Approaches to Defining Deviance

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Approaches to Defining Deviance

• 4 Primary Approaches
• Absolutist
• Deviant behavior constitutes actions that are in
  violation of a universal morality.
• By morality sociologists mean a belief system
  for distinguishing right/good from wrong/bad.
• Fails to take into account situational or
  contextual factors (cultural differences
  historical factors)

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Western Judeo-Christian Absolutism

• Ten Commandments (Exodus)
• Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
• Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
• Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy God
  in vain
• Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
• Honor thy father and thy mother
• Thou shalt not kill
• Thou shalt not commit adultery
• Thou shalt not steal
• Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
  neighbour
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, Etc.

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Approaches to Defining Deviance

• Statistical
• Deviant behavior constitutes actions that are a
  numerical minority. Conformity is defined by
  majority behavior.
• Majority rule, minority deviance
• Criticism What may be otherwise thought of as
  deviant behavior is from the statistical view is
  behavior in which a numerical majority engages
  (e.g. pre-marital sex minor delinquency
  speeding)

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Approaches to Defining Deviance

• 3) Reactivist
• Deviance is any behavior which produces a
  negative reaction. This puts the focus on
  those reacting rather than the deviant.
• Highly situational/contextual (subjectivist).
• Criticism A norm violation is necessary before
  any reaction to deviance takes place.

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Approaches to Defining Deviance

• 4) Normative (objective)
• Deviance is defined by violation of a social
  norm. Social norms can be identified in an
  objective way.
• Contextual, but less so than the Reactivist
  approach
• Deviance hinges on a group notion of
• what ought to be (Prescriptions)
• What should not be (Proscriptions)
• Norms require a significant level of group
  consensus

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• Issues to be Aware of in Defining Deviance
• Individual properties relevant to a deviant
  status
• Attitudes, Beliefs
• Behavior
• Conditional characteristics
• Ascribed characteristics
• Achieved
• Choices or agency
• Structural influences on deviance
• Structural differences in life chances
• Power differences in defining deviance
• Cultural frameworks, which provide meaning to
  interpreting behavior
• We will examine both levels and try to make
  connections (Structuration Giddens)

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How Distinct is Deviance?
Ch 2 (Tittle Paternoster) makes this point.
They focus on middle class norms because society
is too fractured from their view to hold a single
set of norms applicable to all members of
society. Do you agree?
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More on Norms

• Three dimensions of social norms
• Folkways - concerned with minor, everyday
  conventions of behavior etiquette, tradition,
  etc.
• Mores - based upon larger societal level
  standards of morality.
• Laws strongest set of norms formally codified,
  sanctioned, etc.

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Folkways, Mores, and Law

• Emile Durkheim on Deviance Part Reactivist,
  part Normative
• What distinguishes different behaviors from one
  another?
• Crime Acts that violate collective sentiments
• Collective Sentiments
• Beliefs shared by social groups all social
  groups can be thought of as cultural communities
• Culture the distinctive way of life for a group
  of people
• Altruistic Sentiment Respect for that which is
  anothers
• Durkheims Assumptions about Human Nature

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Durkheim on Deviance/Crime

• Defining characteristic of crime is punishment
  that follows a criminal act
• The defining element is the social reaction to
  the act, especially the intensity of reaction.

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Altruistic Sentiment Scale
Durkheim wants to know What distinguishes crime
from poor taste?
Poor taste
Robbery
low
High
Moral boundaries
Formal Negative Sanctions are applied when a
threshold of collective sentiments is violated
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Notes on Moral Boundaries

• Variable according to changes in collective
  sentiments
• Definitions change over time
• Change over social space (audiences vary)
• Amount of deviance, however is relatively stable
• Subculture
• A group with a distinctive way of life that
  maintains some ties to larger the society/culture
• Sanctions
• Positive Negative
• Formal Informal
• Sanctions are social devices to produce
  conformity