TOPIC 1 – DEVIANCY

Lesson 1
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL DEVIANCY

Lesson Learning Outcomes

1. Identify the traditional/dominant and alternative critical paradigms and approaches on
understanding social deviation.

2. Appreciate the value of selected theoretical perspectives and approaches on social

deviation.

3. Illustrate the distinct features, perspectives of the traditional/dominant and alternative

critical paradigm and objectives and subjectivist approaches in social deviance.

Introduction

Deviancy may be seen from simple breaking of rules within your home and groups where you
belong to committing crimes, it can also be observed in doing unacceptable behaviors like alcohol
and substance abuse and mental disorders. This spectrum makes the study of deviancy
interesting because we get to comprehend the nature of such actions and the way society shapes
deviancy itself.
DEVIANCE

In the classic textbook of Marshall Clinard, deviance was defined as “deviations from
social norms which encounter disapproval”. For sociologists, deviance is a behavior, beliefs, and
characteristics that violate society or a collectivity’s norms, the violation of which tends to attract
negative reactions from audiences. Such negative reactions include contempt, punishment,
hostility, condemnation, criticism. Behavior that violates definitions of appropriate conduct
shared by the members of a social system. It is certain that the stronger the negative reactions
and the larger the number of audiences that react to the behavior, it is most likely that the person
who commits the behavior will attract negative reactions or labelling (Goode, 2016).

Normative and Reactivist Definition

A normative definition define deviance as a violation of a norm. A norm m is a standard

about “what human beings should or should not think, say, or do under given circumstances”.
Violations of these norms draw reactions or sanctions from the social audiences. These sanctions
put pressures to most people that feel to conform to social norms (Clinard & Meier, 2011) .

A reactivist or relativist definition holds that there are no universal or unchanging entities
that define deviance for all times and in all places. Rather, “social groups create deviance by
making the rules whose infraction creates deviance” (Clinard & Meier, 2011).

DEVIANCE AND SOCIETY

We look at deviants as people that are different from us, they behave in ways that we
cannot accept. This implies the differences between people. But some differences like for
example in fashion may not totally account for deviancy, a person wearing a different clothing
may not mean that one is a deviant. It may constitute as deviancy only if it is worn out of the
context like wearing a swimsuit in a funeral. This suggests that deviance is a relative notion, it
depends on audience definition of something deviant (Clinard & Meier, 2011).

Norms

Above definitions refer to deviancy as against the norms, let us look further on what norm
is.

For Clinard and Meier (2016), they offer explanations on social norms. It is an expectation
of conduct in particular situations, it regulates human social relations and behavior. It may vary
according to how widely people accept them, how society enforces them, how society transmits
them, and how much conformity people require. Some social norms may require considerable
force to ensure compliance; others may require little or none.
 For generations, members of the society transmit these norms, the individuals learn to
live their lives within the given norms of the society which may include language, ideas and
beliefs, therefore, a person learns to define the environment based on not their own
interpretation but based on the lens of their cultural and group experiences.

Social Norms

Social control measures serve the social purpose of ensuring, or at least attempting to ensure,
conformity to norms. Social norms take two parallel forms:

■ Behavioral norms are the patterns of actual behavior that individuals typically follow
when interacting under given conditions. For example, It is common practice in the United
States for store clerks to give customers the correct change when a purchase is made.
Some do not for one reason or another. Since most clerks, do, however, this practice
constitutes a behavioral norm.

■ Expectational norms are what people typically expect each other to do under given
conditions. Most of us in the United States share the expectation that store clerks will
give us, the customers, the correct change. The patterned expectations are so strong that
many of us do not carefully count our change. Since the same expectations are widely
shared, this pattern constitutes an expectational norm. Others see them as a part of
culture

To better understand norms, you may watch a video The Social Norm by Red Circle
Rainbow which can be found in this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cLfd50BdcE,
video introduces the concept of social norms in any social group.

Social Control

Social groups have means of dealing with behavior that violates social norms.
Internalization of group norms encourages conformity through socialization, so that people
know what society expects and desire to conform to that expectation. Social reaction influences
conformity through external pressures in the form of sanctions from others in the event of
anticipated or actual nonconformity to norms. Internalization of group norms achieves social
control when people learn and accept the norms of their group. People generally learn
mechanisms of social control, such as customs, traditions, beliefs, attitudes, and values, through
prolonged interactions with others. Drivers do not drive on the wrong side of the road, drug users
know that it is not right to abuse drugs thus will be based on the prescribed amount only. Social
control consists, in a sense, of processes that teach the person to avoid processes of deviance.
Classification of sanctions according to the sources

Informal sanctions. Gossip and ostracism are unofficial actions of groups or individuals.
Formal sanctions such as criminal penalties, are official group expressions meant to convey
collective sentiments. Law is a formal control, it represents a formal system of social control. The
law is a rule that regulates the norms of conduct of persons or group of persons to maintain order
in the society. It prohibits the commission of socially undesirable behavior and penalizes those
who commit it. By penalizing socially undesirable behavior, the law serves as a deterrence for
further commission of the prohibited act

This link shows deviancy and social control https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

raVYoKPuCVg

Four necessary ingredients for a deviance to take place

Someone who
A rule or norm violates
(or thought to violate)

Likelihood of a
An audience negative reaction
(a person or collectivity who (criticism, censure, stigma,
judges the behavior, beliefs, or disapproval, punishment and the like
traits to be wrongful) by members of at least one of those
audiences.

When we heard negative reactions on our behavior, our common arguments as a person
may include “Wala akong ginagawang masama.” or “There is nothing wrong with me.” But this
“wrong” notion about our behavior is a standard set by the society and when we go against the
set standard deviance occurs.

Therefore, for Goode (2016) deviance is a matter of degree, a continuum or a spectrum,

from trivial to extremely serious, and it is relative as to audience. Deviance is what is considered
to be wrongful by certain audiences in certain social settings and constitutes negative reactions
in a socially rejecting manner.
 Goode further emphasizes that it is the actual or potential reaction that actions, beliefs,
and traits generate or are likely to generate in audiences. It is this negative reaction that defines
or constitutes a given act, belief, or trait as deviant.

TOPIC 2 – THE POSITIVIST VIEW AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

For a positivist, deviancy is real while constructionist sees deviance as a social

construction – an impression that is created by the society itself.
Thio, Taylor & Schwartz (2013) laid down clear differences between the two opposing views.

Positivist Perspective Constructionist Perspective

Absolutism: Deviance is absolutely, Relativism: Deviance is a label, defined as

intrinsically real; hence, deviance or such at a given time and place; hence,
deviants can be the subject of study. labels, labeling, and impact of labeling can
be the subject of study.

Objectivism: Deviance is an observable Subjectivism: Deviance is a subjective

object; hence, objective research methods experience; hence, subjective research
can be used. methods can be used.

Determinism: Deviance is determined Voluntarism: Deviance is a voluntary act,

behavior, a product of causation; hence, an expression of free will; hence,
causal, explanatory theory can be noncausal, descriptive theory can be
developed. developed.

Positivist Perspective

It possesses an internal coherence such that it has an origin; it is the result of a cause-
and-effect sequence. It comes into being as a result of certain locatable conditions, properties,
or factors. Positivist seeks to answer why the person does the deviant act. They believe that there
is always a reason for doing it. Positivists also seek to explain for example why the crime rate in
that particular area is so high compared to other areas in that country, another example is what
gender tends to commit deviant acts.
 Social Constructionist Perspective

Constructionism views deviance not as a type of action but a type of infraction—or, more
properly, that which results in a reaction. This approach argues that it is the rules, the norms,
reactions to, the cultural representations of certain behavior, beliefs, or conditions that need to
be investigated, understood, and explicated. Constructionists are curious about how and why
something comes to be regarded as or judged to be deviant in the first place, what is thought of,
made of, said about, and done about it (Goode, 2016).

Harmonizing Positivist and Constructivist Perspective

Both of them emphasize their own respective views, but opposing as it may seems, they
actually complement each other. We cannot deny the fact that deviant behavior is real as
suggested by the positivist view but it also comes with a label as suggested by the constructionist
view. Thio further emphasized that if there is no real act, there can be no deviant and if there is
no label at all there is no deviant behavior as well. For a deviant behavior to occur there must be
a certain action and for it to be known as deviant there must be a label for it. Therefore, deviant
is both a behavior and a label.

TOPIC 3 – SOCIETAL DEVIANCE

■ Composed of those actions and conditions that are widely recognized to be deviant.
■ There is a high degree of consensus on the identification of certain categories of deviance.
■ In general, the members of the society see them as serious normative violations.
■ Certain acts, beliefs, and traits are deviant society-wide because they are condemned,
both in practice and in principle, by the majority, or by the most powerful members of
the society.

Example of societal deviance includes robbery, rape, theft, terrorism and others. Most of the
population disapproved of them and when someone is involved in such an act strong negative
reactions arise.

Situational Deviance

■ It does not possess this general or society-wide quality; instead, it manifests itself in
actual, concrete social gatherings, circles, or settings.
Two types of situational deviance

1. Violates the norms dictating what one may and may not do within a certain social or
physical setting;
2. Violates the norms within certain social circles or groups.
Some behavior is seen as wrong only among certain social circles in the society—
not in the society as a whole.
Example killing another human being is a crime and therefore a deviant act but a soldier
killing an enemy within the context of war is condoned and legal.

Deviant Attitudes and Beliefs

Cognitive Deviance

Goode (2016) posits that holding unconventional, unorthodox, unpopular or deviant

beliefs may be considered as cognitive deviance. This category includes religious, political, and
scientific beliefs that are regarded as unacceptable. As recounted by Goode as an example:

“In world’s history, holders of unacceptable beliefs have been attacked, criticized,
condemned, arrested, even persecuted almost as often and almost as severely as enactors
of unacceptable behavior (Perrin, 2015). Consider, for example, the Spanish Inquisition
(1478–1834), during which thousands of “heretics” were executed for their beliefs; the
Crusades, the attempt by Christians during the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries to
wrest Jerusalem from “unbelievers,” that is, Muslims; the current Islamic jihad, in which
its recently assassinated architect, Osama bin Laden, targeted “Crusaders,” that is,
Christians, as well as Jews; and, in ancient times, the execution of Christians who refused
to worship the Roman emperor as a god. These are the expressions of beliefs held by
certain people that others considered wrong—evil, heretical, blasphemous, and deviant.
Historically, members of most societies have regarded, and today, many of us still regard,
the expression of some beliefs as deviant; moreover, these same people have criticized,
ostracized, and punished these putative unbelievers. (p. 13)

Certain beliefs are not deviant simply because they are objectively or factually wrong.
They are deviant because they violate the norms of a given society, or an institution, or members
of a social circle within a society, they offend a particular audience, and, as a result, they are likely
to elicit negative reactions.

Deviant Roles

Everyone performs a number of social roles in everyday life. No one is deviant all the time.
Most deviant acts do not just happen. Such an act culminates a process or series of stages that
develops over a period of time—it has a history. In other words, most deviant acts occur in
particular social contexts.
 Deviant Places

Deviancy occurs more in some places, at some times, and among some groups than in
others. This is a physical location typically connected to deviant acts. If a teenager sees a set of
keys left in a car, for example, he or she may interpret the situation as an opportunity to steal
the car. Another teenager might pay no attention to the same situation. More recently, Stark
(1987) has theorized a relationship between deviant acts and certain types of communities with
high population densities and crowded housing conditions.

TOPIC 4 – DIMENSIONS OF DEVIANCE

As to whether deviant behavior is institutionalized or individualistic: we have said that

those who follow the normative approach define deviance as behavior which does not conform
to expectational or behavioral norms. There is, however, a partial exception to this. Behavioral
and expectational patterns-that is, norms and the roles composed of them-may be ones which
are approved by one or more small groups within a society and disapproved by the larger society
(Palmer & Humphrey).

Institutionalized versus Individualistic Deviance

Institutionalized deviance expects each other to follow patterned behaviors. The wider
society disapproves of conformity to these deviances but the deviant groups approve of deviation
from them. For example, from the point of view of professional thieves, a person who follows
their norms is a dependable conformist. From the standpoint of our society at large, both are
deviant. While for individualistic deviance, these are persons that deviate from conventional
norms and roles in ways which are not patterned and institutionalized but are peculiar to him or
her. There are no expectational and behavioral patterns or norms for this form of deviance.
Hence it is very individualistic and not at all institutionalized.

Negative versus Positive Deviance

It is usual both in social science and in everyday life to conceive of deviant behavior as
socially unacceptable and negative. Often it is. Yet a considerable amount of deviant behavior is
actually defined by society's members in positive fashion. They view it as socially acceptable and
reward those who are deviant. The members of a society are likely to define a form of deviant
behavior in a positive rather than a negative way if it seems to be helpful for them, to solve a
problem for them. If it seems not to do that but rather to threaten their existence in some way,
they are likely to define that deviant behavior negatively.
Physical Deviance

Physical characteristics of individuals are sometimes considered deviant if they diverge

from what is typical. These can cover a wide range, such as shortness, tallness, obesity, extreme
thinness, brain damage, facial disfigurement, missing limbs, blindness, deafness, speech defects,
or very long fingernails. In any case, some individuals possess unusual, atypical physical
characteristics. . As with behavioral deviance, this can have unfortunate consequences: the
individual may be labeled or singled out in a negative way.

Physical deviance may be a threat to others because it directly disrupts ongoing

interaction. The blind person, for example, is likely to slow up and complicate everyday
interaction patterns. This in itself implicitly labels them as different and in need of special
treatment. Physical deviants, because they constitute threats to individuals and to interaction
processes, are sometimes discriminated against, especially in employment, or ostracized.

Summary

Introduction to deviancy shows us how deviancy occurs as well as the elements that
constitutes deviance. Societal norms play an integral part in describing a deviant act and explains
how others deviate from the expected norms. The positivist and social constructionist views offer
us a clear paradigm of what is deviancy, these two perspectives might be in conflict with one
another but they offer to harmonize the understanding of deviancy.