Deviance Positivist Perspectives

Question 1

Functionalism

Answer 1

All societies have some level of deviance, therefore:
Deviance serves two purposes/function in social stability (how does deviance keep social stability or disrupt it?)
1. Reinforce common norms and patterns of behaviours
2. Create boundaries within groups

Can also lead to social change (bring people together)
- but if the deviance levels are too high, it will repel social change

Question 2

Durkheim: The Functions of Deviance and Anomie

Answer 2

Social solidarity is essential to most societies: shared goals that lead to a set of shared norms
- Without norms to guide them, societies function poorly

Durkheim introduced the concept of anomie

• Lack of social norms (normlessness = higher deviance in all of society)
• Unpredictableness = anomie!

Question 3

Durkheim: Social Facts

Answer 3

The interactive process through which we actively create and reinforce social norms
Widely held beliefs that inform the conduct expectations associated with social roles, drawing authority from widespread social consensus

Two types of social facts: material and non-material

Question 4

Material Social Facts

Answer 4

Reinforced through the creation of social institutions, and have authority due to material structures (like money)

Question 5

Non-Material Social Facts

Answer 5

Reinforced through patterns in human conduct, and acquire authority through the presence of other people

Question 6

Collective conscience:

Answer 6

a shared set of beliefs and conduct (help us feel bonded to each other)

Question 7

Mechanical solidarity:

Answer 7

only possible insofar as the individual personality is absorbed into the collective personality (everyone’s lives are similar to everyone else’s, belief systems are the same)

Question 8

Organic solidarity:

Answer 8

only possible if each person has a sphere of action which is peculiar to them (personality) (bonded to each other b/c we need each other -»»» result of the division of labour/specialization of roles!!)

Question 9

Anomie

Answer 9

A feeling of disconnection from the norms of the dominant society makes a person less likely to identify with and conform to the expectations of the wider community.

• The reinforcement of social norms can only occur through instances where individuals transgress those norms. Thus, acts of deviance are necessary for members of society to know what constitutes prohibited practice
• Social stability decreases anomie
• Poor life trajectories alone are not sufficient for anomie must include feelings of disconnect/displacement

Question 10

Merton and Strain Theory

Answer 10

Merton introduced the idea of social strain

• Crime is the result of the gap between cultural aspirations and means
• Focused on material goals
• Poor life trajectory = higher levels of normlessness b/c of strain between means of achieving goals and the high set goals

Question 11

Merton’s Strain Theory

Answer 11

Conformity: accept goals and means = keeps pursuing material goals via society’s appropriate means (school, good job, working hard)
Innovation: accepts goals but rejects means = seeks a different way of achieving goals (innovative way = selling drugs)
Ritualism: gives up on goals but accepts means = someone who thinks they will never get anywhere in life but keeps going through the motions. Invisible deviance to the outside world b/c these people appear to reliably follow the rules.
Retreatism: reject both goals and means = retreat into their own isolated worlds, sometimes characterized by alcohol abuse or drug addiction
Rebellion: reject both goals and means = substitute new goals and new means

Question 12

Robert Agnew: General Strain Theory

Answer 12

• Proposes that strain can be produced by a variety of processes (unable to achieve goals, when valued stimuli are removed, or when negative stimuli are presented)
• Strain alone is not sufficient to produce deviant behaviour
• Strain creates negative affect (negative emotions) like anger, depression, or anxiety
• Individuals attempt to improve their emotions via one or more of 3 strategies
  Cognitive coping strategies: transform the way they think about the strain
  Emotional coping strategies: reduce the negative emotions caused by strain, maybe deviant or conforming in nature
  Behavioural coping strategies: attempt to eliminate the strain itself
• Functionalist theory argues that society is structured in a way that facilitates differential experiences and consequences of strain among people in various social locations

Question 13

Strain Theory: Cloward and Olin - Differential Opportunity Theory

Answer 13

Proposes that the society is structured in a way that results in differential access to illegitimate opportunities

• Because of differential access to both legitimate and illegitimate opportunities, some people are more likely to participate in deviant subcultures
• Criminal gangs
• Retreatist gangs (those who use alcohol or drugs to retreat)
• Conflict gangs (those who fight for status and power via the use of violence against competitive gangs)
• As children grow up in these circumstances, they may see people making their living through criminal involvement, people excessively drinking/using drugs or gang violence. This leads to certain illegitimate opportunities becoming easily available.

Question 14

Strain Theory: Albert Cohen - Status Frustration

Answer 14

Claims that inequalities in the structure of society are reproduced in the classroom, resulting in delinquent subcultures among lower-class boys

• Middle-class norms dominate in society and the classroom
• Creates a middle-class measuring rod that lower-class boys find difficult to live up to
• School’s emphasis on delayed gratification, politeness, and the value of hard work does not correspond well with the lives of lower-class boys
• When they are unable to achieve the standards in the classroom, they experience status frustration (similar to strain)
• Results in lower-class boys with the same experience joining together (mutual conversion) and developing a set of oppositional standards at which they are able to achieve (reaction formation)

Question 15

Shaw and McKay: Social Disorganization

Answer 15

Deviance originates in the level of the social organization of the community, not in the pathology of individuals

• An ecological problem rather than individual
• Broken Windows Theory

Result: criminal subculture developed in these areas

Question 16

Broken Windows Theory

Answer 16

• Crime is a result of urban disorder.
• Levels of minor disorder and subsequent levels of violent crime are linked.
• Visible disorders, both social and physical, in public places beckon deviance and violent crime.
• Disorder becomes a source of fear and anxiety that leads to community destabilization.
• The fear-disorder relationship is mediated by intervening social mechanisms i.e authority, policy, police forces

Question 17

Control/Social Control Theories

Answer 17

These theories focus on why not all people become deviant since they suggest that deviant behaviour is inherently attractive, exciting, and appealing.

• Given the appeal, only some of us do not become deviant through certain forms of restraint
• Differentiated between:
  1. Social controls, involve ties to social groups like the family, the community, other institutions
  2. Personal controls, which are internalized by the individual

Question 18

Hirschi: Social Control Theories

Answer 18

Social control theory: Focuses on the micro-social variables in explaining an individual’s propensity to engage in criminal/deviant conduct.

• Correlates one’s propensity for deviance with qualities internalized by the individual, including the degree to which they feel attached to others.
• Two theories: social bonds theory and self-control theory

Question 19

Social Bonds Theory

Answer 19

This theory proposes that four different types of social bonds keep us from deviance
1. Attachment: a greater level of emotional attachment to others, the more bound we are to conformity. Lack of emotional attachments leaves us freer to engage in deviance. Type of person to whom we are attached does not matter, just the mere fact of having an emotional attachment restrains us from deviance.
2. Commitment: committing to conformity gives us more of a stake in the conventional world. Engaging in deviance threatens our investments in conventionality and there would be too much to lose. Those with little investment in conventionality have less to lose when engaging in deviance.
3. Involvement: being involved in conventional activities. More involvement in activities means less time for deviance. Less involvement in activities means more time for deviance
4. Belief: strong belief in the norms, values, and assumptions that compose the conventional world restrains us from deviance. No belief in these = no restraints from deviance.
Life trajectories can change the nature and extent of social bonds b/c as one enters adulthood, different types of social bonds can emerge, which may further restrain individuals from deviance.

Question 20

Self-Control Theory

Answer 20

This theory proposes that self-control is central to explaining why some people are predisposed to deviant acts while others are not.

Low self-control is associated with a wide range of criminal and non-criminal forms of deviance, as well as being a victim of crime (i.e disclosing personal info online)

Question 21

General theory of crime

Answer 21

• Focus on the importance of self-control in preventing people from being deviance
• Self-control is a form of social control

Question 22

Limitations of Functionalist Theories

Answer 22

Critiques of functionalist logic
- Teleological and tautological reasoning
- basically no evidence to prove these theories, just circular reasoning
Critiques of functionalist ideology
- inherently supportive of the status quo
Critiques of functionalist bias
- Deviance as a lower-class phenomenon
- Androcentric bias

Question 23

Learning Theories

Answer 23

• These theories explain deviant behaviour as a result of learning processes
• People learn to be deviant
• Types of Theories:
  1. Differential association theory
  2. Neutralization theory
  3. Social learning theory

Question 24

Not all group interactions have the same impact on learning processes

Answer 24

Frequency: how often an individual interacts with a specific group (more frequent interaction = more influence)
Duration: how long the interactions with a specific group typically are (Longer duration interactions = more influence)
Priority: how early in life these interactions occur (more intimate groups earlier in life have greater influence)
Intensity: how important a specific group is to an individual (more important a particular group is, the great its influence)

Question 25

Edwin Sutherland: Differential Association Theory

Answer 25

Learning through interaction, specifically in small groups

• Learned techniques (skills) and motive (reasons) for certain kinds of behaviour
• Exposed to more deviant definitions instead of conforming = more likely to become deviant
• Learned attitudes and rationalization
• Disregard for the legal community
• Associations
• Differential associations
• All behaviour is learned
• Same values and norms

Question 26

Sykes and Matza: Neutralization Theory

Answer 26

This theory proposes deviance emerges from a learning process in group interactions (same as differential), focuses on the nature of the motives of deviance

• Techniques of neutralization: most important motives learned, which open door for deviant behaviour:
  1. Denial of responsibility (shifts blame elsewhere)
  2. Denial of injury (denies harm)
  3. Denial of victim (“victim deserved it”)
  4. Condemning the condemners (shifts focus to other people’s deviant behaviours = person who calls u out is a “hypocrite”)
  5. Appeal to higher loyalties (justifies behaviour as serving a higher purpose)

By rationalizing their behaviour, they can convince themselves that what they are doing is not wrong

Question 27

Social Learning Theory

Answer 27

• This theory highlights the role of the learning process not only in deviant behaviour but in behaviour more generally -> all of our behaviours can be explained in the same way
  All behaviour is the result of:
  1. Definitions: attitudes about the acceptability of specific behaviours
  2. Differential association: with whom one associates
  3. Imitation
  4. Differential reinforcement: rewards and punishments
• Related to the behaviourist theory of instrumental conditioning, which suggests we are more likely to engage in behaviours we have been rewarded for/reinforced for in the past and less likely to engage in behaviours we have been punished for in the past.
• Deviance first emerges from differential association and imitation and then continues (or not) through differential reinforcement and definitions
• Our behaviours are also influenced by what we have seen other people rewarded or punished for

Question 28

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 28

Seeks to explain how social actors internalize and reinforce these expectations

Question 29

George H. Mead (1934): Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 29

• Sought to demonstrate how social forces inform and influence the ways we reflect on our identities
• Without a shared concept of our material world, social cohesion is impossible
• All about symbols and how if symbols do not represent everyone in society, anyone who doesn’t fall under those symbols become defined as deviant
• Creation of symbols to ensure we perceive reality in a uniform way (i.e gender binary, or washroom signs)

Question 30

Alfred Schütz: Phenomenology

Answer 30

Come to understand our places in the world through the understanding of symbols? How to make sense of the symbols or language and anticipate how to respond.

• Phenomenology: The study of human consciousness and the culturally entrenched ways in which we comprehend a shared reality
• Intersubjectivity: Drawing from notions of social convention to anticipate what others are feeling, thinking, or likely to do
• Typifications: Human cognition revolves around the creation of this, which allow us to make assumptions/predictions about groups and social phenomena

Question 31

Charles H. Cooley (1922): Self-Perception

Answer 31

Looking-glass self: Process through which we base our perspectives of ourselves on the impressions that we believe others have of us.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: Assuming others think negatively of us makes us internalize these characterizations and act how people expect.

Question 32

W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialization

Answer 32

Racialization: Ethically or culturally minoritized groups come to be disparaged in mainstream social classification
Double consciousness: Members of ethnic or racial minorities perceive themselves from the perspective of the dominant culture

Question 33

Edwin Lemert: Labelling Theory

Answer 33

Internalize stigma in the creation of our own identities

• Primary deviance: Initial criminal/deviant act by the actor, leads observers to assign the actor a criminal or deviant label
• Secondary deviance: Stemming from a subsequent criminal/deviant act, instigated by the application of criminal or deviant label
• Master status: The actor accepts their criminal or deviant label as their primary identity and acts accordingly