Download Aim: What is deviance?

Aim: What factors influence
conformist behavior?
Do Now: Which line
on the second card
most closely matches
the length of the line
on the first card?
The Asch Experiment
Asch Experiment –
Conformity types
• Distortion of Perception: “The others are right and I’m wrong.”
• Distortion of Judgment: “I think I’m right, but everyone else is
saying otherwise, so I must be wrong.”
• Distortion of Action: “I know I’m right, but I don’t want to go
against the group, so I’ll conform.”
What is conformity?
•
conformity – behavior that matches group
expectations.
Is decision making easier alone, or with a group?
•
People often make riskier decisions when with a
group
•
Less sole responsibility
Groupthink: poor decisions that result from
discouraging dissent.
What are some of the characteristics of leaders?
Are some people natural leaders? Explain.
Leadership
• Leadership is best understood as a characteristic of social
structure, rather than an attribute of particular individuals.
Leaders do share certain
characteristics:
• Original problem-solvers who are comfortable acting on
their own initiative.
• Self-confident
• Good at living under stress
• More talkative than followers
• Taller
• Perceived as more attractive
All small groups tend to develop two
distinct leaders.
• Instrumental: Primarily concerned with making
decisions that will help the group achieve its goals.
• Expressive (socioemotional): Concentrates on keeping
the group’s morale high.
What rules encourage conformity?
• Norms: rules defining appropriate and inappropriate
behavior. Norms are expected behavior
• Folkways: norms that lack moral significance.
Violation of folkways do not bring serious
consequences.
• Mores: Norms that have moral importance and that
should be followed by members of a society.
• Taboos: The most serious mores. It is a norm that is so
strong that its violation demands punishment by the
group (or some think, the supernatural).
• Law: Norms that are formally defined and enforced by
officials. Some mores become laws.
Within any culture, people are
expected to follow certain
behaviors
• What is Deviance:
• Make a short list of what you consider to be deviant
behavior.
Deviance:
• behavior that departs from societal or group norms.
• It can include many types of behavior.
• It can vary from group to group, or society to society.
Social Control
• Internal social control: This is like your conscience. You do
something because you know it is right, or don’t do something
because you know it is wrong. This is known as internalization
of norms.
• External social control: behaving in a specific way because of
pressure from an outside source or authority.
• This pressure can be in the form of punishment or a reward.
Similar to what psychologists might call positive or negative
reinforcement.
• In Sociology, these outside pressures are called social
sanctions.
Social Sanctions
• Positive sanctions: rewards, praise, smiles of approval, increases
in allowance, promotions
• Negative Sanctions: criticism, fines, imprisonment
• Formal Sanctions: come from an officially recognized authority
such as the government, police, or school.
• Examples include speeding tickets or detention (negative), or an
award (positive).
• Informal Sanctions: come from informal social groups like
friends or family.
• Examples would be getting grounded or gossiped about
(negative), or smiled at (positive).
Aim: What is Deviance?
Do Now: Analyze this statement: “Deviance,
like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.”
• Use the following terms to formulate questions to your
partners:
• 1. Why…
• 2. Explain…
• 3. What if…
• 4. Predict…
• 5. Defend…
• 6. Propose…
•Exit Slip: You are invisible
for 24 hours. What do you
do?
Responding to Social
Control:
• How does peer pressure relate to our discussion of
deviance?
• Which do people most respond to? Why?
• What reinforces internal social control?
• What reinforces external social control?
Theories of Deviance
• Functionalists argue that deviance
serves a positive social function by
clarifying moral boundaries and
promoting social cohesion.
• Conflict theorists believe that a
society’s inequalities are reproduced
in its definitions of deviance, so that
the less powerful are more likely to
be criminalized.
Why is what he’s doing
against the law?
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Conflict Theory of
Deviance (Cont’d)
• Quinney:, 1977- norm violation occurs among both the rich and
the poor. The rich commit crimes of domination, and do so
because they can get away with it. The poor commit crimes of
predatory deviance to survive, and do so because they have no
other options.
Conflict Theory of
Deviance (Cont’d)
• Conflict theorists believe that most sociologists are too
willing to accept elites’ definitions of deviance.
Mainstream sociologists allow the dominant class to
dictate their research agenda. They do not research
misbehavior of elites, or the inequality of criminal law.
• •
Current drug laws mandate more severe penalties
for crack possession than possession of cocaine in the
powdered form.
• Research shows that minorities are more often arrested
for crack, and white offenders for powdered cocaine.
Theories of Deviance
(Cont’d)
• Merton’s structural strain theory argues that the tension
or strain between socially approved goals and an
individual’s ability to meet those goals through socially
approved means will lead to deviance as individuals
reject either the goals (achieving success), the means
(hard work, education), or both.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Merton’s Adaptations
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
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Ritualist
Conformist
Innovator
Retreatist
Rebel
Which type are you? Do you follow socially accepted means and
goals? You’re a conformist. Doing the bare minimum? You’re
probably a ritualist. If you’re like WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers
and want to earn big rewards but have few scruples about how you
reach them, you’re an innovator. You’re a retreatist if you reject
all means and goals of society. You’re a rebel, like Che Guevara,
if you not only reject social means and goals but also want to
destroy society itself and replace it with a new paradigm.
Theories of Deviance
(cont’d)
• Symbolic Interactionist theories of deviance focus on
how interpersonal relations and everyday interactions
shape definitions of deviance and influence those who
engage in deviant behavior.
• Differential association theory states that we learn to be
deviant through our associations with deviant peers.
Theories of Deviance
(cont’d)
• Labeling theory claims that deviance is a
consequence of external judgments, or labels, which
both modify the individual’s self-concept and change
the way others respond to the labeled person.
• Labeling theory is also related to the idea of the selffulfilling prophecy, which is a prediction that causes
itself to come true.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Degradation
Ceremonies
• Labeling is often preceded by a degradation ceremony a ceremony in which authority figure(s) who are
perceived to have legitimate power devalue, degrade, or
otherwise label a person as deviant.
• What examples of degradation ceremonies can you
name?
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Stigma and Deviant
Identity
• A stigma is Erving Goffman’s term for any physical or
social attribute that devalues a person or group’s identity,
and which may exclude those who are devalued from
normal social interaction.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Stigma and Deviant Identity (cont’d)
• There are three main types of stigma:
• physical including physical or mental impairments,
• moral signs of flawed character, or
• tribal membership in a discredited or oppressed group.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
• One strategy analyzed by Goffman that stigmatized
individuals use to negotiate everyday interaction is called
passing, or concealing the stigmatizing information.
• Provide Examples
Managing Stigma
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
30
• Others have what Goffman called an in-group
orientation, where stigmatized individuals follow an
orientation away from mainstream society and toward
new standards that value their group identity.
• Provide Examples
Managing Stigma (Cont’d)
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
31
• Finally, others choose deviance avowal, a process by
which an individual self-identifies as deviant and initiates
his or her own labeling process.
• Provide Examples
Managing Stigma (Cont’d)
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
32
• Body modification that would be considered deviant in one
culture is the norm in others
Crime and Punishment
• Crime is the violation of a norm that has been codified
into law.
• Violent crime is a crime in which violence is either the
objective or the means to an end, including murder, rape,
aggravated assault, and robbery.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Violent Crime: Total U.S. Violent
Crime Rate, 1960–2008
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Crime and Punishment
(cont’d)
• Property crime is crime that does not involve violence,
including burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and
arson.
• White-collar crime is crime committed by a high status
individual in the course of her or his occupation.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
Property Crime
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
42
• In the United States the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), an
official measure of crime collected and published by the
FBI, allows sociologists to study the relationship between
crime and demographics like class, age, gender, and race.
Crime and Punishment
(cont’d)
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
43
National Recidivism Rates for
Prisoners Released
in 1983 and 1994
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
44
• There is an ongoing debate about the role of punishment
in the criminal justice system, a collection of social
institutions (legislatures, police, courts, and prisons) that
create and enforce laws.
Crime and Punishment
(cont’d)
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
45
Different Approaches to Punishment
• Deterrence is an approach to punishment that relies on
the threat of harsh penalties to discourage people from
committing crimes.
• Retribution is an approach to punishment that
emphasizes retaliation or revenge for the crime as the
appropriate goal.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
• Incapacitation is an approach to punishment that seeks to
protect society from criminals by imprisoning or
executing them.
• Finally, rehabilitation is an approach to punishment that
attempts to reform criminals as part of their penalty.
Different Approaches to Punishment
(Cont’d)
Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity
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Take Away Points:
• Deviance is the flip side of the same coin as
conformity
• We all conform and deviate.
• We mostly conform.
• Deviance is relative
• Since norms are defined mostly by those in power
departing from the norms they’ve established is a
process of social control.
• Therefore politics pervades discussions of deviance.
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Introduction to Sociology: Deviance and Conformity