Theories of Deviance
Deviance is any behavior that violates social norms, and is usually
of sufficient severity to warrant disapproval from the majority of society.
Deviance can be criminal or non-criminal. The sociological discipline that
deals with crime (behavior that violates laws) is criminology
(also known as criminal justice). Today, Americans consider such
activities as alcoholism, excessive gambling, being nude in public places,
playing with fire, stealing, lying, refusing to bathe, purchasing the services
of prostitutes, and cross-dressing—to name only a few—as deviant. People who
engage in deviant behavior are referred to as deviants.
The
concept of deviance is complex because norms vary considerably across groups,
times, and places. In other words, what one group may consider acceptable,
another may consider deviant. For example, in some parts of Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Muslim Africa, women are circumcised. Termed clitoridectomy
and infibulation, this process involves cutting off the clitoris and/or
sewing shut the labia — usually without any anesthesia. In America, the thought
of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation as it is known in
the United States, is unthinkable; female genital mutilation, usually done in
unsanitary conditions that often lead to infections, is done as a blatantly
oppressive tactic to prevent women from having sexual pleasure.
A
number of theories related to deviance and criminology have emerged within the
past 50 years or so. Four of the most well-known follow.
Edwin Sutherland coined the phrase differential
association to address the issue of how people learn deviance.
According to this theory, the environment plays a major role in deciding which
norms people learn to violate. Specifically, people within a particular reference
group provide norms of conformity and deviance, and thus heavily influence
the way other people look at the world, including how they react. People also
learn their norms from various socializing agents—parents, teachers, ministers,
family, friends, co-workers, and the media. In short, people learn criminal
behavior, like other behaviors, from their interactions with others, especially
in intimate groups.
The differential-association theory applies to many types of
deviant behavior. For example,
juvenile gangs provide an environment in which young people learn to become
criminals. These gangs define themselves as countercultural and glorify
violence, retaliation, and crime as means to achieving social status. Gang
members learn to be deviant as they embrace and conform to their gang's norms.
Differential-association theory has contributed to the field
of criminology in its focus on the developmental nature of criminality. People
learn deviance from the people with whom they associate. Critics of the
differential-association theory, on the other hand, claim the vagueness of the
theory's terminology does not lend itself to social science research methods or
empirical validation.
A person can learn deviant
behavior through the medium of books magazines, newspapers
and the easiest is through the TV, because
almost every day
of the event show the nuances of the crime. Associating with people who use drugs. Someone
will get a lesson how to consume drugs
and which acquired how to steal, grab,
and so forth.
Anomie refers to the confusion that arises when social norms
conflict or don't even exist. In the 1960s, Robert Merton used the term
to describe the differences between socially accepted goals and the
availability of means to achieve those goals. Merton stressed, for example/for instance, that
attaining wealth is a major goal of Americans, but not all Americans possess
the means to do this, especially members of minority and disadvantaged groups.
Those who find the “road to riches” closed to them experience anomie, because
an obstacle has thwarted their pursuit of a socially approved goal. When this
happens, these individuals may employ deviant behaviors to attain their goals,
retaliate against society, or merely “make a point.”
The primary contribution of anomie theory is its ability to
explain many forms of deviance. The theory is also sociological in its emphasis
on the role of social forces in creating deviance. On the negative side, anomie
theory has been criticized for its generality. Critics note the theory's lack
of statements concerning the process of learning deviance, including the
internal motivators for deviance. Like differential association theory, anomie
theory does not lend itself to precise scientific study.
According to Walter Reckless's control theory, both
inner and outer controls work against deviant tendencies. People may want—at
least some of the time—to act in deviant ways, but most do not. They have
various restraints: internal controls, such as conscience, values,
integrity, morality, and the desire to be a “good person”; and outer
controls, such as police, family, friends, and religious authorities. Travis
Hirschi noted that these inner and outer restraints form a person's self-control,
which prevents acting against social norms. The key to developing self-control
is proper socialization, especially early in childhood. Children who lack this
self-control, then, may grow up to commit crimes and other deviant behaviors.
Whereas theory also suggests that people society labels as
“criminals” are probably members of subordinate groups, critics argue that this
oversimplifies the situation. As examples, they cite wealthy and powerful
businesspeople, politicians, and others who commit crimes. Critics also argue
that conflict theory does little to explain the causes of deviance. Proponents
counter, however, by asserting that the theory does not attempt to delve into
etiologies. Instead, the theory does what it claims to do: It discusses the
relationships between socialization, social controls, and behavior.
Labeling
theory
A type of symbolic interaction, labeling theory
concerns the meanings people derive from one another's labels, symbols,
actions, and reactions. This theory holds that behaviors are deviant only when
society labels them as deviant. As such, conforming members of society, who
interpret certain behaviors as deviant and then attach this label to
individuals, determine the distinction between deviance and non-deviance.
Labeling theory questions who applies what label to whom, why they do this, and
what happens as a result of this labeling.
Powerful individuals within society—politicians, judges,
police officers, medical doctors, and so forth—typically impose the most
significant labels. Labeled persons may include drug addicts, alcoholics,
criminals, delinquents, prostitutes, sex offenders, retarded people, and
psychiatric patients, to mention a few. The consequences of being labeled as
deviant can be far-reaching. Social research indicates that those who have
negative labels usually have lower self-images, are more likely to reject
themselves, and may even act more deviantly as a result of the label.
Unfortunately, people who accept the labeling of others—be it correct or
incorrect—have a difficult time changing their opinions of the labeled person,
even in light of evidence to the contrary.
William Chambliss in 1973 conducted a classic study
into the effects of labeling. His two groups of white, male, high-school
students were both frequently involved in delinquent acts of theft, vandalism,
drinking, and truancy. The police never arrested the members of one group,
which Chambliss labeled the “Saints,” but the police did have frequent run-ins
with members of the other group, which he labeled the “Roughnecks.” The boys in
the Saints came from respectable families, had good reputations and grades in
school, and were careful not to get caught when breaking the law. By being
polite, cordial, and apologetic whenever confronted by the police, the Saints
escaped labeling themselves as “deviants.” In contrast, the Roughnecks came
from families of lower socioeconomic status, had poor reputations and grades in
school, and were not careful about being caught when breaking the law. By being
hostile and insolent whenever confronted by the police, the Roughnecks were
easily labeled by others and themselves as “deviants.” In other words, while
both groups committed crimes, the Saints were perceived to be “good” because of
their polite behavior (which was attributed to their upper-class backgrounds)
and the Roughnecks were seen as “bad” because of their insolent behavior (which
was attributed to their lower-class backgrounds). As a result, the police
always took action against the Roughnecks, but never against the Saints.
Proponents of labeling theory support the theory's emphasis
on the role that the attitudes and reactions of others, not deviant acts per
se, have on the development of deviance. Critics of labeling theory
indicate that the theory only applies to a small number of deviants, because
such people are actually caught and labeled as deviants. Critics also argue
that the concepts in the theory are unclear and thus difficult to test
scientifically.
THE BASICS OF CONFLICT THEORY
(From
Randall Collins, Conflict Sociology. New York:Academic Press, 1974,
pp.56-61.
The
level of interpersonal interaction is all-inclusive; by thesame token, it is
highly abstract. To reduce its myriad complexitiesto causal order requires
theory on another level of analysis. Themost fruitful tradition of explanatory
theory is the conflicttradition, running from Machiavelli and Hobbes to Marx
and Weber. Ifwe abstract out its main causal propositions from extraneouspolitical
and philosophical doctrines, it looks like the following.
Machiavelli
and Hobbes initiated the basic stance of cynicalrealism about human society.
Individuals' behavior is explained interms of their self-interests in a
material world of threat andviolence. Social order is seen as being founded on
organizedcoercion. There is an ideological realm of belief (religion, law),and
an underlying world of struggles over power; ideas and morals arenot prior to
interaction but are socially created, and serve theinterests of parties to the
conflict.
Marx
added more specific determinants of the lines of divisionamong conflicting
interests, and indicated the material conditionsthat mobilize particular
interests into action and that make itpossible for them to articulate their
ideas. He also added a theoryof economic evolution which turns the wheels of
this system toward adesired political outcome; but that is a part of Marx's
work thatlies largely outside his contributions to conflict sociology, andhence
will receive no attention here. Put schematically, Marx'ssociology states:
- 1. Historically, particular forms of property (slavery, feudal landholding, capital) are upheld by the coercive power of the state; hence classes formed by property divisions (slaves and slave-owners, serfs and lords, capitalists and workers) are the opposing agents in the struggle for political power the underpinning of their means of livelihood.
- 2. Material contributions determine the extent to which social classes can organize effectively to fight for their interests; such conditions of mobilization are a set of intervening variables between class and political power.
- 3. Other material conditions--the means of mental production--determine which interests will be able to articulate their ideas and hence to dominate the ideological realm.
In
all of these spheres, Marx was primarily interested in thedeterminants of
political power, and only indirectly in what may becalled a "theory of
stratification." The same principles imply,however:
- 1. The material circumstances of making a living are the main determinant of one's style of life; since property relations are crucial for distinguishing ways of supporting oneself, class cultures and behaviors divide up along opposing lines of control over, or lack of, property.
- 2. The material conditions for mobilization as a coherent, intercommunicating group also vary among social classes; by implication, another major difference among class lifestyles stems from the differing organization of their communities and their differing experience with the means of social communication.
- 3. Classes differ in their control of the means of mental production--this produces yet another difference in class cultures--some are more articulated symbolically than others, and some have the symbolic structures of another class imposed upon them from outside.
These
Marxian principles, with certain modifications, provide thebasis for a conflict
theory of stratification. Weber may be seen asdeveloping this line of analysis:
adding complexity to Marx's view ofconflict, showing that the conditions
involved in mobilization and"mental production" are analytically
distinct from property, revisingthe fundamentals of conflict, and adding
another major set ofresources. Again making principles more explicit than they
are in theoriginal presentation, we may summarize Weber as showing
severaldifferent forms of property conflict coexisting in the same society,and
hence, by implication, the existence of multiple class divisions;elaborating
the principles of organizational intercommunication andcontrol in their own
right, thereby adding a theory of organizationand yet another sphere of
interest conflict, this timeintraorganizational factions; emphasizing that the
violent coercionof the state analytically prior to the economy, and thus
transferringthe center of attention to the control of the material means
ofviolence.
Weber
also opens up yet another area of resources in thesestruggles for control, what
might be called the "means of emotionalproduction." It is these that
underlie the power of religion and makeit an important ally of the state; that
transform classes into statusgroups, and do the same to territorial communities
under particularcircumstances (ethnicity); and that make "legitimacy"
a crucial focusfor efforts at domination. Here, Weber comes to an insight
parallelto those of Durkheim, Freud, and Nietzsche: not only that man is
ananimal with strong emotional desires and susceptibilities, but thatparticular
forms of social interaction designed to arouse emotionsoperate to create
strongly held beliefs and a sense of solidaritywithin the community constituted
by participation in these rituals. Ihave put this formulation in a much more
Durkheimian fashion thanWeber himself, for Durkheim's analysis of rituals can
be incorporatedat this point to show the mechanisms by which emotional bonds
arecreated. There involves especially the emotional contagion thatresults from
physical copresense, the focusing of attention on acommon object, and the
coordination of common actions or gestures. Toinvoke Durkheim also enables me
to bring in the work of Goffman(1956, 1967), which carries on his microlevel
analysis of socialrituals, with an emphasis on the materials and techniques
ofstage-setting that determine the effectiveness of appeals foremotional
solidarity.
Durkheim
and Goffman are to be seen as amplifying our knowledge ofthe mechanisms of
emotional production, but within the framework ofWeber's conflict theory. For
Weber retains a crucial emphasis: Thecreation of emotional solidarity does not
supplant conflict, but isone of the main weapons used in conflict. Emotional
rituals can beused for domination within a group or organization; they are
avehicle by which alliances are formed in the struggle against othergroups; and
they can be used to impose a hierarchy of status prestigein which some groups
dominate others by providing an ideal to emulateunder inferior conditions.
Weber's theory of religion incorporatesall of these aspects of domination
through the manipulation ofemotional solidarity, and thereby provides an
archetype for thevarious forms of community stratification. Caste, ethnic
group,feudal Estate (Stand), educational-cultural group, or
class"respectability" lines are all forms of stratified solidarities,depending
on varying distributions of the resources for emotionalproduction. The basic
dynamics are captured in the hierarchy implicitin any religion between ritual
leaders, ritual followers, andnonmembers of the community.
From
this analytical version of Weber, incorporating the relevantprinciples of Marx,
Durkheim, and Goffman, we can move into anexplicit theory of stratification. It
should be apparent that thereare innumerable possible types of stratified
societies; our aim isnot to classify them, but to state the set of causal
principles thatgo into various empirical combinations. Our emphasis is on
thecutting tools of a theory, whatever the complexity of theirapplication in
the historical world.
For
conflict theory, the basic insight is that human beings aresociable but
conflict-prone animals. Why is there conflict? Above allelse, there is conflict
because violent coercion is always apotential resource, and it is zero-sum
sort. This does not implyanything about the inherence of drives to dominate;
what we do knowfirmly is that being coerced is an intrinsically
unpleasantexperience, and hence that any use of coercion, even by a
smallminority, calls forth conflict in the form of antagonism to beingdominated.
Add to this the fact that coercive power, especially asrepresented in the
state, can be used to bring one economic goods andemotional gratification and
to deny them to others and we can seethat the availability of coercion as a
resource ramifies conflictsthroughout the entire society. The simultaneous
existence ofemotional bases for solidarity--which may well be the basis
ofcooperation, as Durkheim emphasized--only adds group divisions andtactical
resources to be used in these conflicts.
The
same argument may be transposed into the realm of socialphenomenology. Every
individual maximizes his subjective statusaccording to the resources available
to him and to his rivals. Thisis a general principle that will make sense out
of the variety ofevidence. By this I mean that one's subjective experience of
realityis the nexus of social motivation; that everyone constructs his ownworld
with himself in it; but this reality construction is doneprimarily by
communication, real or imaginary, with other people; andhence people hold the
keys to each other's identities. Thesepropositions will come as no surprise to
readers of George HerbertMead or Erving Goffman. Add to this an emphasis from
conflicttheories: that each individual is basically pursuing his owninterests
and that there are many situations, notably ones wherepower is involved, in
which those interests are inherentlyantagonistic. The basic argument, then, has
three strands that menlive in self-constructed subjective worlds; that others
pull many ofthe strings that control one's subjective experience; and that
thereare frequent conflicts over control. Life is basically a struggle
forstatus in which no one can afford to be oblivious to the power ofothers
around him. If we assume that everyone uses what resources areavailable to have
others aid him in putting on the best possible faceunder the circumstances, we
have a guiding principle to make senseout of the myriad variations of
stratification.*
The
general principles of conflict analysis may be applied to anyempirical area.
(1) Think through abstract formulations to a sampleof the typical real-life
interactions involved. Think of people asanimals maneuvering for advantage,
susceptible to emotional appeals,but steering a self-interested course toward
satisfactions and awayfrom dissatisfactions. (2) Look for the material
arrangements thataffect interaction: the physical places, the modes of
communication,the supply of weapons, devices for staging one's public
impression,tools, and goods. Assess the relative resources available to
eachindividual: their potential for physical coercion, their access toother
persons with whom to negotiate, their sexual attractiveness,their store of
cultural devices for invoking emotional solidarity, aswell as the physical
arrangements just mentioned. (3) Apply thegeneral hypothesis that inequalities
in resources result in effortsby the dominant party to take advantage of the
situation; this neednot involve conscious calculation but a basic propensity of
feelingone's way toward the areas of greatest immediate reward, like
flowersturning to the light. Social structures are to be explained in termsof
the behavior following from various lineups of resources, socialchange from
shifts in resources resulting from previous conflicts.(4) Ideals and beliefs
likewise are to be explained in terms of theinterests which have the resources
to make their viewpoint prevail.(5) Compare empirical cases; test hypotheses by
looking for theconditions under which certain things occur versus the
conditionsunder which other things occur. Think causally, look
forgeneralizations. Be awake to multiple causes--the resources forconflict are
complex.
Nowhere
can these principles be better exemplified than on thematerials of
stratification. Especially in modern societies, we mustseparate out multiple
spheres of social interaction and multiplecauses in each one. These influences
may be reduced to order throughthe principles of conflict theory. We can make a
fair prediction ofwhat sort of status shell each individual constructs around
himselfif we know how he deals with people in earning a living; how he
getsalong in the household in which he lives; how he relates to thepopulation
of the larger community, especially as determined by itspolitical structures;
and the ways in which he associates withfriends and recreational companions.
The conventional variables ofsurvey research are all reflected in this list:
occupation, parentaloccupation, education, ethnicity, age, and sex are cryptic
referencesto how one's associations are structured at work, in the
household,and in community and recreational groups. In each sphere, we look
forthe actual pattern of personal interaction, the resources availableto
persons in different positions, and how these affect the line ofattack they take
for furthering their personal status. The ideals andbeliefs of persons in
different positions thus emerge as personalideologies, furthering their
dominance or serving for theirpsychological protection.
I
begin with occupational situations, as the most pervasivelyinfluential of all
stratification variables. They are analyzed intoseveral causal dimensions,
elaborating a modified version of Marx,Weber, and Durkheim. Other stratified
milieux are treated in terms ofother resources for organizing social communities;
here we findparallel applications of conflict principles as well as
interactionwith the occupational realm. The sum of these stratified
milieuxmakes up the concrete social position of any individual.
ENDNOTE:
*
The proposition that individuals maximize theirsubjective status appears
to contradict March and Simon's (1958)organizational principle that men operate
bysatisficing--setting minimal levels of payoff in each area ofconcern,
and then troubleshooting where crises arise. Thecontradiction is only apparent.
Satisficing refers to a strategy fordealing with the cognitive problem produced
by inherent limits on thehuman capacity for processing information. The
principle ofmaximizing subjective status is a motivational principle,telling
us what are the goals of behavior. Any analysis of cognitivestrategies is
incomplete without some motivational principle such asthe latter to tell us
what are the purposes of action, and what areasof concern are most emphasized.
In other words, it is one thing topredict what goals someone will pursue,
another to predict whatstrategies he will use in pursuing them, given the
inability to seevery far into the future or deal with very many things at once.
assalamualaikum, pak WAFI!!
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