CONFORMITY, SOCIAL DEVIATION AND SOCIAL

CONTROL

Why do people violate norms?

 People may break out cultural patterns for a variety of reasons and of ways.
 Whether non-conformity is regarded as deviant or merely eccentric depends
on the seriousness of the rules violated.

MYTH or FACTS ABOUT SOCIAL DEVIATION

1. MYTH: Deviance does not serve any useful purpose in society.

FACT: According to Emile Durkheim and other contemporary functionalists,
some degree of deviance are functional for societies.

2. MYTH: Juvenile gangs are an urban problem; few rural areas have problems
with gangs.
FACT: Gangs are frequently thought of as an urban problem because of the
prominence of city gangs organized around drug dealing; however, gangs are
also found in rural areas and in nations around the world.

3. MYTH: Street crime has a much higher economic cost to society than crimes
committed in executive or corporate suits or by the government.
FACT: Although street crime—such as assault and robbery—often has a greater
psychological cost, crimes committed by persons in top positions in business or
government have far greater economic cost, especially for taxpayers.

What is Deviance?
Deviance is any act, behavior, belief or condition that is considered by the public
consensus to be a violation of significant social norms.

When is an act considered deviant?

When norm violation exceeds the tolerance level of the community and result in
negative sanctions, it is considered deviance.

Who defines deviance?

Deviance can be understood only within its social context—an act becomes
deviant when it is socially defined as such. Hence, definitions of deviance vary
widely from place to place, from time to time and from group to group.

Social Foundation of Deviance

1. RELATIVE - SUBJECT TO CHANGE ACROSS TIME & LOCATION
(CROSS CULTURAL).
2. SOCIAL POWER - “…is not a quality of what you do. Rather, it
is the quality of what people REACT to what you do.” (Howard
Becker).
3. STIGMA - Not a personal attribute that is deeply discrediting
(disfiguring disease)
Deviance is Relative.
-Which acts are defined as deviant vary from time to time, place to place,
individuals to individuals and group to group.
Deviance is a social construction
- No act is inherently deviant. Deviance is not an intrinsic attribute of any
behavior, but a quality that people impose upon it.
Deviance vary in degree of seriousness
Deviance ranges from mild transgressions of folkways to more serious infringements
of mores to quite serious violations of the law.

Forms of social deviation

1. Approved - Society recognizes its merit. This act violates some conventional
norms but yields a noble result.
2. Tolerated - This act falls within the tolerance level of society and there is only
a slight degree of reaction to it. It does not merit a heavy sanction or penalty.
3. Disapproved- This act is condemned by society and would definitely
merits a negative sanction.

Sociological Theories on Social Deviance

Structural-Functional Analysis
 Parts work together to achieve harmony.
 Deviance occur when the parts are not working right.
 Deviance is an integral part of all societies and serves four major functions:
» Affirming cultural values and norms;
» Clarifying moral boundaries;
» Promoting social unity;
» Encouraging social change.
 Anomie Theory (Emile Durkheim)
» Deviance occur when rules on how people ought to behave with each other
were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one
another—this is called a state of anomie, or normlessness.
» Anomie—a state where norms (or expectations on behaviors) are confused,
unclear or not present. Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms
—a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in
society.
 Strain Theory (Robert Merton)
» There are certain goals which are strongly emphasized by society and
certain means to reach those goals.
» However, not everyone has the equal access to the legitimate means to
attain those goals.
» Strain Theory—the structured inequality of opportunity or restricted access
to socially approved goals and means that makes some people prone to
anomie or deviant behaviors.
» Crime and other deviant acts are results of frustrations suffered by lower-
class individuals deprived of legitimate means to reach their goals.
 » Five Adaptive Strategies to Strain:
1. Conformity, the acceptance of both cultural goals and socially
prescribed means. It is the bedrock of a stable and properly
functioning society.
2. Innovation, individuals who accept societal goals but develop
alternative means to achieve those goals, hence they innovate (or
design) their own means to get ahead (e.g. embezzlement,
prostitution, swindling, drug trafficking).
3. Ritualism, involves abandoning or rejecting societal goals while
abiding compulsively by the institutionalized means. Individuals
play by the rules and have a daily safe routine (e.g. religious
fanatic, bureaucratic robots).
4. Retreatism, individuals reject both the goals and the
institutionalized means without substituting new norms, they
escape into a non-productive, non-striving lifestyle (e.g. alcoholics,
drug addicts, vagabonds, drifters, etc.).
5. Rebellion, occurs when the cultural goals and the legitimate means
are rejected. Individuals create their own goals and their own
means, by protest or revolutionary activity, to create an alternative
society.
 Subculture Theory
» Subculture theory believes that the delinquent subcultures emerged in
response to the special problems that members of mainstream society do
not face.
» A subculture is defined as a subdivision within the dominant culture that
has its own norms, values and belief system. It exists within the larger
society, not apart from it.
» Subcultures emerge when individuals in similar circumstances find
themselves isolated or neglected by mainstream society. Thus they group
together for mutual support.
Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
 The symbolic-interaction paradigm focuses on the creation of deviance as a social
process learned through interaction with others and the extent to which
definitions of deviance and conformity are flexible.
 Labeling Theory (Howard Becker)
» Labeling theory, the assertion that deviance and conformity result, not
only from what people do, but from how others respond or react to those
actions. It hence stresses the relativity of deviance.
» The label deviant comes to be attached to specific people and specific
behaviors. For Becker, “deviant behavior is behavior that people so
label.”
» From this point of view, criminal acts are thus not significant, it is the
social reaction to them that are important.
» Deviance and its control then involves a process of social definition—which
involves the response from others to an individual’s behavior and is the key
to how an individual views himself.
» When it becomes known that a person has engaged in deviant acts, he is
then segregated from society and thus labeled. This process of segregation
creates “outsiders”, who are outcast from society, and then begin to
associate with other individuals who have also been cast out.
» “Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a
consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an
offender. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been
 applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.” –Howard
Becker
 Differential Association Theory (Edwin Sutherland)
» Differential Association Theory suggests that deviance is learned through
association and interaction with others who encourage violating norms (e.g.
learning how to some marijuana, how to mug people, how to apply graffiti,
or children developing delinquent behaviors). People become deviant by
learning (or association) the criminal values of the group to which they
belonged to.
 Control Theory (Travis Hitachi)
» Control Theory points out that the more involved and committed a person
is to conventional activities and the greater the attachment to others, the
less likely the person is to violate the rules of society—hence there is
conformity.
» Deviance occurs when individuals lack the ties to conventional society that
are necessary to curb their normal tendency to deviance.
» Types of Social Control:
1. Attachment—the process of being involved in social relationship
with others—control is more likely where the psychological and
emotional connections among group members are high.
2. Involvement—people spend their time conforming by involvement
in conventional activities.
3. Commitment—the strength of the investment people have made in
conventional social ties and relationship.
4. Belief in conventional values and ideas about morality cements the
bond to society
Social Conflict Theory
 Social inequality, which creates competition and class conflict, serves as the basis
of the social-conflict theory as it relates to deviance.
 Class conflict affects deviance in two ways: (1) class interests determine which
acts are criminalized and how heavily they are punished; (2) economic pressures
lead to offenses, particularly property offenses, among the poor.
Functions of Deviance
 Deviance facilitates social functioning. Reacting publicly to deviance can promote
conformity.
 Norms are not always clear, hence deviance highlight and sharpen the contours of
a norm.
 By directing attention to the deviant, a group may strengthen itself.
 Deviance is a catalyst for change—every time a rule is violated, it is being
contested (e.g. civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, etc.)
Dysfunctions of Deviance
 Persistent and widespread deviance can impair and undermine organized social
life.
 Deviance also undermines our willingness to play our roles and contribute to the
larger social enterprise.
 Our social life requires that we trust social institutions and one another. Deviant
behavior can undermine this trust, threatening our most important social
relationships and institutions.
Crime as Deviance
 Crimes are acts that violate important norms and values and hence are subject to
legal or civil penalties.
 Crimes represent serious penalties to the well-being of individuals and society
and must be controlled.
Types of Crime
 Crimes involving the use of force or threat are known as crimes of violence.
» Crimes of violence may involve crimes against person (e.g. murder, rape,
kidnapping) or property (robbery, extortion)
 Victimless crimes are voluntary exchanges between persons who desire goods or
services from one another.
» Examples: drug abuse, prostitution, homosexuality, gambling and
pornography.
» They are called “victimless crimes” because there are no readily apparent
or complaining victims.
 Crimes carried by respectable people during the course of their occupations are
called white-collar crimes.
» This includes offenses such as false advertising, price fixing,
embezzlement, tax evasion and illegal dumping of garbage.
Social Control
 Social control involves the attempt that society makes at controlling individual
thought and behaviour.
 There are two forms of social control: internal (operates within the individual
even w/o the reaction of others) or external (other people’s responses to a
person’s behaviour such as rewards/punishment) social control.
 Social control takes place at three levels:
» Through self-control, we police ourselves as we internalize norms and
values;
» Through informal social controls, as our significant others encourage us to
conform and punish us for non-conformity; and
» Through formal social controls or administrative sanctions, the state and
other authorities discourage non-conformity.
 Formal social control:
 Law enforcement and crime control are the responsibility of the following:
1. Police—who investigate and arrest persons suspected of committing crimes;
2. Judicial courts—who prosecute persons charged with crimes; and
3. Prisons—who administer punishment or treatment to persons convicted of
crimes.
 Reasons for punishment of crime:
» Retribution—society punishes offenders to revenge the victim of crime and
society as a whole, hence a form of moral retaliation.
» Reformation—offenders are corrected and reformed so that they will
become upstanding members of the community again.
» Deterrence—punishment is intended to discourage deviance or further
offenses.
» Prevention—by incapacitating offenders, society keeps them from
committing further crimes against society.