Deviance is defined as something that goes against the norm. A norm is defined by a society or group (Erikson, 1966). In today’s society most people want to establish themselves as an individual adult. Our society is divided into several different kinds of subcultures. A subculture is defined as an organization of values and the environment around you (Fox 1987). The norms of a subculture are decided among the society within the subculture. For many subcultures norms are usually morally and religiously right such as a church group. Others are centered on deviance, such as a gang.
For the American Society the most centralized norm and value is; the American dream. The American dream is consisted of independency, individuality, achievements and autonomy. Most Americans dream of the future; having a good stable job, owning a home, owning a car, having family, having all of the nice yet not necessary things in life and also being able to support their family.
When individuals lack the means of achieving their goals in life, they result to deviance. When deviance is the result of the disjuncture between cultural norms and institutional norms it creates Strain Theory which defines our lives and the legitimate means of achieving them (Merton 1968). When a person is trying to achieve a goal and they do not have the means of achieving that goal legitimately, it creates a strain on the individual which causes them to strive to achieve that goal in any way possible.
When a person is deciding how they are going to achieve a goal they have five choices in which to choose from. Merton’s Modes of Adaptation has five different ways of achieving goals; conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion (Merton 1968). When an individual has values and cultural goals, and they chose to go about the right way of achieving their goals they are being a conformist through hard honest work they are conforming to society’s norms. Most people in our society chose this manor to achieve or not achieve their goals (Merton 1968)
Individuals who are usually lower in status, who work hard in blue collar positions, can not achieve the status of the typical white collar individual they result to deviance which is called innovation. The culture in which they live pressures them to move higher on the social ladder; the individual is limited in ways of achieving that goal because of their status in society they will find a way to do it anyway. Society does not necessarily shun these types of people because they want to be successful and they try to get better opportunities, only they can not do it, the way the rest of society does they find another way to achieve that status. People of innovation are not always criminal’s, they just define another way to achieve their goals.
When an individual expresses ritualism they are happy where they are in society, even though they have not achieved any great goal. They decided to settle for less and they are satisfied with their life. It is unimportant to them whether or not they are successful they just go through the motions of life. There are a great number of individuals who have decided to lower the bar of expectations. In the rest of society they may often be viewed as lazy, irresponsible individuals (Merton 1968)
An individual who retreats from society is drawing back from the goals set by society. They decide that being like the rest of society is just too hard and they can not achieve the goal no matter what they do. They withdraw from society as a whole and do what they want to do; they are not concerned with what society thinks of them. People who retreat from society are usually insecure, outcasts, homeless, alcoholics, or drug addicts. Society views these individuals as being weird or psycho; these types of individuals are less in numbers in society (Merton 1968).
Individuals, who rebel against the standards set by society, completely ignore the right means of achieving a goal or not at all. They expel the way of the norm and create their own way of living, in which they view as there is nothing wrong with it. They want to be rewarded for the actions in which they take; only society does not accept that. Often times they want to reach out to society and initiate a new way of thinking. Society does not accept the way people who rebel live, nor do they accept their values (Merton 1968).
As a result of an individual acting out in a way that is not of the norm, they may often get labeled. When a person is labeled it is a result of their own self-fulfilling prophecy and society’s reaction to their actions. Self-fulfilling prophecy is when a person has been labeled because of a minor action that they committed and after the label has been placed they take on the role of that label (Becker 1963). “Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders” (Becker 1963 pg 72). Deviance in this aspect is not necessarily an act of crime, but can be something that is a positive act.
A positive act of deviance would be someone going against the norm of a group that breaks a rule. Often people who study and do well in school who also do not attend the regular parties, would be considered deviant by the group who does not study or do well in school and they are the ones attending the parties. The group is actually the ones who should be considered deviant because they are the ones who are not doing well in school because they attend too many parties. The individual who studies and does well in school is a person with values who has the legitimate means of achieving their goal in school, they actually work for it. Often times there are individuals who are committing a deviant act yet they are not labeled, not all deviant people get labeled (Becker 1963).
Through being labeled people often get marked with a stigma by society. The label leads to the individual to be excluded from society. Often people, who want to be of the normal, learn how to manage their stigma. A stigma is when a person has been labeled a name; they are often shunned, blamed, or made to feel guilty because of their deviant act in which they are labeled. Individuals learn to manage their stigma in different ways “the discreditable and “the discredited”” (Lee and Craft 2002).
An individual who is considered to be a discreditable often use passing as their form of managing their stigma. Passing is when the discreditable tries to pass as normal. They hide their deviance when they are around people who are normal to fit in with the group. They act like someone else so as not to show their deviance, or they try to get around it. They also try to convince people that they are normal by saying, dressing, or acting like the others. Most homosexuals who do not want certain people to know that they are homosexuals they may act like they have a girlfriend or may even have a real girlfriend to portray himself as a heterosexual and not have the question of being homosexual brought up (Lee and Craft 2002).
Those who are discreditable also have friends who help them by covering for them. When a person is covering for another they are going along with the deviance as it is not there, they may help their friend seem heterosexual by posing as their girlfriend around people who they do not want to know about their deviance (Lee and Craft 2002).
The individuals who disclose their deviance in two ways also (deviance disavowal) and “deviance avowal” (Turner 1972) (Lee and Craft 2002). Deviance disavowal is when an individual who is with another individual who is deviant but refuses to acknowledge that the other is deviant, they are in denial (Davis 1961) (Lee and Craft 2002).
There are individuals who disclose their deviance by form of “deviance avowal” (Turner 1972) (Lee and Craft 2002). This occurs when a deviant individual wants others to know, and they try to express their deviance through a “positive light” (Lee and Craft 2002). The individual tries to make jokes about their deviance by humor which “breaks the ice” (Lee and Craft 2002). This act displays that they are comfortable with themselves as being deviant and they want others to know, if others do not approve of their deviance, then they do not care (Lee and Craft 2002).
We have discussed the different types of deviance (Merton’s Modes of Adaptation), the consequences of deviance (Labeling) and how to deal with being identified as deviant (Stigma Management). Now in question is how do people become deviant? Differential Association uses nines ways in defining how individuals become deviant (Sutherland and Cressey 1992). The first principal is that behavior is learned meaning that it is not inherited through the family blood line (Sutherland and Cressey 1992). The next principal is that behavior is learned through others gestures and expressions, meaning people who are already deviant, are observed by others who are not deviant (Sutherland and Cressey 1992).
The third principle is deviant behavior is learned from an individual or a group, meaning that the media does not have as great of influence as peers do (Sutherland and Cressey 1992). The next principal is that deviance is learned by different techniques of crime along with motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes; meaning that individuals observe others ways of committing deviant acts as well as what motivates them and their attitude towards the action (Sutherland and Cressey 1992).
The fifth principal is the motives and drives that an individual has comes from the “legal codes as favorable or unfavorable” (Sutherland and Cressey 1992 pg 70). This means that society sets a boundary for laws and there are different groups that follow the law and there are groups that do not follow the law. The sixth principal is the principal of differential association. “When persons become criminal, they do so because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from anticriminal patterns” (Sutherland and Cressey 1992 pg 70). This statement means that people learn good and bad things from others; if they are not around criminal behavior they will not commit criminal acts.
The next principal is “differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity” (Sutherland and Cressey 1992 pf 70). This means that learning deviancy vary in these aspects. The frequent amount of times an individual is around crime will affect them, the more they are around crime the more likely they are to commit crime. When the individual is with a criminal or deviant person if they are around them for a long period of time they have a greater chance of becoming deviant themselves. When an individual has been exposed to crime or deviancy for most of their life they tend to view crime as a priority in life. The source from which deviancy or criminality comes from will define the intensity in which the individual will become more deviant. The eighth principal is the process of learning criminal behavior is not restricted to the process of imitation. All mechanisms that are involved in any other learning are involved as well. This means individuals learn through association with others (Sutherland and Cressey 1992).
The last principal of differential association is that while criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, these needs and values do not explain the behavior since these same needs and values are expressed by non-criminal individuals as well. The attempts by many scholars to explain criminal behavior by general drives and values, such as the happiness principal, striving for social status, the money motive, or frustration, have been, and must continue to be, futile, since they explain lawful behavior as completely as they explain criminal behavior” (Sutherland and Cressey 1992 pg 71). In a sense criminals and non criminals have the same motives for achieving their goals but they lack the means of achieving those goals legitimately (Strain theory).
In conclusion deviance is defined by society whom creates the norms that are acceptable in society. There are many different views in society which is based on there they live (Subculture). Deviance occurs when an individual can not achieve their goals in life. When the individual does not have the means to achieve these goals they result to deviance which is Strain Theory. Then following the Strain Theory comes Merton’s Modes of Adaptation which explain how and why each individual commit or does not commit to deviance.
Therefore when an individual does not have the things that they want in life and they commit to deviance, then they are Labeled by society as a deviant individual. When an individual is labeled they develop a stigma in society, as looked down upon because of their deviance. They have to learn how to manage their stigma. In which vary between people and situations. Following behind Stigma Management comes Differential Association in which defines the ways in which individuals learn how to commit deviant acts, through observation and participation.
The effects and causes of deviance and criminality seem to connect to each other, like dominos because they cannot achieve what they want they result to deviance; deviance is defined by the subculture around them; because they are deviant they are labeled as so; after being labeled they develop a stigma in society, in which they have to learn to manage in order to not be noticed as a deviant individual. Finally we learn how individuals become deviant, they learn from others, they can not create it without observing it.
Bibliography
- Deviance:
Erickson, Kai, Wayward Puritans: “A Study in the Sociology of Deviance” 1966.
- Subcultures:
Fox, Kathryn, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography “Real Punks and Pretenders: The Social Organization of a Counter Culture” 1987.
- Strain Theory and Merton’s Modes of Adaptation
Merton, Robert, The Free Press, “Social Theory and Social Structure” 1968.
- Labeling Theory
Becker, Howard, The Free Press, “Studies in the Sociology of Deviance” 1963.
- Stigma Management
Lee, James and Craft, Elizabeth “Protecting One’s Self from a Stigmatized Disease”: “Deviant Behavior, Vol 23″ 2002.
- Differential Association
Sutherland, Edwin and Cressey, Donald “Principals of Criminology 11th edition”. 1992.
