Understanding Deviance in Sociology | Study notes Sociology of Deviance

Chapter I

THE NATURE AND MEANING OF DEVIANCE

What people say and do at times goes beyond the behavior permitted by their societies. Norms tell us only

what we are supposed and not supposed to do; they do not tell us what people actually do. And what some

of us actually do often runs counter to what other people judge to be acceptable behavior.

 Social life is characterized not only by conformity, but by nonconformity, or deviance.

As viewed by sociologists, deviance is not a property inherent in certain forms of behavior (Erikson, 1962;

Becker, 1963; Lemert, 1972). Instead, it is a property conferred upon behaviors by social definition.

 Definitions of which acts are deviant vary greatly from time to time, place to place, and group to

group. This only means that what is deviant for one person or group may not be for another and what is

deviant in one situation may not be in another.

Examples:

1. When ordinary people break into tombs, they are labeled looters. But when archeologists break

into tombs, they are hailed as scientists who are advancing the frontiers of knowledge.

2. Laughing out loud might not be considered deviant for a group of party-goers at a comedy club,

but it would be at a funeral.

3. Selling and buying of organs is illegal in the United States but such activity is rampant in Peru

who are paid handsomely for their organs.

Deviance takes many forms, but agreement remains elusive about which specific behaviors and conditions

constitute deviance. This ambiguity becomes especially evident when some people praise the same

behavior that others condemn.

To understand deviance, one must first understand this contradiction: No consensus reliably identifies

behavior, people, or conditions that are deviant, although most people would say that they know deviance

when they see it.

JUSTIFIED DEVIANCE – deviance that appears from the standpoint of the individual acting that some behavior is

justified even though others are not.

For example: International terrorists believe that what they do, including the bombing of mass

transportation systems, such as trains, and other acts of mass murder, are justified by their political or religious

views. Who determines whether a behavior is deviant, the actor or the audience of the act?

DEVIANCE

is behavior a considerable number of people view as reprehensible ad beyond the limits of tolerance.

 a collection of conditions, persons, or acts that society disvalues, finds offensive, or condemns.

constitutes departures from norms that draw social disapproval such that variations elicit, or are likely to

elicit, if detected, negative sanctions. (social disapproval of actions and social reactions to the disapproved

actions.)

implies something evaluated negatively or disvalued.

deviance is a relative notion. It depends upon some audience’s definition of something as deviant.

Chapter I. The Nature of Deviance 1

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Chapter I THE NATURE AND MEANING OF DEVIANCE  What people say and do at times goes beyond the behavior permitted by their societies. Norms tell us only what we are supposed and not supposed to do; they do not tell us what people actually do. And what some of us actually do often runs counter to what other people judge to be acceptable behavior.  Social life is characterized not only by conformity, but by nonconformity, or deviance.  As viewed by sociologists, deviance is not a property inherent in certain forms of behavior (Erikson, 1962; Becker, 1963; Lemert, 1972). Instead, it is a property conferred upon behaviors by social definition.  Definitions of which acts are deviant vary greatly from time to time , place to place , and group to group. This only means that what is deviant for one person or group may not be for another and what is deviant in one situation may not be in another. Examples:

When ordinary people break into tombs, they are labeled looters. But when archeologists break into tombs, they are hailed as scientists who are advancing the frontiers of knowledge.
Laughing out loud might not be considered deviant for a group of party-goers at a comedy club, but it would be at a funeral.
Selling and buying of organs is illegal in the United States but such activity is rampant in Peru who are paid handsomely for their organs.  Deviance takes many forms, but agreement remains elusive about which specific behaviors and conditions constitute deviance. This ambiguity becomes especially evident when some people praise the same behavior that others condemn.  To understand deviance, one must first understand this contradiction: No consensus reliably identifies behavior, people, or conditions that are deviant, although most people would say that they know deviance when they see it. JUSTIFIED DEVIANCE – deviance that appears from the standpoint of the individual acting that some behavior is justified even though others are not. For example: International terrorists believe that what they do, including the bombing of mass transportation systems, such as trains, and other acts of mass murder, are justified by their political or religious views. Who determines whether a behavior is deviant, the actor or the audience of the act? DEVIANCE  is behavior a considerable number of people view as reprehensible ad beyond the limits of tolerance.  a collection of conditions, persons, or acts that society disvalues, finds offensive, or condemns.  constitutes departures from norms that draw social disapproval such that variations elicit, or are likely to elicit, if detected, negative sanctions. (social disapproval of actions and social reactions to the disapproved actions.)  implies something evaluated negatively or disvalued.  deviance is a relative notion. It depends upon some audience’s definition of something as deviant.

SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS OF DEVIANCE

An objectivist or normative definition describes deviance as a violation of a norm. A norm is a standard about” what human beings should or should not think, say, or do under given circumstances” (Blake and Davis, 1964: 456). Violations of norms often draw reactions or sanctions from their social audiences. These sanctions constitute the pressures that most people feel to conform to social norms. Example: 1. Using hands in a formal dinner at a hotel is considered deviant. 2. Rape is deviant and criminal because it violates the law on rape. 3. Laughing at a funeral. This definition is more acceptable and scientific. But some powerful people broke social norms and yet they are not condemned as deviant. E.g. Pres. Erap Estrada is a known womanizer and yet he is not always condemned for this publicly.
A subjectivist or reactivist definition of deviance holds that there is no universal or unchanging entities that define deviance for all times and in all places. Rather, social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction creates deviance. Deviance is in the eye of the beholder, not in any particular action on the part of the person who may be labeled as deviant. The reactivist definition thus identifies acts as deviant only according to social reaction to those acts, determined through labels applied by society or agents of control. It also attempts to concentrate on the truly social identity of deviance – the interaction between the deviant and the society and the consequences of that social relationship. Deviance depends exclusively on the reactions of the act’s social audience. Examples: 1. A bank teller is not deviant if h/she is not caught stealing money. 2. A politician is not corrupt if he is not convicted in any court. This is still inadequate. A person may not be publicly known as deviant but s/he still broke a social norm. One virtue of the normative conception comes from its answer to a question that stumps the reactivist conception: On what basis do people react to behavior? If deviance results only through the reactions of others, how do people know how to react to or label a given instance of behavior? For this reason, the reactivist and normative conceptions may complement one another; norms provide the basis for reacting to deviance, but social reactions express norms and identify deviance. People are considered deviant because of their behavior or conditions. Non-sociological/ Alternative Definitions of Deviance
Statistical definition – common conditions determine what is normal or nondeviant; anything in the statistical minority represents deviance. An act, person, or trait is deviance if it is different from the average standards set by the society. Example : A person who is short is considered deviant. The same goes for a person with 11 fingers or no fingers at all. Question: Is there a thing as positive deviance? Like a person with a high IQ?
Absolutist conception – assumes that everyone agrees on obvious, basic rules of a society, leading to general agreement that deviance results from violation of previously defined standards for acceptable behavior. It presumes that everyone knows how to act according to universally held values; violations of these values constitute deviance. Example : Masturbation and abortion are always considered as deviant acts.

THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF DEVIANCE

Dysfunctions of Deviance Most societies can absorb a good deal of deviance without serious consequences but persistent and widespread deviance can impair and even severely undermine organized social life. Social organization derives from the coordinated actions of numerous people. Should some people fail to perform their actions at the proper time in accordance with accepted expectations, institutional life may be threatened. Examples: a. When a parent deserts a family, it commonly complicates the task of child rearing and care. b. When in the midst of a battle a squad of soldiers fails to obey and runs away, an entire army may be overwhelmed and defeated. Deviance also weakens our willingness to play our roles and contribute to the larger social enterprise. If some people get rewards, even disproportionate rewards, without playing by the rules, we develop resentment and bitterness. Example : A number of students in a particularly difficult course were getting the top grades by cheating on exams. Moreover, social life dictates that by and large we TRUST one another (Lewis and Weigert, 1985). We must have confidence that others will play by the rules, otherwise, we feel that somehow our own efforts are pointless, wasted, and foolish. So we become less willing to play by the rules.
Functions of Deviance Deviance may simultaneously facilitate social functioning in a number of ways. a. It may promote conformity (action in accordance with some specified standard or authority). One of the most effective methods of keeping most people in line is to throw some people out of line. By reacting in a hostile manner to those who are not the good and the proper, majority or a powerful group may reinforce the idea of goodness and propriety and thus perpetuate a society of individuals who are more conforming, more obedient, and more loyal to their ideology and rules of behavior b. Many norms are not expressed as firm rules or in official codes. Emile Durkheim emphasized that each time people censure some act, they highlight and sharpen the contours of a norm. Their negative reactions clarify precisely what behavior the “collective conscience” will and will not allow. c. By directing attention to the deviant, a group may strengthen itself. A shared enemy arouses common sentiments and cements feelings of solidarity. d. Deviance is a catalyst for change. It may be a vehicle for placing on a society’s agenda the need for social change. DIFFERENTIATION AND DEVIANCE  People differ from one another in a number of ways, including age, sex, race, educational attainment, and occupational status. Differentiation is the sociological term that refers to such variations. At the most general level, deviance refers to differentness.

 Emile Durkheim long ago described deviance as normal and that no society could rid itself of deviance. Durkheim argues that by defining what is deviant, societies also define what is not, thereby helping to create a shared standard. Some sociologists do not doubt that deviance maintains at a constant level, but they assert that the amount of deviance in a society adjusts upwards and downwards. As a result, while the overall levels are the same, the acts and conditions defined as deviant can change over time.  The conditions that promote differentiation in the society also create deviance (Meier, 1989). Conditions that increase differentiation also likely boost the degree and range of social stratification by increasing the number of criteria for comparing people.  Members of modern societies display greater diversity than those of more traditional, homogenous societies in behavior, dress, attitudes, and interaction patterns.  To the extent that societies value education, it disvalues undereducation; to the extent that it values an occupation with prestige (such as Supreme Court justice), it disvalues one with little or no prestige. Expanding stratification increases the number of criteria on which to make judgments of deviance.  Judgments of deviance do not refer to static or constant standards. Deviance takes constantly changing forms and elicits varying degrees of disapproval. To understand which conduct of conditions simulates disapproval, one must first understand social power. POWER – the ability to make choices by virtue of control over political, economic, or social resources.

People who have money, education and social influence generally wield more power than those who lack those resources.
Powerful people by virtue of their influence, often defines standards for deviance, and they often find deviance among others with less power than they have themselves.
Public opinion often treats white-collar and company crime as less serious than ordinary street crime, even though offenses by these powerful criminals may cause more serious injuries and worse financial losses than street crime. NORM PROMOTION – an ability to successfully promote particular norms to the exclusion of others, competing norms. SUBCULTURES Norms emerge from groups, and different groups are likely to have different norms. A person encounters varying expectations for behavior depending on the group he or she belongs. Acts labeled as deviant in one group may be perfectly acceptable behavior in another. Sociologists often refer to such differences as subcultural differences. Subculture - a culture within a culture- a collection of norms, values and beliefs with content distinguishable from those of the dominant culture. THE RELATIVITY OF DEVIANCE A definition of deviance that refers to norms does not identify any particular type of conduct as deviant. This definition also allows for constant changes in standards for and forms of deviance along with the degree of disapproval that each one elicits. In this sense, deviance cites not a unique type of behavior, rather, common behaviors that happen to offend some group.

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