Deviance Flashcards
Deviance
The violation or divergence from social rules or norms
ABC’s of deviance
Attitudes, Behaviors, Conditions or types of persons deemed immoral, sinful, sick, illegal, inappropriate, and so on
Norms
Generally agreed-upon codes about how people should behave.
Norms guide our actions and the way we comport & present ourselves.
Three types of norms
1) Folkways
2) Mores
3) Laws
Folkways
Simple everyday norms based on custom, tradition, or etiquette
Mores
More serious norms based on broad social norms
Laws
Strongest norms; codified and enforced by formal sanctions
Relationship between ctime & deviance
(i.e. are they the same thing?)
Crime and deviance are not always the same thing.
One can be deviant but not criminal. Deviance is a broader term than criminality.
Achieved status
An earned status. More blame to the individual.
Ascribed status
Born into a status. Less blame, if any, to the individual.
Statistical definition: Deviance
Any variation or departure from a statisticl average
Statistical definitions look at ________ rather than at ___________
what is; what should or should not be
Social Control
The means by which society secures adherence to social norms; how society controls unwanted behavior
Informal Social Control
Self-control
Relational controls
Conscience - Socially created product
Fromal Social Control
Institutionalized and enforced by large groups or social institutions
Is Informal Social Control or Formal Social Control more common?
Informal Social Control is more common.
Absolutist/Positivist perspectives on deviance
Deviance is an objective fact: There is something inherent in the act itself that makes it deviant & wrong
Deviance is universal: It is similar for all cultures
Assumes normative consensus
Searches for the etiology (causes) or social origin of deviant behavior
Relativist/Interactionist perspectives on deviance
Deviance is not universal or unchanging: Deviance is in the eye of the beholder
Deviance is relative
Deviance and morality are socially constructed
Assumes normative conflict
Interested in social reaction to deviance, how deviance is socially defined, how labels are attached, and the consequences of being labeled.
The Salem Witch Trials: Absolutist Perspective
What questions could we ask?
What caused the kid’s behavior?
The Salem Witch Trials: Relativist Perspective
What questions could we a sk?
Why did the society react as they did?
The Salem Witch Trials: What tensions and threats to community in Salem may have encouraged the moral panic around witchcraft?
People going to create the colonies had different reasons for going to create them.
Political instability
Local non-religious merchants
The Salem Witch Trials: Who was most likely to be accused?
Women, they couldn’t become minsters and were socially weaker than men.
Women are “naturally lustfull” (Eve)