Deviance Chapter Outlines
Chapter One Outline
I. What Is Deviance: Lima Peru, Marsha Lindall, Lists ( Cohen, Gouldner, Becker,
Lemert, Henslin, Stafford and Scott)
A. Normative: A group’s notion of actions and conditions that should or should
not occur. Deviance is a violation of norm, standard or expectations. Social
groups create deviance.
B. Reactivist Deviance: Deviance is whatever people label as deviant. Societal
reaction identifies deviance. Deviance is in the eye of the beholder.
C. Absolutist Definition: Deviance results from a value judgment based on a
tradition or custom.
D. Statistical Definition: Common conditions determine what is abnormal.
II. Deviance and Society: Differentness-Judgement-Relative Standards: Deviance refers
to difference and implies something is evaluated negatively or is not valued. Deviance is
a relative notion which depends on the audience’s definition.
A. Norms: Social Norms are expectations of conduct in a particular situation that
regulates human social relations and behavior. Norms vary according to
enforcement, transmittal and conformity. Group members learn and transmit
norms from generation to generation, incorporate them into language, ideas and
beliefs. Norms define categories so people can interpret experiences. Norms play
a role in organizing societies principles.
Proscriptive Norms- Tell people what they should not do.
Prescriptive Norms- Tell people what they should do.
Social Roles- Collections of norms that convey expectations about appropriate
conduct for a position.
B. Differentiation and Deviance: Durkheim, a Functionalist, says that deviance is
needed to define what society has in common or “shared standards”. What is
considered deviant changes over time depending on the people in power who
define the standards of deviance. The people with power usually find more
deviance among those with less power. Crimes with the pen vs. crimes with guns.
Norm Promotion is the exclusion of other competing norms. Moral
Differentiation is the theme that deviance judgments are moral judgments.
C. Subcultures: Deviant acts in one group are acceptable in another as not deviant
due to sub-cultural differences in values and meanings. Subcultures are cultures
within cultures with different norms, values and beliefs than the dominant culture.
Examples are prison gangs, large city slums, inner cities, nudists and chronic
psychiatric patients.
D. The Relativity of Deviance: Debates about deviant acts arise from conflicts
between norms about such acts. Those who commit the acts become classified by
those who create and enforce the norm. So criteria for deviance depends on the
power of certain groups to enforce their norms over their members and other
people. They are called moral entrepreneurs. ( table 1.1)
E. Creating Deviance: When groups perceive threats to their interests, they
convince others that their concerns are legitimate.
1. Missing Children : Child find, Danielle van Dam, runaways, news
media, National Center for missing children.
2. Satanic Cults: Talk shows, mutilations, New Hampshire, scavengers,
predators, rumors.
F. Determining Norms and the Content of Deviance-Cigarettes