Chapter 6 - Identifying Deviant Behavior

Question 1

Why are some behaviors, conditions, and beliefs considered deviant?

Answer 1

Depends on the definition, or approach, used.

Question 2

The Statistical Approach.

Answer 2

Treats as deviant anything that is statistically unusual or anything that has a low probability or likelihood. It is about deviance from what is usual or common.

Question 3

Social norms

Answer 3

Social norms indicate what is and is not acceptable in a given culture.

Folkways are the rules that guide everyday behavior, and people do not typically respond strongly to their violations.

Mores are more serious rules and receive harsher responses for their violations.

Question 4

The legalistic approach

Answer 4

Using this approach, any violation of the law is considered deviant.

There is a difference between crimes, sin, and poor taste, with only acts of crime being considered deviant.

Question 5

The normative approach

Answer 5

This approach views a violation of norms—folkways, mores, or laws—as an act of deviance

Question 6

Social Control

Answer 6

Means by which members of society often encourage conformity. There are direct and indirect pressures.

Question 7

Sanctions

Answer 7

Punishments or penalties for breaking rules.

Sanctions can be informal or formal in nature.

Formal sanctions are enacted by official agents of the state. Informal sanctions come from non-official sources, including friends, family members, and strangers.

Question 8

Relativist Perspective.

Sociology in Action (p. 99). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition

Answer 8

Behaviors, conditions, and beliefs are deviant only to the extent that cultures regard them as deviant.

“Deviance” is a result of social construction, not an inherent characteristic of an act.

Most deviance scholars use a relativist approach when studying human behavior.

Question 9

Absolutist Perspective

Answer 9

Some behaviors, conditions, and beliefs are inherently, objectively deviant. Deviance is part of their nature. Even if we do not treat them as deviant, they remain deviant.

Question 10

Conflict/Critical Perspective.

Answer 10

Is a subtype of the relativist approach.

Deviance is socially constructed and those in power determine what is considered deviant.

The label of “deviance” can be used against those who are vulnerable in society.

Question 11

Ethnocentrism

Sociology in Action (p. 100). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.

Question 12

Ethnocentrism

Answer 12

Occurs when people evaluate other cultures on the basis of the standards of their own culture.

Question 13

“Nuts, Sluts, and Perverts” or “Deviant Heroes”?

Answer 13

The term “deviance” has been criticized in the past.

Alexander Liazos felt the term “deviance” was stigmatizing and wanted to use terms such as “victimization,” “persecution,” and “oppression.”

Liazos used the phrase “nuts, sluts, and perverts” to describe the groups that were of most interest to sociologists.

Sociologists argue that deviance is necessary for social change. Unjust and harmful social conditions will continue unless people challenge them by breaking the rules.

Question 14

Early Perspectives: Emile Durkheim’s Sociological Theory of Suicide

Answer 14

Offered a theory of deviance that showed how deviance can benefit society and explained variation in rates of deviance across places, groups, and time periods.

Durkheim’s classic book Suicide implores its readers to consider how the organization of societies gives rise to or inhibits, suicide.

He noted that some countries had consistently high rates of suicide and others had consistently low rates of suicide. This led Durkheim to conclude that characteristics of societies—namely, their ability to regulate behavior and foster social solidarity—mattered for deviance, including suicide.

Durkheim argued that norms become unclear and fail to constrain deviant behavior in the face of rapid social changes. He called this condition anomie.

Question 15

Anomie

Answer 15

Is a state in which a society’s norms fail to regulate behavior.

The bond between the individual and the community breaks down, and society loses its moral force as personal and societal standards of behavior fail to align.

Question 16

Early Perspectives: Durkheim and the normality of crime

Answer 16

Durkheim’s ideas about anomie were part of his larger structural-functionalist perspective on human societies.

Structural functionalism (also called functionalism) claims that all social activity, including crime and deviance, should be understood in terms of what it contributes to society.

The very fact of its existence must mean, from the functionalist perspective, that it provides some necessary, positive function for society. Unsurprisingly, then, Durkheim argued that crime and deviance were normal and necessary aspects of human societies.

A society without crime impossible

Punishment affirms moral boundaries

Question 17

The Functions of Deviance:Structural-Functional Theories

Answer 17

Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.

There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime.

Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.

A boundary between right wrong

Question 18

Moral Entrepreneurship

Answer 18

Individuals or groups actively seek to change norms to align with their own moral worldview often while taking part in social movements,

Comprise both rule creators and rule enforcers.

Rule creators campaign to have their definition of deviance taken seriously.

Rule enforcers seek to ensure that the rules are not violated. The role of enforcer is not limited to formal agents of control, such as police and judges. Anyone can be a rule enforcer.

Question 19

Creating Public Morality

Answer 19

Two steps: generating awareness (or claims-making) and moral conversion.

Moral conversion has three primary components.

1. Media attention must be sought. Public demonstrations, boycotts, and marches are useful for attracting coverage.
2. Moral entrepreneurs must seek endorsements from respected public figures, typically nonexperts.
3. They must form coalitions, or partnerships, with powerful groups with shared interests, such as political organizations, religious groups, or professional associations.

Question 20

Moral panic

Answer 20

An exaggerated, widespread fear regarding the collapse of public morality. Those blamed for the collapse and therefore treated as threats to the social order are called folk devils.

Question 21

Medicalization of Deviance

Answer 21

Refers to behaviors, conditions, and beliefs no longer being considered a form of “badness” but instead a form of “madness.”

These problems are now seen as a sickness, which can be treated.

The number of behaviors believed to result from a sickness has grown over time, as evidenced by changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Question 22

Labeling Perspective

Answer 22

Has its roots in symbolic interaction. As seen in earlier chapters, symbolic interaction posits that human action is driven by the meanings that individuals ascribe.

Emphasizes the power of definitions. Who is defined, or labeled, as deviant is the result of a social process in which others react as though the person is deviant.

Focus on labels and reactions

Labels have the power to transform people. He who is treated as deviant becomes deviant.

Question 23

Primary and Secondary Deviance.

Answer 23

Primary deviance is rule-breaking in which individuals engage in the absence of a deviant label.

Secondary deviance occurs as a result of a deviant label.

Question 24

Official labels

Answer 24

Labels applied by an authority, such as:

The state (e.g., felon, delinquent, sex offender)
The military (e.g., dishonorably discharged)
A school (e.g., truant)
A hospital (e.g., mentally ill, HIV positive). 

Official labels, because they are documented by recognized authorities, are difficult to shed and have important consequences for obtaining resources, such as jobs and housing.

Question 25

Informal labels

Answer 25

Occur when a person has been deemed deviant by family members, teachers, coworkers, or neighbors.

Question 26

Stigma

Answer 26

A mark of disgrace and interactions that communicate that one is disgraced, dishonorable, or otherwise deviant.

Question 27

Role engulfment

Answer 27

Occurs when the deviant role takes over people’s other social roles because others relate to them in response to their “spoiled identities”

Question 27

Role engulfment

Answer 27

Occurs when the deviant role takes over people’s other social roles because others relate to them in response to their “spoiled identities”

Question 28

Master status

Answer 28

Primary status by which others interact with a person.

Question 29

Social location

Answer 29

Where one resides in a system of social stratification is central in the labeling perspective.

The power to define others as deviant and to resist having the label applied to oneself is linked to social position. Those with greater power—for example, politicians, professionals, and other members of the upper middle and upper classes—are better able to resist deviant labeling, even when their behavior does not differ from that of the less powerful “deviant.”

Question 30

Howard Becker’s Typology of Deviance

Answer 30

Refers to those labeled as deviant or criminal despite the absence of any actual deviant or criminal behavior as the “falsely accused.”

Marginalized, or relatively powerless, members of society are at greatest risk for being falsely accused,

Those who engage in deviance or crime as “pure deviants,” as the label is a true reflection of their actions.

Question 31

Techniques of Neutralization

Answer 31

Justifications and excuses allow rule violators to minimize, or neutralize their deviance.

Denial of responsibility: Offenders claim that they are not to blame. They may claim to be victims of circumstance or that the act was accidental or that they were subject to pressures beyond their control.

Denial of injury: Offenders say that they have not done anything wrong because either the act produced little or no harm or their intentions were not to inflict harm.

Denial of victim: Offenders acknowledge that their actions are harmful but refuse to acknowledge a legitimate victim.

Condemning the condemners: Offenders direct attention to those who judge them rather than their own behavior, claiming that those who condemn their actions have no right to do so

Appeal to higher loyalties: Offenders claim that the act was necessary to meet the moral obligations of a group even if it means violating another set of rules, such as laws.

Question 32

Stigma Managament

Answer 32

Allow individuals to minimize the deviance of their acts and maintain a positive self-concept, thereby avoiding a deviant identity.

Differ depending on whether the stigma experienced is visible or invisible.

Question 33

Managing Visible Stigmas

Answer 33

Involves compensatory strategies, in which individuals attempt to offset the deviance that is ascribed to them or make others more comfortable with their stigma. Compensatory strategies include acknowledgment, individuating information, and increased positivity.

Acknowledgment occurs when a stigmatized person directly addresses his or her stigma in an attempt to relieve the tension in interaction.

Individuating information involves revealing information about oneself to diminish the likelihood that the person with whom they are interacting will rely on stereotypical ideas about their status.

Increased positivity is a kind of emotion work—or management of feelings, typically to preserve relationships—in which a stigmatized person intentionally tries to become more likable to counter the negative impact of stigma.

Question 34

Managing Invisible Stigmas

Answer 34

More options for managing their deviant identities, falling into two broad categories: passing and revealing.

Passing involves attempts at presenting oneself as a member of a nonstigmatized group.

• Fabrication involves the presentation of a false identity.
• Concealment does not involve deception; rather, it involves taking steps to keep one’s stigmatized identity hidden.

Revealing is a stigma management technique that intentionally and strategically makes the invisible stigma visible, including signaling, normalizing, and differentiating.

• Signaling is a revealing strategy that does not involve direct disclosure but instead relies on subtle or cryptic indications of one’s deviant status. For instance, mentioning needing to pick up one’s Prozac refill is a subtle signal of one’s mental health status.
• Normalizing is directly disclosing stigma, but framing it for others as normal. An example would be a person who discusses his or her HIV status as though it were no different from any other nonstigmatized medical condition.
• Differentiating involves direct disclosure with the goal of differentiating oneself from the nonstigmatized group. Reclamation of one’s identity.