sociology

Social Control and Deviance

What Is Social Deviance?

•Social deviance is any transgression of socially established norms.

• What is regarded as deviant is as variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures from one another.

• Forms of behavior that are highly esteemed by one group may be regarded negatively by others.

• Deviance is referring to an act or behavior that is simply different from what the majority group typically does, and thus, it generally receives a negative response.

• When sociologists use the term deviant, they are making a social judgment, not a moral one.

• Reactions to deviance can inform social cohesion.

What Is Social Deviance?

Deviance • Minor transgressions of norms can be described as informal

deviance. • Formal deviance or crime involves the violation of laws.

Deviance and Social Control

• Social control is the set of mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals.

• Normative compliance is the act of abiding by society’s norms or simply following the rules of group life.

Deviance and Social Control

Informal social sanctions • Are unspoken rules and expectations about the behavior of

individuals. • Can be rewards or punishments that reinforce socially

expected forms of behavior • Can be positive (rewards for conformity)

• A hug or smile from friends, an award • Or negative (punishment for non-conformity)

• People laughing and pointing, calling out behavior on social media • Help maintain a base level of order and cohesion in society

and form a foundation for formal social control.

Deviance and Social Control

• Formal social sanctions are rules or laws prohibiting deviant criminal behavior.

• Examples of formal social control include laws and the authority of police officers.

• Courts, prisons, and police agencies are the main types of formal sanctions in modern societies.

• They are responsible for sanctioning people who violate laws. Laws are norms defined by governments as principles that their citizens must follow.

• People who break laws engage in crime. • Remember that not all norms are laws. Most of the norms that people

follow are not written down anywhere, but we nevertheless learn them through socialization, observation, and interactions with others.

• Social control can also be subtle.

Deviance and Power

• Where it concerns rules, sociologists often ask: “Whose rules?”

• People in positions of power have more say in the establishment of norms, particularly those written down or codified into law.

• If people in power have a greater say in establishing the rules, they also have a greater say in defining what is deviant.

• Case of marijuana

What is Deviant?

• Are tattoos deviant? • What about social interactions like this? • Drinking alcohol? • Not drinking alcohol? • Is this fair?

Strain Theory • Robert Merton’s strain theory argues

that deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals.

• What does “success” look like for an American? What are “life goals”?

• The strain is the frustration that occurs between knowing what the goals are and not being able to achieve those goals.

Strain Theory

• Conformists accept the goals of the society and the means of achieving those goals.

• For example, individuals who work hard in school, go to college, get a job, and save money because they want to buy a nice house, have a prestigious car, wear expensive clothes, and contribute to their retirement plans, etc.

Strain Theory • Innovators accept the goals of the society, but

they look for new, or innovative, ways of achieving those goals.

• Want the same things as conformists do—a nice house, expensive clothes—but they aren’t interested in going to college or working their way up the company ladder.

• May engage in illegal tactics to get them.

Strain Theory • Ritualists conform to socially accepted

standards but have lost sight of the underlying values of these standards.

• Less interested in the goals of the society, but they do accept the means of achieving those goals.

• Live their lives day to day. They go to work, have a steady job, and so on, but they probably live within modest means and don’t aspire to reach the top. They don’t talk about career moves or retirement, they just maintain their daily routines.

• Going through the motions.

Strain Theory

• Retreatists don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals.

• Retreatists have often withdrawn from the system completely.

Strain Theory

• Rebels don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals, so they create their own goals using new means.

• Seek to change society.