DRILL

1) What was the most interesting thing you found about your country’s culture in your research?

2) When you hear the word deviance what do you think about? What is your definition of it?

3) Give two examples of things that you would consider being deviant.

DRILL

1) Why is deviance considered a relative term? Think back to the example with the natives and the anthropologist.

2) Give two examples of deviant acts that aren’t criminal in nature.

If you were in the place of the anthropologist, what would your

reaction be?

What were some of the behaviors of the natives that would seem out of

place in our society?

DEVIANCE

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Deviance – violation of a society’s norms.• Any type of violation that creates a response –

from not saying “excuse me” when being impolite to committing murder.

• These acts are labeled as deviant behavior.

It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act that make something deviant – Howard Becker, Sociologist

EVERY PERSON COMMITS DEVIANT ACTS

What is deviance?

• Deviance is relative – what might be considered deviant in one culture is not in another.> different groups have different norms and values

• Deviance is also a neutral term – it only means that negative reactions are produced, not whether the behavior is right or wrong.> Remember, sociologists are supposed to be objective in their research

Think back to the natives and the anthropologist.Think about the two different cultures coming together, and

the two different sets of values and norms.

Who was really being deviant and why?

• To be considered deviant, a person does not even have to do anything.

• Stigma – a term to refer to characteristics that discredit people.

Includes violations of appearance (obesity) and ability (blindness). But what else?

Stigmas

Norms make social life possible because they make behavior predictable.

• Without norms we would have social chaos, but instead we have social order – a groups customary social arrangements.

• This is why deviance is perceived as threatening – it undermines what makes life predictable.

• To keep social order, societies have developed social control – formal and informal ways of enforcing norms (Sanctions)

Why Norms Are So Important

The Evolution of Miley Cyrus2010 2013

• Socio-biologists look to explain deviance by looking for answers within individuals.

• Socio-biologists believe that genetic predispositions lead people to such behaviors.

• For instance a people once thought that men with an extra Y chromosome would be more predisposed to committing crime (XYY theory)

• These theories were abandoned when research did not support them

Biosocial Explanations

But men are overwhelmingly more deviant than women in every culture? Why?

Women are the ones most often responsible for raising childrenWomen have greater empathy – compassion and caring for

others.MENLess commitment – more easily take risks.

Less responsibilities - lower self control

WOMENMust bear children – less likely to take risks

Greater Responsibility – greater self control

• Psychologists look to explain deviance by examining personality disorders.

• They suggest that deviating behavior stems from deviating personalities.

• Subconscious motives drive people to deviance• Common explanations include bad childhood

experiences, but research has rejected such theories.

Psychological Explanations

• No connection between childhood experiences and deviant behavior.

• A bad childhood is just as likely to make someone deviant as it is to create suppressed anger to become a military hero.

• It’s just as likely for a normal person to commit deviant acts.Deviance is not associated with any particular

personality

NO CORRELATION

• In contrast to what we have looked at so far, sociologists are concerned with factors outside the individual that cause deviance.

• They look for social influences that “recruit” people to break norms.

• In other words, certain social facts can influence people to the point where bad decisions suddenly seem perfectly normal.

Sociological Explanations