Sociology

Sociology Study Guide

• Innovation: Approved goals are achieved using unapproved, immoral, or illegal methods. This is the most common type of deviance. • Ritualism: Approved goals are viewed as irrelevant but still sought out. • Retreatism: Approved goals and means are abandoned. This is viewed by society as a double failure. • Rebellion: Approved goals and means are rejected. New, unapproved goals and methods of achieving them are adopted. Merton places the blame for deviance on society’s structure and culture. • Labeling theory (Symbolic interactionist view): Asserts that deviance is a process that allows some in a society to classify others as deviants. o Focuses on how a person comes to be titled deviant. o In this theory, a person is only a deviant when they are labeled thusly. It is the way a person is labeled, not the act, which these sociologists examine.  Primary deviance is related to unique situations (social, cultural, psychological). These behaviors do no alter a person’s self-concept as they are not internalized. Examples: shoplifting for thrill, sipping alcohol before 21.  Secondary deviance evolves from self-concept. Behaviors stem from identification with the label placed on them by others. They internalize the label and act accordingly. Example: A teen stealing because he is thief. o Empirical evidence suggests that labeling is not influential in the case of deviance. • Control theory: Explains deviance as a result of the failure of social control. o Asks the question of why people conform in the first place. o Believes that people understand right and wrong, but reject environmental causes for criminal behavior. o The more integrated an individual is into his/her community, the less likely they are to commit a deviant behavior.  Strong bonds make deviance costly to the individual.  Weak bonds free a person to deviate; there is no cost or little cost to deviance. • Social control theory: Travis Hirschi. In this theory of criminal behavior, the focus is on why people abstain from committing crimes. o In general, it is society’s moral code that provides the reason. Hirschi details fourmoral bonds that control deviant behavior:  Attachment to others: specifically parents and peers  Commitment: goals would be sacrificed for deviance  Involvement: time constraints restrict available time to be deviant  Belief: conventional moral codes • Self-control theory: Hirschi and Michel Gottfredson. Claims that people are unable to control impulses; they lack self-control and are unable to put off gratification, thus deviance occurs.

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