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Sociology
Deviance
Summary
What Is Deviance?
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Deviance is any violation of society’s norms.
- Each society defines deviance differently. Deviance is a relative issue and may
differ based on location, age, social status, and
individual societies.
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Social control is a way society has of encouraging conformity to norms.
It consists of positive and negative sanctions.
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Positive sanctions are socially constructed expressions of approval.
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Negative sanctions are socially constructed expressions of
disapproval.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
- The symbolic interactionist perspective is one of the main frameworks
that sociologists use to analyze society. Symbolic interactionists view society as a byproduct
of everyday social interaction.
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Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association
asserts that deviance is a learned behavior that people learn from the different groups with
which they associate. Some people form deviant subcultures based on a shared deviance.
- According to William Reckless’s control theory, people have
two control systems to keep them from acting outside society’s norms: inner and outer
controls. Inner controls are internalized thought processes such as conscience.
Outer controls include people who influence us.
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Travis Hirschi elaborated on control theory and identified four factors
that make individuals more or less likely to commit deviance. These factors are
attachment, commitment, involvement, and
belief.
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Howard Becker’s labeling theory posits that deviant
behavior is that which society labels as deviant.
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Edwin Lemert distinguished between primary deviance, the
initial act, and secondary deviance, the repeated deviance that occurs in
response to people’s reaction to the primary deviance.
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William Chambliss’s study of boys he called the Saints and
Roughnecks showed the power of labeling.
Structural Functional Theory
- Another sociological framework, the structural functional theory,
focuses on society as a whole rather than the individuals within society.
- Deviance is a normal and necessary part of any society.
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Émile Durkheim said that deviance fulfills four functions for society:
affirmation of cultural norms and values, clarification of right and wrong, unification of
others in society, and bringing about social change.
- According to Robert Merton’s strain theory of deviance,
when people are prevented from achieving culturally approved goals through institutionalized
means, they experience strain that can lead to deviance.
- Denied access to institutionalized means to success, poor people turn to
illegitimate opportunity structures.
- Merton identified five reactions to goals and institutionalized means:
conformists, innovators, ritualists,
retreatists, and rebels.
Conflict Perspective
- The conflict theory is Karl Marx’s theoretical paradigm
that views society as struggle between groups over limited resources.
- Conflict theory identifies two categories of people in industrialized societies: the
capitalist class and the working class. Those in positions of
wealth and power make up the capitalist class. The working class sells its labor to the
capitalist class.
- The two classes are always in conflict with one another. Capitalists establish the
norms of society; laws support them.
- Members of the capitalist class are less likely to be considered deviant because they
make laws to benefit themselves.
- Members of the elite are more likely to commit white-collar crime,
nonviolent crime committed in the course of their occupations.
- According to Alexander Liazos, people we commonly label as deviant are
also relatively powerless.
Crime
- The three general categories of crime are crimes against the person,
crimes against property, and victimless crimes.
- Age, gender, social class, and race and ethnicity are categories that sociologists
use to create a criminal profile.
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