Social Deviance Chapter 1

What is Deviance

• Some sociologists conceive of deviance as a collection of conditions, persons, or acts that society:

  • disvalues

  • finds offensive

  • condemns

The definitions of deviance avoid what

• How or why people classify acts or individuals as offensive

• Such a conception (idea) also fails to recognize the possibility that deviance might include highly valued differences

Reactivist (relativist)

• Holds that there is no universal or unchanging entity that defines deviance

• Deviance is in the “eye of the beholder.”

• Deviance occurs through the reactions of others

Normative

• Deviance is a violation of norms

• Norm is a standard about “what human beings should or should not think, say, or do under given circumstances"

• Norms are social properties, group evaluations, or guidelines.

• Norms as expectations exhibits behaviors based on habit or traditional customs

Social Norms

• Expectations of conduct in particular situations

Norms vary according to

• How widely people accept them, How society enforces then

• How it transmits them, how much conformity they require

Social Norms

• Expectations of conduct in particular situations

• Some norms remain fairly stable in the standards they set; others define more transitory expectations

• Crucial contributions to the process of maintaining order

Proscriptive norms

• Tell people what they should not do

Prescriptive norms

• Tell them what they ought to do

People differ from one another in a number of ways

• Age, sex, race, educational attainment, and occupational status

Sociological term that refers to such variations

Differentiation

Emile Durkheim (1895/1982)

• Deviance is normal and constant

Modern, industrial societies may differ by:

• Age, sex and race, urban v. rural, and interaction patterns

Some sociologists have recommended leaving deviance

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However, judgements of deviance do not refer to what?

constant standards

What stimulates disapproval

• Social Power

• Why do some individuals get punished and others who do not over the same act?

• Norm promotion

• Social judgements of disvaluement represent a core component of the concept of deviance

Social Power:

• The ability to make choices by virtue of control over political, economic, or social resources

• Powerful people often define standards for deviance

• White-collar crimes

Norm promotion

• An ability to successfully promote particular norms to the exclusion of other, competing norms

Subculture

• A culture with a culture a collection of norms, values, and beliefs which are distinguished from the dominant culture

• For example: Gangs (youth) subculture

Subculture Differences:

• Acts labeled deviant in one group may be perfectly acceptable behavior in another

Subcultures

• Subcultures may arise in highly differentiated, complex societies

• Subcultures represent collective solutions to shared problems posed by the dominant culture

Subcultures help to solve the problems:

• Provides social support for members

• Enhances self-esteem by suggesting rationales for their conditions

• Offers practical suggestions for independent survival

Relativity of Deviance

• Deviance are behaviors that happen to offend some groups

• Norms imply relative judgements (limited to groups, places, and times); therefore, deviance is also a relative phenomenon=

Examples of relativity of deviance Probably not deviant for the following:

Drinking beer

Asking someone of the opposite sex out on a date

Setting one’s own bedtime

Sexual intercourse

Selling drugs

Acting “weird”

• Fraternity members celebrating a football victory

• Unmarried people

• Parents

• Married couples

• Pharmacists

• People who just won the state lottery

Examples of relativity of deviance Probably deviant for the following:

Drinking beer

Asking someone of the opposite sex out on a date

Setting one’s own bedtime

Sexual intercourse

Selling drugs

Acting “weird”

• Baptist deacons celebrating a successful church fund-raising campaign

• Married people

• Young children

• Catholic priests

• Illicit drug dealers

• Older people who have no reason to act differently