Lecture 7: Sociological approaches: functionalism and anomie Flashcards
Based on the reading by Ali & Naylor: Biological/Psychological Explanations for Inter-Partner Violence. What are the causes of IPV?
1) Personality disorders: borderline personality disorder (particularly, antisocial personality disorder)
2) Disturbed attachment - people need healthy attachment.
3) Anger/hostility
4) Self-esteem - little support for this hypothesis (low self-esteem causal relationship with IPV)
5) Drug abuse
Note: Gender is missing from their explanation –> They should look into the social relationships in the cycle of violence.
No cultural context
Definition of Psychosis
Loss of touch with reality
Definition of Schizophrenia
disordered thinking and perception of reality, delusions, strange logical associations, and problems with emotions and feelings
What is the relationship between psychosis and violence?
- The relationship between psychosis and violence is not very strong (around 5% of violent crimes)
- Tend to find these in marginalized communities so they use it as a way to explain crime and aggression - skewed perspective
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Hervey Cleckley (1964) – The Mask of Sanity
* The most important feature of someone with antisocial personality is the lack of empathy for others.
* They are not disconnected from reality; they just don’t feel sympathy.
What are the common features of antisocial personality disorder?
- Considerable charm
- Above average intelligence
- Unreliability and lack of responsibility
- Dishonesty (compulsive lying) and deception
- Desire for instant gratification
- Irritability and aggressiveness
- Pathological egocentricity
- Disregard for the feelings of others
- No organized life plan
- Failure to learn from experience
- Early childhood symptoms
What is the link between antisocial personality disorder and violence?
- These traits are often selected for professions such as business (CEOs, wall street), politicians
- Most people with these traits aren’t criminals or psychos and actually live a normal life.
- Frequency: 1% - 3% (more common in men). Hence, in most cases: disease = mild and they function normally
- Convictions: 5% - 25% of criminals in prisons
- Higher than the actual presence of the disorder but cannot explain most cases of criminal behaviours.
What is the main argument of the reading by Daryl Bem – Exotic becomes Erotic
- Individuals who largely associated with members of the other sex in childhood are more likely to develop homosexual tendencies in adulthood.
- This theory combines biological, social, cultural and psychological theories. Takes all perspectives into consideration.
What is the framework of Bem’s theory?
Note: Gives a significant emphasis that we live in a gender-polarizing culture. This theory ONLY works in a gender-polarizing culture such as the one we live in.
What evidence does Bem use to support his theory?
- Dissimilarity: The San Francisco Survey (Bell et al. 1981): Gay people reported feeling different from people of their sex (75% felt different)
- Familiarity:
- The San Fransisco survey: gay people had a larger number of chilhood friends from the other sex.
- Studies in Taiwan, Israel and New Guinea: Close association in childhood reduces sexual attraction in adulthood
He believed that individuals were not sexually attracted to the individuals you grow up with but sexually attracted to the opposite.
What are some critiques of Bem’s theory?
1) Questionable empirical support:
- Most gay people had many friends of the same sex
- Heterosexual men also felt “different” from their peers
- Reliance on retrospective reporting (relies on a non-random sample)
- Siblings’ male/female ratios do not predict homosexuality
- Shaky cross-cultural evidence (confusing unit of analysis)
2) Selection as an alternative explanation
3) Misrepresentation of women’s experiences
- Women often form attraction in different ways - Assumes that the mechanisms of sexual attraction are the same between men and women
- Non-conformity is different for boys and for girls
Psychological Approaches – Critiques
- Post-hoc diagnosis and circular reasoning → diagnosis itself is based on the act of deviance
- Establishing time order → problem of causality, cannot determine what came first
- Failure to account for learning procedures → how do people learn and develop specific behaviours
- There is no set of personality traits shared by all deviant (or non-deviant) people
what is the functionalist approach to deviance that Durkheim applies?
- the functionalist approach is that a society is a system we can analyze.
- Maintenance of equilibrium
- When society is in a state of equilibrium, everything functions well and strives for stability
- Social patterns contribute to stability
- Something that might be bad for the individual might serve the society as a whole. Everything exist in society for a reason. - Harmony
- How different structures and institutions in society work together to create consensus (ie, religion)
- Analogy –organs in human body, ecological systems - Evolution
- Normative view of society
- Progressive view of society: we progress as a society, continued improvement- When something is dysfunctional society gets read of it
What are the major process and major concepts that Durkheim explores?
How human societies manage to cohere?
* Major Process: Differentiation - societies move from simple to complex forms.
* Major concept: Social Facts, Social Solidarity – the bond between all individuals within a society
* Social deviance is crucial for social coherence
What is the function of deviance according to Durkheim?
1) Confirmation of social and cultural values
- there can be no good without bad
- If we didnt have various forms of deviant behaviours, then other behaviours will become deviant…deviance will always exist.
2) Reaffirmation of social boundaries
- Clarify the limits and norms of society
3) Increasing social Solidarity
- Finding someone who is different from us increases solidarity towards the group we are similar/in
4) Enabling social change
