Test 2 Flashcards
Who is the founding father of functionalism?
Emile Durkheim
Functionalism and the theories that fall under this main sociological paradigm are _______ in their approach to research.
Objective.
What kind of methods does functionalism use to examine human behaviour?
Natural sciences
What kind of approach does functionalism take?
Positivistic
Strain theory is associated with what theorist?
Robert Merton
What did early functionalists like Durkheim believe deviance was?
- Both a natural part of the social order
- Symptomatic of a problem that needed to be corrected (a disfunction)
In terms of the social control of deviant behaviour, the solution was seen as _______ and ________ of the individual.
Treatment and Rehabilitation
Treatment and Rehabilitation were seen as the solution of the individual in terms of what?
The social control of deviant behaviour
What are three underlying assumptions in functionalism that were discussed in class but not mentioned in the text?
Consensus, status quo, and equilibrium
Change the ____, not the _____
Person, system
consensus
- Major criticism of functionalism (functionalism assumes what’s good for some is good for all)
- Assumes society is good the way it is
- Society is only good for those who ran it when you think about it (those in power)
- Leaves out the perspective of women and every minority group we can think of
Equilibrium
- Suggests the system (society) must be running smoothly to maintain balance
- Analogy: set your thermostat at 70 degrees. Furnace turns on and off to maintain certain temp.
- Deviance is like excess heat in the system that triggers a cooling off response
- On the other hand, it there is not enough deviance in the system, it will adjust to create more to justify the agents of social control.
- Deviance is normal and there is always going to be some.
Status Quo
- Keeping things the same.
- Functionalists embody the saying of “don’t fix what isn’t broken”
- Resistant to change.
What did early functionalists see society as?
A smooth running machine
What did early functionalists see the individual as?
- People are little pieces of the machine, playing their own role…in harmony
- People are immediately perfect-able through the process of socialization
What did early functionalists see society’s job as?
to shape each person after itself…and the expectation is that individuals will want to conform
What is Durkheim’s theory? Expanded later on by Merton in the form of ____ ____?
Anomie, Strain Theory
When did Durkheim first introduce anomie?
in his study of suicide
What did Durkheim define anomie as?
a state of normlessness/ social instability that occurs when traditional societal norms are weakened.
What can anomie lead to?
confusion and detachment for members of the impacted society.
What is anomie and what does it result in?
A social condition that results in deviance because individuals lose a sense of social regulation, which creates the conditions for increases in alcohol and drug use, vandalism, crime, murder… and suicide.
What creates anomie?
Breakdown in social order, social disorganization, rapid social change
What is Durkheim’s legacy?
- He paved the way for later theorists
- further examine how social instability and disconnection from collective norms creates an environment where deviance can thrive.
What did Robert Merton believe?
He believed it was strain, not social disorganization, that created the conditions for deviant behaviour to occur.
Merton believed that strain develops when…?
when there is a discrepancy between culturally approved goals and the means available to achieve them.
What specific strain did Merton look at?
the strain between the achievement of the American Dream and the (limited) legitimate ways of achieving it…
Strain Theory
- Robert Merton
- The Strain between aspirations of the individual and the expectations in society
- Assumption: Money = Success
Legitimate means (Merton)
- Involves conforming
There are only certain legitimate means to attaining these goals
* Hard work
* Honesty
* Education
* Pay your dues
* Talent
Illegitimate Means (Merton)
- Theft
- Laziness
- Dishonesty
- Fraud
- Use of illegitimate means puts one in the category of deviant
Merton’s Modes of Adaptation
- part of strain theory
- individual response to societal pressures
- disconnect between culturally approved goals and the legitimate means to achieve them
What is deviance to Merton?
- form of adaptation to the strain
- exists between “culturally prescribed aspirations and socially structured avenues for realizing these aspirations”
What are Merton’s five modes of adaptation
- Conformity
- Innovation
- Ritualism
- Retreatism
- Rebellion
Structural Functionalism
- The structure of society and its systems produce structural strain that cause deviance
- Social conditions are frequently structured in such a way that they UNINTENTIONALLY produce deviance.
- Ex. You get stressed out about school, you start to take your friends ADD meds…
- Subcultural Solutions to strain (ie: police, medical schools, being a student)
Conformity (Merton)
- Goals: Accepted
- Means: Accepted
- Conformists strive to achieve society’s goals (e.g., wealth, success) using legitimate, socially approved methods (e.g., education, hard work).
- Example: A person works hard at their job and saves money to achieve success.
Innovation
- Goals: Accepted
- Means: Rejected
- Innovators accept societal goals but reject or bypass the legitimate means to achieve them, often resorting to deviant or illegal methods.
- Example: A person engaging in fraud or theft to become wealthy.
Ritualism
- Goals: Rejected
- Means: Accepted
- Ritualists abandon or scale back societal goals but continue to adhere rigidly to institutionalized means. They follow rules for their own sake without aiming for broader success.
- Example: A bureaucrat who follows every rule meticulously but has no ambition for promotion.
Retreatism
- Goals: Rejected
- Means: Rejected
- Retreatists withdraw from societal goals and means altogether, often opting out of societal participation. This can manifest in behaviors like addiction or isolation.
- Example: Someone who becomes homeless by choice or uses drugs to escape societal pressures.
Rebellion
- Goals: Rejected/Changed
- Means: Rejected/Changed
- Rebels reject existing societal goals and means but seek to replace them with new ones, often advocating for radical change.
- Example: Revolutionaries or activists who seek to overthrow current systems and establish new norms.
what does Merton’s modes of adaptation focus on?
Innovation and Deviance.
- Merton highlights that innovation is a common response when individuals lack legitimate opportunities to achieve success.
- Crime becomes a rational choice for achieving goals when legal/legitimate paths are blocked.
What are the three extensions of Strain Theory (building blocks)?
- Status Frustration and Delinquency (Albert Cohen)
- Differential Opportunity Theory (Cloward and Ohlin)
- General Strain Theory (Robert Agnew)
Status Frustration and Delinquency
- Albert Cohen
- expanded on Merton’s work by focusing on status frustration in young people.
- lower-class youth often lack the resources to achieve societal status through approved means
- form subcultures with different values that validate behaviors like delinquency.
Differential Opportunity Theory
- Cloward and Ohlin
- Emphasizes that access to illegitimate means varies across communities.
They identified three delinquent subcultures:
o Criminal Subcultures: Where youth learn from adult criminals.
o Conflict Subcultures: Where youth use violence for respect.
o Retreatist Subcultures: Where individuals retreat from both legitimate and illegitimate means, often through substance use.
General Strain Theory
- Robert Agnew
- Agnew broadened Strain Theory to include strains beyond economic goals, emphasizing strains from negative experiences (e.g., bullying, family issues) that can lead to deviance.
- Agnew’s work suggests that strains producing negative emotions can increase the likelihood of deviance, especially when coping resources are limited.
What are the criticisms and limitations of anomie and strain theory?
- Over-emphasis on Economic Success
- Doesn’t account for individual agency or the diversity of individuals responses of strain
- Viewed as an American-focused theory (because it is) it is based on the American dream. This consensus may not apply across different cultures.
- Doesn’t adequately account for gender and intersectionality. Theory is built on/developed by/for men
What are the four modern applications of strain theory?
Explaining Crime in Disadvantaged Communities
- Strain Theory continues to be relevant in explaining why marginalized communities, with limited access to legitimate opportunities, may have higher rates of deviance.
White-Collar Crime
- Merton’s theory is often applied to explain white-collar crime, as executives may ‘innovate’ in deviant ways (e.g., fraud) to achieve success in a competitive market.
Youth and Deviant Subcultures
- Concepts from Cohen and Cloward & Ohlin remain relevant in studies on gangs, where youth without access to mainstream paths may turn to alternative paths for status and economic success (alternative means of goal attainment).
Mental Health and Strain
- Agnew’s General Strain Theory has been applied to mental health, linking negative experiences (like bullying) to strain and deviant coping mechanisms, such as substance use or aggression.
Whose theory is Differential Association and what does it explain?
Edwin Sutherland’s
- explains why some people become criminals and others do not.
What does differential association emphasize?
that deviance is LEARNED, and focus on the social environment rather than individual traits as the root cause of deviant behaviour.
Manifest and Latent functions
- Robert Merton
- Manifest Functions: Those that are visible, comprehensible and overt.
- Latent Functions: Those whose consequences are less obvious and often unrecognized
Eufunctions
- Eufunction: the positive consequences of deviance
o Contributes to social order
o 10 points
o Kingsley Davis: Sociology of Prostitution (1937)
10 eufunctions of deviance
- Clarification of the Rules
- Testing of the rules
- Alternative means of goal attainment
- Safety valve (Kingsley Davis: Sociology of Prostitution, 1937)
- Tension release and solidarity
- Boundary Maintenance
- Scapegoating
- Raising the value of conformity
- Early warning system
- Protection of vested interests
what is the systems approach?
- Stresses that society has borders and conflict between groups always seems to solidify these boundaries.
- When there is an enemy, the boundaries become very clear (Us vs. Them)
- Enemies within a society can lead to civil war
Dysfunction
- The negative functions of deviance
- All the things that contribute to stress and strain rather than the smooth operation of the whole.
- Social Control can be negative too.
Ideology of rehabilitation
- Basis for the criminal justice system
- Individual can be “fixed”
- When the system gives up, the deviant is labelled incorrigible (uncorrectable)
Implications
- Deviance is produced by social inequality
- Capitalism makes deviance inevitable
- We need to ask: Functional for whom?
- The Tyranny of the Majority
- Functionalism: as long as the majority is happy, that’s all that matters
What does Sutherland believe about deviance?
deviance is a normal outcome when individuals are exposed to excess definitions favourable to violations of the law.
How did Sutherland define “definitions”?
Define an action or a pattern of actions as either right or wrongs.
Definitions can be… (Sutherland)
- Favourable to actions that violation of the law
- Unfavourable to actions that violate the law
- They can also come in the form of ‘non-verbal’ expressions of approval or disapproval
A key element for Sutherland was _____?
Opportunity
- One must have the opportunity to engage in deviant behaviour
Sutherland’s 9 key propositions to explain how deviant behaviour is learned
- Deviance is learned
- Learning occurs in interaction and communication with others
- Learning takes place in intimate groups
- Learning includes techniques justifications
- Definitions of legal codes are central
- Excess of definitions favouring deviance
- Central variables affect the impact of favourable and unfavourable definitions
- Learning mechanisms are universal
- Deviance is not explained by needs or values
Deviance is learned (proposition)
- Criminal or deviant behavior is not biologically determined; it is learned, just like any other behavior.
- Every criminal needs a teacher. This statement sets forth Sutherland’s argument negating all other explanations for deviant behaviour
Learning occurs in interaction and communication with others (proposition)
- Personal relationships are the primary source of learning deviance.
- Sutherland – at the time – was referring to face to face communication and interaction; however, this proposition has been updated to also include the heavy influence of the mass media, the internet, and communication via technology.
Learning takes place in intimate groups (proposition)
- Intimate personal groups are the most significant sources of learning deviant behavior, rather than impersonal sources like watching television shows or reading books.
- Ideas about the world that are learned in these small intimate groups tend to be much more powerful than the ideas and concepts we learn from our larger social worlds.
Learning includes techniques and justifications
- Deviant behavior involves learning both the technical skills to commit the act (how) and the rationalizations or justifications that make the behavior acceptable (why).
Vocabularies of motive
justifications/reasons/excuses for our actions:
* Ex. “I had no other choice,” “the law is stupid anyway,” “I stole that cause I had to feed my family”
* When a jury lets someone off easier, it is cause they understand the vocabulary of motive
* *You can learn how to pick a lock, but you must learn why you did it.
Definitions of legal codes are central (propositions)
- Individuals learn definitions of laws as either favorable (supporting conformity) or unfavorable (supporting deviance).
- Example: Exposure to attitudes like “laws are unfair” encourage deviance
Excess of definitions favouring deviance (propositions)
- A person becomes deviant when their exposure to definitions favorable to deviance outweighs those that are unfavorable.
- Remember this as a scale. Exposed to more definitions in favour of the law, the scale tips one way. If exposed to more definitions of deviance, the scale tips the other ways
- *This is the central principle of the theory.
What is the central principle of Differential association theory?
Excess of definitions favouring deviance
Certain variables affect the impact of favourable and unfavourable definitions (propositions)
- Namely: Frequency, Duration, Priority, and Intensity:
- The likelihood of deviance depends on how often, how long, how early, and how strongly an individual is exposed to deviant influences.
Learning mechanisms are universal (propositions)
- The same processes that govern the learning of conforming behavior also govern the learning of deviant behavior.
- The process of learning criminal behaviour involves all of the same processes involved in any other type of learning, the only difference is WHAT is learned… not HOW it’s learned.
Deviance is not explained by needs or values (propositions)
- People commit crimes or deviant acts for reasons similar to why they conform—whether it’s meeting needs or achieving goals. The theory focuses on social learning, not individual motives.
- Deviance isn’t about needs, it’s about learned behaviors.
