Social Deviance - 3325 Exam 1

Deviance

A collection of a person’s behaviors, conditions, or beliefs, that society disvalues or finds offensive

What are conditions of Deviance?

The mentally ill being treated as deviants

What are beliefs that are considered Deviant?

Conspiracy theories, varied religious ideologies

What are the approaches to Deviance?

Statistical, Absolutist, Reactivist, Normative

What is the statistical approach to Deviance?

Deviance is behaviors that are rare or infrequent; what people do or believe most of the time must be normal

What is a criticism of the statistical approach to Deviance?

The approach lacks meaning; rare occurrences aren’t always bad

What is a valid example of the criticism of the statistical approach to Deviance?

Saving a person from a fire or landing a plane on water

What is the absolutist approach to Deviance?

There are universal absolutes that all should agree on and violation of these rules constitutes deviance; culture, time-period, and situation don’t matter. Deviance is inherent in those who perform deviant acts.

What is the reactivist approach to Deviance?

Deviance involves behavior labeled deviant by others; acts are deviant only by the reactions of from others.

According to the reactivist approach, if an act considered by others as deviant is not detected or negatively labeled, is it deviant?

It is not deviant as there iare no social consequences for it

What is a criticism of the Reactivist approach to Deviance?

Deviant’s are labeled for a reason

What is the normative approach to Deviance?

Deviance is a violation of a norm for a given circumstance

What do norms do?

Help make people social creatures and are necessary for maintaining social order

How do norms vary?

How widely they are accepted, how they are transmitted, and how much conformity they require

What are statuses?

Social positions like student, child, partner, employee, etc.

What are roles?

norms for statuses

What is the synthesized definition of deviance?

Violation of a norm that brings negative reactions when detected

What is societal deviance?

Actions widely recognized as deviant across the wider society

What is situational deviance?

Only deviant among certain groups or social circumstances

What are subcultures?

A culture within a dominant culture

How do participants in a subculture act?

Participate in the larger society but hold some values and behaviors unique to that subculture

What are countercultures?

Values and behaviors at odds with the dominant culture

How do participants in countercultures act?

Withdraw from society as much as possible or try to radically transform it

How does deviance change?

Over time

How is deviance related to ‘place’?

Certain places are more conducive to certain kinds of deviance

What is the gender gap?

single, never married men and women have similar incomes, but the men have at least double the wealth

What percent of income do married women have?

Married women make 72% of the income married men do

Before WWII, what kind of cities did the U.S. have?

Convergent cities

What are convergent cities?

Social, economic, and political activity converged toward the city center

What happened to cities after WWII?

The U.S. moved to Divergent cities

What are divergent cities?

Social, economic, and political activity left central cities and moved to suburbs

What did the popularity of divergent cities do to POC’s?

Since jobs left the central city, POC’s could not move to where the jobs were because of racial segregation, affordability, and lack of public transportation

What are causes of growing inequality?

Movement from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, tax breaks/avoidance to corporations and the rich, stagnant/falling wages, welfare cuts, mass incarceration, and lack of reading and math skills

What causes more deviance and crime, poverty or inequality?

Inequality

What is tribal stigma?

Stigma passed on from generation to generation among a group

What is the Just World Hypothesis?

People cause their own misfortune so we don’t need to feel empathy for them

What is urbanism?

Cluster of inequalities and characteristics that distinguish cutues from rural areas

What are worm conflicts?

More diversity in cities, few adhere to traditional values, subcultures and deviance thrive in cities

What are aspects of rapid cultural change?

Things change slowly in rural areas, rapid change, established norms are hard to form and keep, less informal social control

What are aspects of rapid mobility?

Population mobility makes it difficult to form strong bonds with neighbors and more travel

What is materialism?

the importance of material possessions in urban society cannot be emphasized enough

What is conspicuous consumption?

Judging others based on how they display wealth

What is individualism?

Emphasizes individual responsibility and deemphasizes social responsibility

What are aspects of an increase in formal control?

More expansion of the criminal legal system and an increase in social work

What are the sources of deviant attitudes?

associates, neighborhood, family, media, and occupation

How do associates affect deviant attitudes?

close-knit groups of friends have the largest impact

How does the neighborhood affect deviant attitudes?

Different neighborhoods create different gangs

How does family affect deviant attitudes?

In modern society, families play less of a role in socializing children

How does the media affect deviant attitudes?

The more realistic the violence the stronger the effect, it is a reinforcer and reflection

How is someone considered deviant?

One needs to inhabit the role as a deviant person and have a deviant identity

What is a master status?

the main status other statuses are organized around

How does secrecy manage stigma?

if no one knows, there is no stigma

How does manipulating the physical setting manage stigma?

One can set up the appearance of normality to avoid detection

What are rationalizations?

excuses for deviance to avoid sanctions

What are neutralizations?

excuses you tell yourself to neutralize guilt; weaken the norm so you can break it

What is Robert Merton’s Anomie/Strain theory?

Healthy societies maintain a balance between culture and social structure

what is culture?

social goals

What is social structure?

appropriate normative means for achieving societal goals

What is anomie?

a form of societal malintegration where culture and social structure are out of balance

Why are we an anomic society?

We over emphasize the american dream while underemphasizing the normative means to obtain it. The american dream is a lie for many

What are Merton’s modes of adaptation to anomie?

Conformity (most common), innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion

What is in Zone II of the concentric zone theory?

Immigrants, poorest people, high population density/mobility, physical/mental illness, most crime and deviance, drugs/alcohol addiction

Who is in Zone I?

Central business district

Who is in zone III?

working class

Who is in zone IV?

middle class

who is in zone v?

upper class

Where are crime and deviance the highest in neighborhoods?

low participation in voluntary organizations, few friendship networks, low means of ability to exert informal social control, all zone II problems

Edwin Sutherlands Differential Association Theory

Deviance is learned through communicative action with others in intimate personal groups

One learns the techniques, motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes necessary to commit deviance

A person learns an excess of attitudes favorable to deviance over those favorable to conformity

Differential associations vary by frequency, duration, priority and intensity

We learn deviance and conformity the same way and both stem from the same needs and desires

What are Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization?

Denial of responsibility, injury, victim, condemnation of the condemners, and the appeal to higher loyalties

What is Travis Hirschi’s social control theory?

Humans are amoral/evil; people only conform because they are strongly bonded to society

According to Hirschi, what are the bonds one must have to conform?

attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief

What is labeling theory?

the application of stigmatizing labels by significant or relevant others can be an independent cause of deviance

what is primary deviance?

deviance that everyone does but doesn’t negatively impact self-concept

What is secondary deviance?

When one has no other choice but to act in the deviant role

According to beckner, what is the final step in being a secondary deviant?

movement into an organized deviant group

What did Max Weber say about poverty and stigma?

Claimed that there is a nearly universal tendency for religions of the upper strata to develop a “theodicity of good fortune” that legitimates the affluence of themselves, that is, the rich and privileged, and the ill-fortune of the poor, arguing that rich and poor alike merit their status in life; the rich are attracted to a sacred ideology that says the poor are responsible for their own poverty

What did Amartya Sen/Diego Zavaleta Reyles say about poverty and stigma?

the poor are unjustly stigmatized—and they stigmatize themselves—for their poverty; The sense of humiliation and shame that poverty engenders results in a reduced freedom and agency, being unable to do what is considered customary for a functioning member of the community

What did Lois Wacquant say about poverty and stigma?

advanced capitalism produces an advanced marginality, which entails the physical removal of stigmatized populations, mainly the poverty-stricken

What did Goode say about homelessness?

As a persistent or chronic problem, homelessness affects a relatively small percentage of the population who are “seriously disabled and deviant individuals from limited demographic subgroups”

Tannenbaum on deviance

Punishment for a petty crime results in the participation of an even worse crime