Chapter 1 Flashcards
Deviance
A person, behaviour, or characteristic that is socially typed as deviant and subjected to measures of social control.
Conformity
A person, behaviour, or characteristic that is considered normal and acceptable; the opposite of deviance.
Does deviance describe someone that one person disapproves of?
No, deviance describes characteristics of a broader society and sociocultural processes.
Deviance Specialists
Scholars who study criminalized or non-criminalized forms of deviance.
Criminologists
Scholars who exclusively study criminalized forms of deviance.
Subjective Views of Deviance
There is no shared, observable characteristic that can clearly tell us who or what is deviant and who or what is normal. Instead, someone must tell us who is deviant.
Subjective Views of Deviance
There is no shared, observable characteristic that can clearly tell us who or what is deviant and who or what is normal. Instead, someone must tell us who is deviant.
What is the shift in recent views of deviance?
Go beyond the notion of dualism or a dichotomy. Moves to a continuum.
What is the shift in recent views of deviance?
Go beyond the notion of dualism or a dichotomy. Moves to a continuum, where aspects of both can be combined.
What are the four most popular characteristics that people can use to identify deviance, according to the objective viewpoint?
Statistical rarity, harm, a negative societal reaction, and normative violation.
Statistical Rarity
An objective definition of defiance that claims a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviant if it is statistically rare.
Harm
An objective definition of defiance that claims a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviant if it causes harm.
Societal Reaction
An objective definition of defiance that claims a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviant if society’s masses react to it negatively.
Normative Violation
An objective definition of defiance that claims a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviant if it violates society’s norms.
Which method of identifying deviance objectively is used in everyday conversation more than it is used by academics?
Statistical rarity. Also, harm.
What are some examples of behaviours that can be considered deviant under the statistical rarity gauge?
Smokers, people that have gone to prison, people with spiked green hair.
What are the 3 limitations with the statistical rarity gauge of determining deviance?
- What constitutes rare?
- Some behaviour are not rare, but are considered unacceptable.
- There are rare behaviours that are accepted in society.
What are the 4 types of harm that can determine deviance according to the harm gauge?
- Physical.
- Emotional.
- Social.
- Threat to the way we understand the world and our place in it.
Social Harm
Actions that interfere with the smooth running of society as a whole.
Give an example of a threat to the way we understand the world and our place in it.
For example, Joan of Arc stated that she did not need the fathers of the church to talk to God. This was deviant at the time.
What is an action that can cause all four types of harm?
Terrorism.
Give an example of how the physical measure of harm has been faulty in the past.
It was once believed that masturbation made you have hairy palms and break out.
Problem with harm principle in determining deviance:
Some things that are deviant are not harmful. Women fighting for the right to vote.
Give an example of when reactions to harm cause more harm than the initial action itself:
Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport. Racism and eugenics cause more problems than marijuana.
Are societal reactions more or less uniform?
Not necessarily.
Absolutist conception of normative deviance:
A particular behaviour or characteristic was perceived as being inherently and universally deviant.
What led many objectivists to abandon the absolutist view?
The simplicity.
What is the modern conception of normative deviance?
Culturally specific.
Culturally specific conception of normative deviance:
Deviance is based on a given society’s moral code rather than on any type of absolute moral order.
3 levels of norms:
Folkways, mores, laws.
Folkways
Norms that govern informal everyday behaviours.
Mores
Norms that are considered to be the foundation of morality in society.
What is the problem with looking at laws as a source for norms?
Sometimes the law does not reflect what the citizens’ views are. Law is a political activity.
Conflict View
The view that laws are created by the powerful to serve their own interests.
What is the conflict view also known as?
Social power perspective.
Interactionist View
The view of law that suggests that society’s powerful define the law at the behest of interest groups, who appeal to those with power to rectify a perceived social ill.
High-Consensus Deviance
Forms of deviance about which there are high levels of agreement in society.
Low-Consensus Deviance
Forms of deviance about which there are low levels of agreement in society.
What is a critiques of using norms to determine deviance?
Question of the situational applicability of broad social norms. Killing someone is not always necessarily murder.
Dominant Moral Codes
The “lists” of right/wrong, appropriate/inappropriate, moral/immoral that predominate in a particular society at a given time in history and that are enforced in multiple ways.
Social Constructionism
The perspective proposing that social characteristics are creations or artifacts of a particular society at a specific time in history, just as objects are artifacts of that society.
Radical Constructionism
A form of social constructionism that claims the world is characterized by endless relativism. Same as strict constructionism.
Strict Constructionism
A form of social constructionism that claims the world is characterized by endless relativism. Same as radical constructionism.
Soft Constructionism
A form of social constructionism that emphasizes the processes by which certain social phenomena come to be perceived and reacted to in particular ways in a given society at a specific time in history. Same as contextual constructionism.
Contextual Constructionism
A form of social constructionism that emphasizes the processes by which certain social phenomena come to be perceived and reacted to in particular ways in a given society at a specific time in history. Same as soft constructionism.
Most contemporary deviance specialists are ___ constructionists.
Soft/contextual.
What are the 4 levels of social construction?
- Individual.
- Interactional.
- Institutional.
- Sociocultural.
What is of sociological significance when viewing social constructionism as a process?
- It’s place in the social order.
- The roles assigned to people who exhibit that behaviour or characteristic.
- The meanings attached to that behaviour or characteristic.
Sociocultural Level
Beliefs, ideologies, values, and systems of meaning have an influence on the path of social construction.
Institutional Level
The structures of our society, such as government, the education system, and religion that affect social construction.
Interactional Level
Our interactions with other people influence the way we think and feel about others, thereby determining the role that each of us plays in social construction.
Individual Level
Our own identities, concepts of self, and ways of understanding our own existence in the world affect the path of social construction.
How has the definition of deviance shifted recently?
From objective to subjective.
How has the objective view of deviance shifted recently?
From an absolute moral order to a culturally specific moral order.
How has the subjective view of deviance shifted recently?
They have acknowledged the role of norms in defining deviance, but in terms of norms that may be socially constructed and determined by processes of power.
Can different definitions of deviance be combined?
Yes, for example, normative violation, negative reaction, harm, power, and social construction.
Objective traits are discussed within processes of social constructionism, blurring the line between objective and subjective. True or false?
True.
What is at the far objective end of determining the standard for deviance?
Absolute moral order.
What is at the far subjective end of determining the standard for deviance?
Radical constructionism.
Examples of high-consensus forms of deviance:
Homicide, gang membership, white-collar crime, police corruption, and prostution.
Researchers who lean towards objectivism are more likely to study forms of ___ consensus deviance.
High.
Examples of low-consensus forms of deviance:
Marijuana use, pornography, swinging, gambling, aspects of physical appearance.
Researchers who lean towards subjectivism are more likely to study forms of ___ consensus deviance.
Low.
Those who perceive more objectivity in deviance shine their analytical spotlight on…
A particular act of characteristic. Explaining the person, behaviour, or characteristic in question.
Those who perceive more subjectivity in deviance shine their analytical spotlight on…
Society and social processes.
Deviance Dance
The interactions, negotiations, and debates among groups with different perceptions of whether a behaviour or characteristic is deviant and needs to be socially controlled and if so, how.
How is the “dance” analogy used in the deviance dance?
The participants in the “dance” take certain “steps” to move the dance in the direction they desire. This “dance” may be characterized by consensus (line dance) or by difference and compromise (waltz). “Dance” can also be like a mosh pit where everyone moves independently.
Radical Phenomenalism
Countless numbers of specific phenomena (such as call girls, drug users, or swingers) have been studied in tremendous detail without any attention being paid to larger social structures.
Moral Entrepreneurs
Individuals or groups who manufacture public morality by bringing a social problem to public awareness and then attempting to affect change in society’s dominant moral codes.
Give an example of moral entrepreneurs who have manufactured public morality:
Temperance movement. Abolition movement. Child-savers movement.
What is the most central group in society that acts as or has a relationship with moral entrepreneurs?
Politicians.
Politicians
People in whom ultimate power has been vested in modern state systems – they have powers to invoke, revoke and determine the enforcement of legislation and social policy.
What three groups most prominently act as moral entrepreneurs?
Politicians, scientists, religious institutions, media, and commercial enterprise.
What is the role of interest groups?
To lobby the government to initiate change to handle am identified social ill.
How are scientists moral entrepreneurs?
They make claims that influence society’s moral codes. The claims made by scientists are backed by the domain that is granted the highest level of credibility in our society – science.
Many things stated by scientists are taken as truth. True or false?
True.
Give an example of how religious institutions historically had a role as moral entrepreneurs?
Countless people were killed during the witch persecutions and the Spanish Inquisition for being deviant.
Give an example of how religious institutions currently have a role as moral entrepreneurs.
Can be seen in nations in which religious-based governments are the source of social order. Taliban in Afghanistan.
How is Canada influenced by religion?
Judeo-Christian holidays are celebrated nationally. Criminal law is based on Judeo-Christian ethic of free will.
In the twenty-first century, where is the central battleground in the struggles over moral codes?
Media.
How does media act not only as a tool for moral entrepreneurs, but also a moral entrepreneur in itself?
It makes choices as far as what will and will not be included on a particular program or in a particular commercial segment.
How does commercial enterprise act as a moral entrepreneur?
Connected with media. Most components of the media itself are commercial enterprises driven by a profit motive. Commercial enterprises can also influence policies created by government.
Give an example in our legal system how commercial enterprise influence government policy:
Most legal interactions by those involved in commercial enterprise are dealt with under the more lenient civil law, as opposed to the punitive civil law.
Social Typing
The process by which some people come to be perceived as deviant and others as normal.
What are the 3 components of the social typing process?
- Description.
- Evaluation.
- Prescription.
Description (Social Typing)
A label is placed on an individual because of an observed or presumed behaviour or characteristic.
Give an example of how description in social typing is culturally specific:
In modern-day Canada, you are more likely to be labelled a terrorist than a heretic. In sixteenth-century Europe, you were more likely to be labelled a heretic the a terrorist.
Evaluation (Social Typing)
Occurs when a judgement is attached to the individual by virtue of the label that was previously attached or the category that individual was placed in under the description component.
If someone is socially typed as deviant, the judgement is characteristically ___ in nature.
Negative.
Prescription (Social Typing)
Where the process of social control or regulation emerge. Individuals are treated a certain way based on their label in a way that they would not have been treated if the label had not been applied.
Larger culture influences the ___ and ___ processes in social typing.
Description and prescription.
Informal Regulation/Informal Social Control
Forms of social control that emerge from everyday social interaction.
Informal social control incldues…
Staring, laughing, frowning, avoiding, shaming, and more. Peer pressure, advice, and parenting practices also fall under this category.
Formal Regulation/Formal Social Control
Forms of social control that emerge from organizations or institutions.
Formal social control includes…
Laws, a school or work does code, regulations governing driver’s licences or hunting permits, a teacher punishing a student for misbehaviour, or the psychiatrist’s handbook (DSM).
Give an example of intentional social control:
The creation of rules that must be followed by a child, student, employee, or a citizen of the state.
Give an example of regulation as a result of general influence:
Doctors and lawyers have a general influence on their clients’ lives.
Retroactive Social Control
Treating a known deviant in a certain way.
Preventative Social Control
Trying to prevent deviance in the first place, fr example through socialization.
Self-Regulation/Self-Control
People regulate their own behaviour (for example, dieting, joining a self-help group to end an addiction, or by avoiding behaviour they know will be stigmatized).
Can multiple social typing processes occur simultaneously?
Yes.
Give an example of how a single deviant behaviour that is agreed upon faces different forms of regulation:
Some people think that addictions should be treated medically; others think that it should be punished.
Deviantize
To subject a person, behaviour, or characteristic to the complete social typing process.
