Unit 13 Deviant behaviour

1. What is deviant behaviour? What are common misconceptions about deviance?

Deviance may be defined as behaviour that is considered by members of a social group to be in! violation of their normative standards. Whether a given act is deviant depends upon the time,.place, and context in which it occurs and on the people who define and apply the norms. Thus deviance is relative to a specific social situation. Killing another person is acceptable behaviour on the battlefield, but murder is a punishable crime in almost every other context.

Sociologists use the term " deviance" in a neutral way: their job is not to judge behaviour as right |or wrong, but to describe and explain patterns of behaviour defined as deviant by members of society. The sociological perspective on deviance contrasts with several popular misconceptions. First, sociologists suggest that no act is inherently deviant; an act becomes deviant only when people

in society define it as such. The relativity of deviance is illustrated by reactions to the insider trading scandal involving Ivan Boesky. Although a majority of people defined Boesky as a criminal, 55 percent of those polled also said that they would engage in the same illegal behaviour. Second, it is wrong to consider all uncommon or atypical behaviour as deviant. Skydiving or hang gliding is uncommon behaviour, but it is not deviant because it does not violate accepted social norms. Third, it is wrong to think that only socially recognised deviants commit deviant behaviour. A great deal more deviance takes place than is publicly detected or admitted. We have all driven faster than the posted speed limit - an act of deviance-but unless we are caught and given a ticket, we do not consider ourselves " deviant."

Deviance is a matter of social definition; it is conferred on behaviour by people in society. But who decides whether an act is to be considered deviant? Many political debates arise from conflicts among groups that use different values and norms to define deviance. Different values, for example, have led abortion to be defined as a crime by some groups but as a right by other groups. Some sociologists argue that powerful groups in society create norms and laws that protect their economic and political interests.

2. How do biological, psychological, and rational choice theories explain deviant or criminal behaviour?

Biological and psychological theories suggest that people who commit deviant acts are different-in biological or psychological ways—from people who conform to society's norms and values.

Sociologists have long tried to discover whether any biological traits could be found in criminals that were not found in law-abiding people. Cesare Lombroso thought that people were born to be criminals, and that the skulls of criminals possessed characteristics of savage apes. Lombroso's theory was later disproved because it was found that skulls of criminals and skulls of noncriminals did not differ significantly. The historical settlement of Australia also raises questions about the existence of born criminals. A significant proportion of early immigrants to Australia were convicted criminals; yet crime rates in Australia today are not unusually high. This fact suggests that the settlers' criminal tendencies were not passed on biologically to subsequent generations.

Even so, recent biological and medical studies suggest that biological factors interact with social and cultural factors to produce deviant or criminal behaviour. For example, rates of violent crime are higher among men than among women, possibly because of gender-based hormones that make males' levels of aggression higher than those of females. Few sociologists, however, believe that hormonal differences alone produce these male-female differences in rates of violent crime. Clearly, such biological tendencies interact with social and cultural expectations that lead men and women to engage in widely different patterns of behaviour, both conforming and deviant.

Psychological theories try to identify distinctive personality or cognitive traits found mainly in deviants. Freudian psychologists attribute criminality to the improper acquisition of a superego or conscience. According to this psychoanalytic theory, a mass murderer never develops a conscience and therefore does not experience guilt in killing people. Other psychological explanations em­phasize the role of parental discipline in forming later attitudes toward rule-breaking behaviour. Punishing children for aggression results, for example, in more (not less) aggressiveness. Still other psychological theories focus on cognitive processes in the criminal mind: how do criminals think? The insider trading scandals may have resulted in part from individuals who lived with delusions of grandeur, who believed that they were above the law.

Rational choice theory rejects the idea that deviants and criminals are irrational or deluded. According to this perspective, potential criminals and deviants weigh the risks and rewards of an anticipated act of deviance. A deviant act is more likely to be attempted if the perceived risks are low and the rewards high.

3. How do structural stress and differential association theories explain differences among groups in rates of deviant behaviour?

Some sociologists try to explain why different groups have different rates of deviance; that is, why do some groups have more instances of deviance per person than other groups? Two sociological theories (structural stress and differential association) suggest that the source of deviance is not to be found in distinctive characteristics of deviants as individuals. Rather, the source of deviance exists in social contexts that lead people to engage in behaviour which violates norms and laws.

As developed by Robert Merton, structural stress theory assumes that social norms define culturally acceptable legitimate goals as well as culturally acceptable means for achieving those goals. Merton suggests that rates of deviant behaviour will be higher among those groups who fail to achieve culturally approved goals by conforming to culturally approved means. In other words, rates of deviance will be higher among groups that experience a discrepancy or disjunction between societal expectations and legitimate opportunities for achieving those expectations.

The source of deviance is found in the structural stress or strain that results from a gap between culturally defined goals and legitimate means of achieving them. What happens when individuals internalise culturally approved goals but cannot reach these goals by acting in normatively approved ways? In such a situation, according to Merton, an individual will respond in one of five ways, and all but the first involve deviance: 1) conformity-seeking legitimate goals by legitimate means; I 2) innovation-pursuing legitimate goals by deviant means; 3) ritualism-abandoning legitimate goals but following culturally prescribed means; 4) retreatism-abandoning both legitimate goals and legitimate means; and 5) rebellion—rejecting culturally approved goals and means and replacing them with a new set of goals and means.

Merton's classification lists five possible responses to a discrepancy between expectations (culturally defined goals) and opportunities (culturally approved means for obtaining goals). In a society like ours, for example, which places a strong value on material or monetary success, a person who is denied a job because of his skin colour must choose from among the five responses described by Merton. If he robs a bank, he is an innovator. If he becomes a hobo and gives up all hope of earning money from a steady job, he is a retreatist. If he joins a revolutionary cult committed to the violent overthrow of the American way of life, he becomes a rebel.

By contrast, differential association theory suggests that deviance is learned through the transmis­sion of certain values and norms among members of a subculture. In everyday language this theory says that a person becomes a thief because " he hangs around with a bad crowd." Such people are socialised to accept the norms and values of a juvenile gang, for example, even though the rest of society considers the gang's norms and values to be deviant. The concept of " cultural transmission" refers to the process of learning to be deviant through interaction with those who condone norms and values that are defined as deviant by the mainstream society. The label " differential association" suggests that people who engage in deviant behaviour spend relatively more time associating with I those who reject mainstream norms and values than with those who conform to them. Deviant subcultures-like a gang or a group of marijuana users or homosexuals-offer role models, emotional. support, and ideological justifications for their members while protecting them somewhat from the negative evaluations and sanctions imposed by the wider society.