The effects of labelling

Question 1

what are the effects of labelling?

Answer 1

Labelling theorists are also interested in the effects of labelling.
Lemberg argues by labelling certain ppl as deviant, society acc encourages them to become deviant. societal reaction causes ‘secondary deviance’

Question 2

primary deviance

Answer 2

primary deviance is deviant acts that haven’t been publicly labelled. they have many causes, are often trivial and mostly go uncaught. those who commit them don’t usually see themselves as deviant

Question 3

secondary deviance

Answer 3

secondary deviance results from societal reaction eg. from labelling. labelling someone as an offender can stigmatise and exclude them from normal society: others may see the offender only with the label, which becomes the individual’s master status.

Question 4

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 4

being labelled may cause a self fulfilling prophecy where they live up to the label causing secondary deviance.
more societal reaction may make individuals feel like an outsider so they join a deviant subculture offering support, role models and deviant career.

Question 5

Young: hippy marijuana

Answer 5

drug use was peripheral to the hippies’ lifestyle (primary deviance).
police persecution of them as junkies (societal reaction) led them to retreat into closed groups.
deviant subculture where drug use became a main activity (self-fulfilling prophecy).

the control processes aimed at producing law-abiding behaviour thus produced the opposite.

Question 6

deviance amplification spiral

Answer 6

in a deviance amplification spiral, the attempt to control deviance makes it increase rather than decrease. in greater attempts to control it, there’s more deviance (escalating spiral like the hippies described by Young)

Question 7

Cohen: folk devils and moral panics

Answer 7

mods and rockers study using deviance amplification spiral:

-media exaggeration/distortion began a moral panic
-moral entrepreneurs called for a ‘crackdown’. police response of arresting more youths, provoked more concern.
-demonising the mods and rockers as ‘folk devils’ resulted in more deviance.

Question 8

what is the key difference with functionalism Cohen and Young point out

Answer 8

functionalists see deviance producing social control
labelling theorists see control producing further deviance