The Real World
An Introduction to Sociology
4th Edition
Chapter 6:
Deviance

Defining Deviance
• Deviance is a behavior, trait, belief, or
other characteristic that violates a
norm and causes a negative reaction.
• Defining something as deviant
requires us to examine the group
norms and how the group reacts to
the behavior.

Deviance: What Is It? (con’t.)
• Basically, what
is deviant in
one culture
may not be
deviant in
another
culture.
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Norms and Sanctions Review
• Norms are rules/guidelines regarding
what kinds of behavior are acceptable
and appropriate within a culture.
• Norms can be either formal, such as a
law (a common type of formally defined
norm that provides an explicit
statement about what is permissible
and what is illegal in a society) or the
rules for playing soccer, or informal,
which are not written down and are
unspoken.
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Norms and Sanctions Review
• Types of norms can also be
distinguished by the strictness with
which they are enforced.
• A folkway is a loosely enforced norm
that involves common customs,
practices, or procedures that ensure
smooth social interaction and
acceptance.
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Norms and Sanctions Review
• A more is a norm that carries greater
moral significance, is closely related
to the core values of a group, and
often involves severe repercussions
for violators.
• A taboo is a norm engrained so
deeply that even thinking about
violating it evokes strong feelings of
disgust, horror, or revulsion for most
people.
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Norms and Sanctions Review
• Sanctions are positive or negative
reactions to the ways that people
follow or disobey norms, including
rewards for conformity and
punishments for norm violators.
• Sanctions help to establish social
control, the formal and informal
mechanisms used to increase
conformity to values and norms and
thus increase social cohesion.
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Values Review
• Norms are strongly influenced by
Values.
• Values, shared beliefs about what a
group considers worthwhile or
desirable, guide the creation of
norms, the formal and informal rules
regarding what kinds of behavior are
acceptable and appropriate within a
culture.
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Sociology and Deviance
• We ask the following questions:
– How are norms and rules created?
– How do certain norms and rules become
especially important?
– What types of sections are dispensed to
society’s violators?
– How do people who break the rules see
themselves and how do others see them?
– How have sociologists attempted to explain
rule making, rule breaking, and responses
to rule breaking?

Deviance Across Cultures
• It is important to remember that
when sociologists use the term
“deviant,” they are making a social
judgment, never a moral one.

Deviance Across Cultures (cont’d)
• If a particular behavior is considered
deviant, it means that it violates the
values and norms or a particular
group, not that it is inherently wrong.
• Much of the literature on deviance
focuses on crime, and how different
cultures define very different
behaviors as criminal or not and the
vast differences seen in how crimes
are punished.

Deviance Across Cultures (cont’d)
• Most serious crime in the United
States today is punished by
imprisonment, but many other
societies lack the resources to build
and maintain prisons (money for
buildings, to pay guards, and to
feed/clothe prisoners).
• Because of this, other forms of
punishment are used. These include
shunning, total banishment from a
community, or corporal punishment.

Deviance Across Cultures (cont’d)

Structural Funtionalism
THEORIES OF DEVIANCE

Theories of Deviance
• Functionalists argue that deviance
can serve a positive social function.
Emile Durkhiem identified 2 functions
of deviance;
– First – Deviance can help a society
clarify its moral boundaries
– Second – Deviance can help promote
social cohesion (people can be brought
together as a community in the face of
crime or other violations.

Conflict Theory
THEORIES OF DEVIANCE

Theories of Deviance
• Conflict theorists, who study inequalities of
wealth and power, note that inequalities are
present in our definitions of deviance as well.
– Deviance is a result of social conflict.
– In order for the powerful to maintain their
power, they marginalize and criminalize the
people who threaten their power. Inequality is
reproduced in the way deviance is defined.
– Basically, they believe that rules are applied
unequally and that punishments for rule
violators are unequally distributed; those at
the top are subject to different rules and
sanctions than those nearer to the bottom.

Theories of Deviance
• Conflict Theory Continued…
– “Who’s on Top?” by Kate Bornstein (1998)
– She described a hierarchy of power and
privilege in society with regard to deviant
behavior.
– She used a pyramid to illustrate her point;
the person at the top of the pyramid is an
imaginary person who represents the
“perfect identity.”
– The more we deviate from this perfect
identity (and all of us do in one way or
another), the lower we fall on the pyramid.

Theories of Deviance
• Conflict Theory Continued…
– William Chambliss looked at the history of
vagrancy laws to demonstrate the relationship
between power and deviance.
– A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders
from place to place without a home or regular
employment or income.
– Vagrancy laws have been used to target various
groups depending on who seems the most
threatening at any given time.
– Example would be when a city prepares for a big
event, they sweep the “undesirables” from
downtown areas to create the illusion that the
city is free of poverty.

Theories of Deviance
• Conflict Theory Continued…
– Other Examples
• Jim Crow Laws/Black Codes
• Laws that prevented women from owning
property or from voting
• Curfews on Young People
• Laws against homosexuality/Banning of gay
marriage/Anti-Sodomy Laws

Theories of Deviance
• 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.
• Merton identifies 5 ways in which
people adapt:

Merton’s Strain Theory
Mode Method
Conformity
Accepts approved goals, pursues them
through approved means.
Innovation
Accepts approved goals; uses disapproved
means.
Ritualism
Abandons society’s goals; conforms to
approved means.
Retreatism
Abandons approved goals and approved
means.
Rebellion
Challenges approved goals and approved
means.

Merton’s Strain Theory

Symbolic Interactionism
THEORIES OF DEVIANCE

Theories of Deviance
• 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.

Theories of Deviance
• Differential association:
–A symbolic interactionist
perspective developed by
Edwin Sutherland
–States that we learn
deviance from hanging
around deviant peers
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Theories of Deviance
• Differential association theory states that
we learn to be deviant through our
associations with deviant peers.
– This theory simply says that interacting
with people who break rules will socialize
you to break rules as well.
– However, the issue is that some cases,
deviance is not the result of a willful act
(example: mental illness). Also, not all
who associate with deviants actually turn
out to be deviants.

Theories of Deviance
• Labeling theory:
–A symbolic interactionist
perspective developed by
Howard Becker
–States that deviance is caused
by external judgments (labels)
that change a person’s self-concept
and the way that
others respond to that person
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Theories of Deviance
• 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.
• Labels will vary depending on the culture, time period,
and context.
– Rosenhan Study “On Being Sane in Insane Places”
• Labeling theory is also concerned with how individuals
think of themselves once a deviant label has been
applied. How we perceive ourselves depends in part
on how others see us, so if others react to us as a
deviant, we are likely to internalize that label.

Labeling Theory

Theories of Deviance (cont’d)
• Symbolic Interactionist
• Labeling theory is also related to the
idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy –
an iaccurate statement or belief
which, by altering the situation,
becomes accurate.
– Basically, this is a prediction that causes
itself to come true merely by being
stated.

Theories of Deviance (cont’d)
• Symbolic Interactionist
• Labeling Theory consequences: In
our society, deviant labels can
override other aspects of individual
identity and exert powerful effects on
self-image, treatment by others, and
even social and institutional policies.

Stigma and Deviant Identity
• In Ancient Greece, criminals and slaves were
branded with hot irons, making a mark called a
stigma, from the Greek word for “tattoo.” The
stigma was meant to serve as an outward
indication that there was something shameful
about the bearer, and to this day we continue to
use the term to signify some disgrace or failing.
Even though we don’t do this anymore,
stigmatized identities still carry serious social
consequences.
• 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.

Stigma and Deviant Identity (cont’d)
• Once an individual has been labeled
as a deviant, he is stigmatized, and
acquires what Goffman calls a
“spoiled identity.”
• 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).

Stigma and Deviant Identity
• Almost any departure from the norm can have a
stigmatizing effect. Examples:
– Physical Disability
– Past Battle with Drugs/Alcohol
– Time Served in Jail
– Past Sexual Transgressions
• Some stigmatized identities can change over time
depending on the culture or social context of the time. (Ex:
Civil Rights Movement)
• Goffman notes that not all stigmatized identities are just or
deserved; only that they are specific to the norms and
prejudices of a particular group, time period, or context.
• He was particularly interested in the effects of
stigmatization on the individual identity and interactions
with others.
– Macro and Micro Level

Stigma and Deviant Identity (cont’d)
• One strategy analyzed by Goffman
that stigmatized individuals use to
negotiate everyday interaction is
called passing, or concealing the
stigmatizing information.
– Example: The Jewish of Nazi controlled
areas.

Stigma and Deviant Identity (cont’d)
• Obviously, some people cannot “pass.” Either they can’t
because of physical characteristics or refuse to “pass” as a
matter of principle.
• In some cases, these people don’t see themselves as deviants,
and as a result, don’t believe the should have to change or
conceal those identities just to make themselves more
“normal.”
• They 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.
– Examples: ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power),
The Human Rights Campaign, NAACP (the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and
NAAFA (the National Association to Advance Fat
Acceptance).
• Activism in one of these groups can often times be difficult and
exhausting.

Stigma and Deviant Identity (cont’d)
• Most people reject deviant labels. However, there
are some who choose to be called deviant.
• Howard Becker (1963) refers to such individuals as
outsiders, people living in one way or another
outside of the mainstream of society.
• Ralph Turner (1972) – Finally, others choose
deviance avowal, a process by which an individual
self-identifies as deviant and initiates his or her
own labeling process. It may be useful to conceive
of deviance as a role rather than as an isolated
behavior that violates a single norm. The deviant
identity may even be beneficial.

The Foreground of Deviance: The Emotional Attraction
of Doing Bad Deeds
• Most sociological perspectives on deviance focus
on aspects of a person’s background that would
predispose her to act in deviant ways. (Like
Differential Association or Labeling Theory)
• In contrast, Jack Katz (The Seductions of Crime –
1988) argues that researchers can better
understand crime and deviance by considering
how criminals experience their acts of deviance.
• Katz looks at how emotionally seductive or
thrilling crime can be. This explains why people
who can easily afford what they’re stealing engage
in shoplifting. Even a more traditional criminal
can get a thrill of power over the victim he/she
has just attacked.

The Criminal Justice System
CRIME AND
PUNISHMENT

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.

Deviance and Crime (cont’d.)
• In the United States, serious
crimes are punished by
imprisonment.
• In other cultures, types of
punishments can include:
–Shunning
–Banishment
–Corporal punishment
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Deviance and Crime (cont’d.)
• Crime and punishments can change
over time!
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Violent Crime

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.

Property Crime

Crime and Punishment (cont’d)
• 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.
• http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/
cjis/ucr/ucr

Crime and Punishment (cont’d)
• 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)
• 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.

Crime and Punishment (cont’d)
• 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.

Can Deviance Be Positive?
• Positive deviance is defined as an act that
is outside of the norm, but may actually be
heroic rather than negative.
• Examples:
– Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the
bus when asked
– A student in class being the one to raise his or
her hand and say that a test seemed unfair. If
no one else in the class spoke up, this student’s
action might be deviant, but it could also shed
light on an issue that needed to be addressed.
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