Understanding Deviance in Sociology

Deviance Overview

• Deviance is any behavior that departs from the range of conduct regarded as normal within a social context or society.

• Deviance is nonconformity to a set of norms accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society.

• Deviance involves behaviors that violate either social norms or laws, with norms enforced by state authorities.

• Many deviant behaviors are not criminal, and some crimes are quite normative.

• Becker claims deviance isn't a quality of the act, but is a consequence of the application of rules.

• From a sociological perspective, no act or belief is inherently deviant.

• Deviance is a culturally relative phenomenon, not absolute or universal.

• Cultural relativity defeats any attempt to compile a list of universally deviant acts.

• Behavior viewed as normal in one context/society may be aberrant in another.

• Acts are criminal or deviant because and only because they are proscribed legally and/or socially.

• The rules, not the act, determine what is deviant.

Sociological Theories of Deviance

• Strain theory
• Differential Association theory
• Labeling theory
• Control theory

Robert Merton's Explanation of Deviant Behavior

• Functionalist theories argue crime occurs when individual/group aspirations don't coincide with available opportunities.
• Social inequality creates a discrepancy between values and opportunities.
• Lack of conventional means/opportunities for achieving cultural goals produces strain.
• Frustration motivates nonconformist or deviant conduct due to structural pressure.
• Deviant or nonconformist behavior is called forth by social structural pressure.
• Every society promotes cultural goals for its members to pursue.
• Disadvantaged people often have limited or no conventional opportunities for advancement, which causes relative deprivation that may motivate people to engage in deviant behavior.
• Merton describes adaptation based on rejecting/accepting cultural ends and legitimate means:
  • Conformity: Accepts legitimate means and cultural goals.
  • Innovation: Rejects legitimate means, but accepts cultural goals.
  • Ritualism: Accepts legitimate means, but rejects cultural goals
  • Retreatism: Rejects both legitimate means and cultural goals.
  • Rebellion: New means, new goals.

Differential Association Theory on Deviant Behavior

• People learn to be deviant through exposure to and associations with others involved I deviance.
• The more someone associates with people whose behavior is deviant, the greater the likelihood that their behavior will also be deviant.

Howard Becker's Explanation of Becoming Marijuana Users

• Some individuals engage in deviant behaviors like smoking marijuana, while others do not.
• Reigning explanation of the time: deviant behavior can be explained as the result of some trait that predisposes or motivates someone to engage in this behavior.
• Becker's thesis shows that through social interaction, individuals learn how to become users of marijuana for pleasure.
• Deviant behavior is learned in interaction with others through communication, involving learned techniques, effects, and motives of deviant behavior.
• An individual will be able to use marijuana for pleasure only when they go through a process of learning to conceive of it as an object which can be used in this way.
  • Learning smoking technique
  • Learning to identify effects
  • Learning to define effects as pleasurable
• Symptoms of getting high are not automatically nor necessarily pleasurable.
• The novice is coached by seasoned users and taught to find pleasure in this experience which was at first so frightening.
• They have to reassure them.
• One learns, in short, to answer 'Yes' to the question: 'Is it fun?'

White Collar Crime

• White collar crime is work-related criminal behavior committed by people of high social status.
• A new corporate executive learns from coworkers that embezzling company funds is the norm.
• Sports athletes learn the informal norms of the game, encouraged by teammates to violate official rules.

Labeling Theory and Deviant Behavior

• Deviant behavior is a consequence of the labels assigned to people.
• Labels influence how people perceive those who are labeled and influence their self-perception.

David Rosenhan's Study on Mental Illness Labels

• Rosenhan investigated how labels of mentally ill influence hospital staff's perceptions of admitted pseudo-patients and the social and psychological consequences of being defined as deviant by others.

• Eight sane pseudo-patients were admitted to various mental hospitals across the country.

• Gained admission by complaining of hearing voices, specifically saying the words empty, hollow, and thud.

• While hospitalized, the subjects were to behave normally and cooperatively.

• Upon admission, pseudo-patients ceased simulating any symptoms of abnormality and motivated to behave sanely and cooperatively.

• Each pseudo-patient was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission and hospitalized for 7-52 days.

• The sanity of the pseudo-patients were undetected, despite the objective nature of mental illness.

• Mental illness resides in the minds of psychiatrists (i.e. psychiatric diagnoses)

• Once the label of mental patient is applied, all subsequent actions become interpreted within the context of this label.

• Labels bias and distort perception

• Given that the patient is in the hospital, they must be psychologically disturbed.

• Past biographical details and observed behaviors become interpreted as symptoms and are taken as evidence of their mental illness.

William Chambliss' Study

• An ethnographic study of two groups of high school boys the Saints and the Roughnecks from the same community
• Similarities: two groups of high schoolers involved in similar delinquent activities
  • The saints cut school, cheated, vandalized, consumed alcohol and drove recklessly.
  • The roughnecks cut school, stole, drank alcohol and got into fights.
• Differences:
  • Saints were "eight promising young men children of good, stable, white upper middle-class families, active in school affairs, good pre-college students who were well-dressed and well-mannered”.
  • Roughnecks were “six lower class white boys" "not so well dressed, not so well mannered, not so rich boys who had a just slightly above 'C' GPA"
• Community response:
  • Saints were considered 'good students' and 'good boys' by teachers, the police and townspeople despite their deviant activities
  • Roughnecks were considered a ‘bunch of bad boys' and 'headed for trouble' by teachers, the police and townspeople due to their deviant activities
• What became of them:
  • Seven of the eight saints graduated from college; one finished law school, one finished medical school and one is pursuing a PhD
  • Two of the six roughnecks never finished high school; both are serving sentences for murder; one is a small-time gambler, another a trucker.
• Chambliss accounts for this divergence in adulthood because the roughnecks came to internalize the attitudes of teachers, police, and the community.
• As that self-conception became more firmly entrenched, they also became willing to try new and more extreme deviances in secondary deviance.

Primary vs Secondary Deviance

• Primary deviance is when an individual commits a non-patterned act of deviance.
• Secondary deviance occurs when a person labeled as deviant accepts the label as part of their identity, and acts in conformity with that label.

Premises of Labeling Theory

• Societal treatment or the reactions of significant others facilitates the development of a deviant identity.
  • Application of a deviant label
  • Internalization of a deviant self-concept
  • Act accordingly (eg. secondary deviance)

Control Theory and Deviant Behavior

• Control theorists assert that human beings are basically antisocial and assume that deviance is a part of the natural order in society.
• Individuals are attracted to the idea of norm violation and thus motivated to deviate.
• Concern for deviant motivation alone does not account for the forces leading people to deviate.
• The important question is not 'why do people not obey the rules of society,' but 'why do people obey the rules of society'?”
• Most deviant behavior is the result of insufficient control.
• Control theories assume that delinquent acts result when an individual's bond to society is weak or broken.
• This bond can be measured by the strength of one's attachment to conventional society.
• The risk of losing the approval of rule-abiding significant others limit behavior to conventional lines.
• Strength of commitment to conventional lines of action is a function of protecting assets.
• Most people, simply in the process of living in organized society, acquired goods, reputations, prospects that they do not want to risk losing is society's insurance that they will abide by the rules.
• Involvement in conventional activities limits the opportunity to behave deviantly.
• There is variation in the extent to which people believe they should obey the rules of society.
• The less a person believes he should obey the rules, the more likely he is to violate them.

Government: Conflict Theories

• Society is composed of groups that compete to determine who gets what and how they get it.
• When groups operate through established governmental channels, this competition is referred to as politics.

Sociological Theories of Political Power

• Pluralist, Class and Elite

Max Weber's Views on Power and Authority

• Power is the ability of an individual or group to achieve its goals despite the resistance of others.
• Government embodies a rational-legal authority, legitimated on the basis of legally enacted rules and the right of those with authority under those rules to issue commands.

Pluralism and Political Power in Liberal Democracies

• Liberal democracies permit multiple groups and organizations to compete for access to political power to attempt to further their interests
• Pluralists see a balance of group power, where no one group retains power indefinitely.
• Government policies in a democracy are influenced by the continual process of bargaining among numerous groups representing different interests, divides up power.
• All groups have some effect on policy, but none dominate the mechanisms of government.
• The status of any group can always be challenged.
• Groups coexist, compete and share in the exercise of power and power is observed to be widely distributed.

Citizenship and the Balance of Power

• A balance of power between social groups is sustained by civil, political, and social rights associated with citizenship
• Civil rights include freedom of speech and religion and the right to own property and equal justice.
• Political rights refer to the right to participate in elections and run for public office
• Social rights refer to the right of every individual to enjoy a minimum standard of economic welfare and security, as a welfare state exists when government organizations provide material benefits to citizens like minimum wage and unemployment benefits

Interest Groups

• The right to freedom of expression and assembly enables the formation of interest groups.
• An interest group is any organization that attempts to persuade elected officials to consider its aims when deciding on legislation
• Diverse interest groups compete in U.S. society

Fundamental Tenets of American Political Culture (Lipset)

• Pluralists argue that democratic political culture plays a critical role in the distribution of power
• A common set of values and beliefs serve to limit and check the concentration of political power:
  • Liberalism: Liberty, equality and property
  • Individualism: Independence and self-reliance
  • Populism: Appeals to ordinary people
  • Meritocracy: Ability determines social standing
  • Anti-statism: Distrust of government

American Fears

• The majority of Americans believe that the biggest threat facing the country is big government.
• Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil Thomas Paine

Nation-States

• Nation: People with a common identity that ideally includes a shared culture, language and feelings of belonging."
• State: A political apparatus or government that rules over a territory
• Nation-states are associated with the rise of nationalism and are defined as a set of symbols and beliefs that creates a sense of membership in a single political community, nationalism is an expression of collective identity.

News Media in the U.S. (Pluralist View)

• News media, while not a political power per se as the fourth estate, has considerable influence shaping the public's views of social and political issues
• News media agencies operate within a free market and they compete amongst each other for audiences
• The news media impacts public sentiment through the production and circulation of information, thus utilizing the power of persuasion
• The news media can relay a certain body of information and a set of attitudes toward that information to people who are open to receiving it and it cannot reward or punish the audience for taking the information to heart

Conflict Theorists on Wealth and Political Influence

• According to conflict theorists, such as Karl Marx, economic theory of power reveals a relationship between wealth and political power
• Wealth is the basis of political power and that wealth translates to political influence

Campaign Funding

• Funding for special interest groups and lobbyists
• Funding for political campaigns
• Funding for policy institutes or think tanks

Lobbying

• Lobbying is the act of persuading influential officials to vote in favor of a cause or otherwise lend support to the aims of the interest group.
• All organizations employing lobbyists must register their lobbyists.
• Running for office is enormously expensive and interest groups provide campaign funding at all levels of political office
• Big tech, big pharma, mining, defense, agribusiness, oil, finance, as well as AARP and NRA.
• IGs fund campaigns to promote policy objectives

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)

• The Supreme Court overturned restrictions on unlimited corporate and union spending expressly advocating the election or defeat of candidates.
• Corporations and labor unions have First Amendment right to make independent expenditures that advocate election or defeat of candidates in certain federal elections.
• Corporations are afforded the same rights as regular citizens.
• Corporations are the largest contributors to campaigns and they outspend organized labor.
• Paid lobbyists play a significant role in influencing the outcomes of congressional and presidential elections
• Analysts argue that Trump received far greater media coverage throughout the campaign
• Free media exposure was estimated as worth more than twice for Trump compared to Clinton.

Political Campaigns and Money

• Candidates, national parties, and super PACs spend the bulk of their campaign cash on advertising, mail, staff, and fundraising
• Super PACs have no limitations on how much they can spend on influencing an election and wealth translates to media influence
• A super PAC advocates for the election or defeat of candidates for public office by purchasing television, radio, and print advertisements and other media
• Conflict theorists believe news media exercises ideological control to manipulate public perceptions
• The immense growth of corporate power is probably the most fundamental development of the past 20 or 30 years”
• Corporate elites now exercise far more control over the state than the state over the elites.
• They possess the capacity to manipulate electoral and legislative politics toward sought goals.
• It restricts the development of an open, dynamic public sphere and limit political debates and policy choices.
• By employing sophisticated opinion-polling, telemarketing, and public relations, they can steer and manipulate public opinion
• Multinational corporations possess enough wealth to influence the entire field of candidates in electoral campaigns

Corporations and the Modern State

• According to Karl Boggs and Karl Marx, Corporations in the modern representative state has conquered for itself exclusive political sway
• The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie

C. Wright Mills' View on power

• According to C. Wright Mills, “During the 21st century, a process of institutional centralization occurred in the political order, the economy, and the military"
• Mills argued that US political power had become tightly coordinated at the federal level
• The American economy had become dominated by a cluster of very large corporations
• After World War 2, the military had grown to a giant establishment.
• This concentration of power led to the emergence of the power elite that Are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society
• A big three, the triangle of power, or the interlocking directorate consisting of political, economic, and military elites.
• Power is not dispersed throughout a stable society.
• Power is concentrated among a small number of people who control the major institutions of the state, the corporate economy, and the military
• Eisenhower, on the military-industrial complex, said These hierarchies of state and corporation and army constitute the means of power
• Power resides in institutional positions and has an institutional basis and not based on one person.
• The higher circles are often thought of in terms of what their members possess but the elite are not simply those who have the most
• Power is exercised by those who occupy the top positions of these great institutions by the decisions they make that affect the everyday worlds of ordinary men and women.
• Power elite are refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences and the power elite are those who decide them.

Class Inequality

• Class inequality is the differences between populations in terms of their income, wealth, educational attainment, occupational status, and lifestyle.
• The most distinctive form of stratification in modern societies is class divisions.
• Social stratification consists of strata in a hierarchy, with the more favored at the top and the less privileged nearer the bottom
• Sociologists tend to see class as one's economic rank in society and a large-scale grouping of people who share common economic resources, thus strongly influence individuals' life chances, opportunities, and lifestyles
• In a capitalist society, access to financial resources greatly influence a person's quality of life

Modern Class Stratification

• Class systems, unlike caste systems, are characterized by social mobility
• They don't fix people for life in specific social positions, as the older systems of stratification did.
• Class systems are fluid and movement is possible and class status is understood to be achieved

Social Mobility

• Social mobility refers to the upward or downward movement of individuals and groups among different class positions through changes in occupation, wealth, or income
• Economic gains lead to upward mobility, whereas losses lead to downward mobility

Intergenerational Mobility

• Intergenerational mobility refers to social movement across generations where children are compared with their parents and grandparents

Intragenerational Mobility

• Intragenerational Mobility refers to how far an individual moves up or down the socioeconomic scale during their work life

Social Mobility

• Social mobility is more or less dependent on economic climate
• Periods of economic growth expand occupational opportunities, constraints define periods of decline
• The 2008 recession resulted in downward mobility, but economic expansion reversed this trend

Income

• Income is often considered the most important determinant of one's class position.

• It refers to wages and salaries earned from paid occupations

• The real income of the majority of the American working population has risen over the last century.

• There are now more affluent Americans that were previously in human history"

• Increase in technological advancement in industry has increased productivity leading to an abundance of goods at lower and affordable prices

• From 1945 to 1975, a large middle class characterized American society”

  • However, since the 1970s, income inequality has been increasing dramatically because not everyone has shared equally in the growing productivity of the US economy

• A new class structure has emerged reflecting income disparities among households

Social Mobility and Class

• Social mobility has steadily eroded the middle class and accompanied by an increase in the share of adults in the upper-income tier as well as an increase in the share who are in the lower income tier
  • There is a teardrop model of the American class structure where Today the richest 1% earn over a quarter of all US pretax income, while the lowest 90% earn less than half of all US pretax income

Wealth Inequality

• Wealth refers to the total market value of an individual or household's accumulated assets minus all debts and liabilities
  • Eg savings and checking accounts, investments in stocks and bonds, real estate, pensions, etc

Trends in wealth inequality

• Research indicates that the trends in wealth inequality parallel those with income inequality the rich is getting much richer relative to everyone else mainly due to soaring top incomes
• It takes money to make money and the wealthy often derive the bulk of their money from their investments”
• The majority of wealth for the wealthy lies in financial assets such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other forms of investment wealth, not income, is the real indicator of social class
• Wealth is less sensitive to fluctuations due to shifting work hours, health, and other factors that might affect one's income in a given year
• Wealth is a source of financial stability

American Debt

• Opposite of wealth is debt
• Households with lower incomes and less wealth are more likely to rely on credit cards or loans to pay for living expenses
• Many young adults have gone increasingly into debt by relying on credit cards and student loans
• Consumers with revolving debts on average pay far more in interest and fees than get back in rewards.
• Americans' credit card debt reaches new record high, as with Americans' household debt that includes credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and students loans.
• Credit card balances are at an all time high
• Prices are rising faster than incomes, in the past year the median household income has grown just 4% while the overall cost of living has jumped 8%
• Buy now, pay later services may mean deeper debt for millions
• Overall financial well-being declined markedly over the prior year, the share of adults who said they were worse off financially than a year earlier rose.

Educational attainment

• Important characteristic of class or socioeconomic standing
• Education is one of the strongest predictors of occupation, income, and wealth while Median income of college grads is higher than high school grads
• College graduates earn an average of 1 million dollars more than high school graduates over the course of their careers
• Earnings with education very from major, the college you go to, major in, and accumulate in debt

Occupational Status

• Occupational prestige is also an indicator of class standing.
• Public opinion confers occupational prestige

Social Stratification

• The top-ranked occupations appear to share one of two characteristics there are require either require a fair amount education or public service.
• Surveys provide insight into the public's opinion on the causes of poverty and affluence while sociological theories of class stratification offer much more sophisticated explanations based on systematically collected data

Primary Paths To Intergenerational Transference of Success

• Family background can be among the most critical determinants of success in life
• Parent's wealth is transferred child through inte vivos or postmortem transfers.
  • Inter vivos transfers are money transfers for living expenses, higher education, automobiles, house down payments, etc.
  • Postmortem transfers includes inheritance
• Successful parents also tend to provide relatively high quality education to their children that translate them into literacy with work experience, financial.

Karl Marx: Labor and Inequality

• Karl Marx’s theory of labor exploitation talks of all hitherto existing society that class struggle will always lead to All ruling classes owning the ‘means of production leading to an exploitation of laborers, eventually producing a surplus value’ that capitalist’s will take.
• Human labor is exchanged for its value (wage) while being capable of producing value.
• Thomas Piketty argues that the economic divide leads to the rich getting rich and the poor getting poorer.

Absolute vs Relative Poverty

• Absolute poverty means that a person or family does not have access to food, housing or health care,
• Relative Poverty being means poor as compared with the standards of living majority
• Relative deprivation refers to the lack of material resources compared with others in society

Compensation Differences

• According to Max Weber, People's skills and credentials have variable market values and leads to difference.

Social Stratification

• According to Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, societal benefits, occupations in s are functionally more and skill result in income.
• Economic are to be found individuals but other

People's Social Environments and Policies

• People's social environments influence what rung of the ladder they end up on and historical epochs vary in the nature and degree of in such as schooling, jobs, and taxes
• In democracy, this means that Americans are is in great measure the result policy choices.
• Full Opportunity can be promoted by by extensive in Health Care and Education.

Gender Overview

• Gender inequality sociologists the difference the groups in societies.
• Social inequalities exist on educational and political levels.
• Gender refers body and cultural .

Gender Socialization and Essentialism

• Socialgender roles agents while "Male" binary

Biological Essentialism and Criticism

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