final- deviance and social control

Question 1

define deviance as something relational, cultural, and socially determined

Answer 1

• different cultures recognize/define deviance differently
• implication: normality and abnormality (deviance) are not universal.

-ex: NY mayor was the butt of jokes after eating pizza with utensils in Staten Island, NY

Question 2

define deviance as a “self-fulfilling prophecy”

Answer 2

• people’s expectations create a self-fulfilling prophecy of both deviance and future outcomes

Question 3

what is the deviant label/identity?

Answer 3

• labeling theory: the behaviors of certain groups (usually a social minority) are labeled officially deviant by some dominant group (scientists, doctors, religious leaders, law-makers, etc)
• labels stick: once they are applied, it’s difficult to go back to a pre-labeled state

Question 4

what is the relationship between deviance and stigma?

Answer 4

• medicalized deviance de-stigmatizes: by absolving one of responsibility (ex: sick role)
• it also stigmatizes: essentializing the deviance as part of one’s character or identity. you are a “fibromite,” not someone who suffers with fibromyalgia

Question 5

what is medicalization as depoliticization

Answer 5

• medical issues only have biological etiology. this removes other factors (policies, inequalities) that may be causal. (ex: treating gun violence as only a problem of mental health)

Question 6

define medicalization as a process of social control

Answer 6

• the process whereby phenomenon previously not under the jurisdiction of medical control comes under medical control
• usually framed as medicine extending its authority

Question 7

what are Zola’s four “attaching processes”?

Answer 7

1. expanding medical relevance: into arenas previously not medicalized (diet, death, chronic illness it cannot cure)
2. retaining control over technical procedures (birth in America vs. Germany)
3. monopoly control over certain taboo areas (medicine can deal with issues like alcoholism or insanity that other institutional areas don’t want to deal with)
4. expansion of medicine into the practice of “the good life” and what that means (psychiatry and psychotherapy)

Question 8

what are structural-funcionalist ideas of deviance?

Answer 8

• structuralists: deviance is central to a functioning society in that it clarifies norms and promotes non-deviant behavior. we need deviance to understand normalcy.
• deviance must be punished (socially, politically, legally, etc). public witness of consequences promotes “right behavior”
• unpunished deviance may eventually become a norm.

Question 9

describe the Saints and the Roughnecks as examples of deviance, labels, confirmation bias, and the influence of expectations on behavior

Answer 9

• the label of “deviant” depends on more than behavior: the recognition of otherwise deviant behavior depends on other factors (culture, race, class, past experience/prior beliefs)
• even with the accepted definition of what counts as deviance, we are more likely to see it based on those factors
• james dean in “rebel without cause” reminds us as a “roughneck” or gangster

Question 10

what are the general aspects of Rosenhan’s experiment?

Answer 10

• rosenhan wanted to discover whether medical professionals could tell the difference between the sane and insane
• rosenhan concluded that hospitals couldn’t distinguish between the sane and insane because they couldn’t tell his pseudopatients out as fakes.