Focus on: Social meaning of deviant labels; how they are understood. and how they affect individuals to whom they are applied
How others view us, or how we believe others view us, is a key to self-understanding

The Looking Glass Self (Cooley)

We derive a self-image by imagining how others may view us

Self as Social Structure (Mead)

Individuals must summon an image of themself as if it was from the perspective of other individuals

Symbolic Interactionism

Focuses on how people create and interpret meaning, including about themselves, through social interactions

Labeling Theory (Expanded)

Reaction is key to defining a behavior or person as deviant- actual norm breaking is secondary; defining deviance is a rational process; makes possible consideration of power

Primary Deviance (Lemert “Social Pathology”)

Individual violates norm without viewing themselves as being involved in deviant social roles; may trigger labeling process

Secondary Deviance (Lemert “Social Pathology”)

Individual more or less accepts a label, altering their self-conception; self-fulfilling prophecy, individual acts in a way consistent with deviant self-conception

Residual rule breaking

Forms of rule breaking or norm violation that are not clearly defined by society’s formal rules

Labeling and Mental Illness-Being Mentally Ill

Triggers labeling process; people get engulfed in label, being “mentally ill” becomes social role; becomes master status

Master Status

A status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life

Stigma

Social or individual attribute that is devalued + discredited

Lies in relationship of attributes to particular stereotypes; may be readily known/apparent or unknown until interaction

The Rosenhan Experiment

Psychiatric diagnosis = form of labeling
Non-psych patients fakes symptoms to get institutionalized, normal behaviors were twisted into symptoms of their (fake) disorder by healthcare workers

Saints and the Roughnecks Overview

Saints and roughnecks both had about equal deviance, treated differently, different life outcomes

Saints and roughnecks are treated differently because of: deviance visibility, demeanor, and perceptual bias

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies (S+R)

Roughnecks internalized image of self as deviant; selected friends who reinforce image; made them want to do more extreme deviance; hostility towards reps of legitimate society (ex. popo)

Labeling and Delinquency (JD)

Rethinking of juvenile delinquency in 70s, ideas of if juvenile prison system reinforces delinquent self image

Punished Overview

Different treatment of black and latino boys leads to different outcomes

Ethnography

Study of a group, usually w/ emphasis on common behavioral patterns and shared meaning/value in group; includes immersing oneself in group to observe behavior and interactions up close

Labeling Hype

Agencies of social control further stigmatize and mark subjects in response to their original label; creates a viscious cycle that multiplies the boys experiences with criminalization; lead to feelings of shame, being unaccepted, sometimes leading them to a sense of hopelessness; initial labeling increases likelyhood of further stigmatization even in absence of subsequent misbehavior; secondary sanctioning increases likelyhood ofnearest independent of further criminal offending

“Nothing to Lose“

Disconnect from community, stigmatized, socially outcasted; interactions with world around the reinforced accept that criminality was part of who they were; “I don’t give a fuck”; sense of shame

Labeling and Peer Reinforcement (Jose)

Jose age 8 set trashcan on fire, when he returned to school he was looked at differently, school became bad place; denied positive rite, need to be perceived by others in positive light

“Code of the Street”

Fear of victimization: put on hard exterior (appear aggressive or as willing to be aggressive)
Means of protecting oneself from victimization (esp when police fail to provide protection); victimization reinforces thaat that characterization literally is a threat

External tough appearance versus actual deviance

both contribute to criminalization, criminalization of the boys came to define them in wider community

School-to-Prison pipeline

Process of pushing students out of the classroom and into juvenile and/or criminal justice system; role of labeling as exclusionary discipline (increases rate of deviance/criminal offending and increases odds of future involvement in the criminal justice system)

Negative Discipline

Suspension/expulsion increases likelyhood of future criminal involvement; decreases opportunities for conforming behavior, causes self-expulsion

Criminalization Pathway (6 Steps)

1. Expulsionary discipline
   2. Fall behind: conformity opportunities decrease, deviance opportunities increase, self conception decreases, alienation and negativity increases
   3. increase in chances of exile and grade repeating
   4. increase in dropout rate
   5. job opportunities decrease, future prospects decrease, deviant opportunity increases
   6. increase in juvenile/criminal legal system interactions

Critical Theory

Focus on power; idea that people who are disadvantaged are more likely to be labeled as deviant

Fieldwork

First-hand observations and data collection of people’s behavior in their natural environment

Sociological Perspective on Gender

It’s a social construct

“Fag” Use

Rarely actually used as a slur to a gay man, more commonly used to joke with fellow straight men, keep them in line

Butler’s Philosophical Gender Theory

Gendered beings are created through process of citation and a repudiation of a constitutive outside

Constitutive Outside

What masculinity is not; the “fag” resides here

Heteromasculinity

Fag- Considered worst epithet one guy could direct at another

Homophobia only applies to guys, not girls (lesbians are OK)

Idea of masculinity being tied to heterosexuality

What is a Fag?

Doesn’t mean gay; opposite of masculine
A gay man could be masculine (fag does not equal gay)

Humorous Imitation

Boys act out exaggerated femininity or pretend to seriously desire other boys

Performances function as a constant reiteration of the fags existence
Looms as a threat
Boys return to normal after performance

“Just Kidding!”

Fag performance often intended as a joke, often in form of mockery
A repudiation, not praise

Effect: Shows buys condemn the behavior, laughter shows solidarity

Steven Spitzer

Capitalist societies define populations as deviant if they disrupt the smooth-running of capitalism

Social Dynamite

People who are politically dangerous because they’re radical (educated individuals)

Social Junk

Individuals who have refused, are unable, or failed to participate in cap system (unneeded laborers)

2 Functions of Law

Instrumental Function: Prescribes certain behaviors
Symbolic Function: Invites consideration of what is defined as moral in society; laws that support values of one group over another lends normative power to former’s values

Right-wing Populism

“horizontal” argument; fight to determine who the true people are (ex. the “true American”)

“The People”

Defined as a moral entity, and so the adversaries are seen as independent to the people’s wil'l; similar constitutive outside idea, there are people who don’t belong and defining those better helps define who does

Is citizenship a guarentee of membership under populism?

No, but it’s easy to kick out the non-citizens first (easy cut; dehumanize, detain, deport)

Populist (the group)

They claim to represent the will of the people, the leader is a personification of that will; opposition to leader is an opposition to the people

Do elections matter to populists?

No, the validity of the people just exists, doesn’t rely on voting to will it to be

Why are people drawn to populism??

People most receptive to ideas during times of cynicism (times of struggle), feelings of (justified or unjustified) anger

Socioeconomic Factors (Populism)

Destabilizing effects of neoliberal socialization; marginalization among working and lower-middle classes

Rejection of Elites (Populism)

Elites have pushed liberal rights against will of ordinary people (against “the People”); instrumentalizes the politics of nostalgia

Political Failure (Populism)

Rejection of mainstream politics; disconnect between mainstream politicians and parties/electorals

Populist (Leader) Strategy

Leverage race, ethnicity, culture, etc., to mobilize the alienated by globalization and inequality; engage in performative acts to highlight the ordinary and extraordinary qualities; they “battle” perceived enemies on behalf of the people

How do populist leaders maintain popular support?

By dramaticizing and scandalizing existing or fabricated problems, crises, breakdowns or threats; politicians use this dramaticization to create fear, stay in power/get elected