Managing a Deviant Identity
• Attempts at Normalizing primary deviance in the
Labeling process
• When people are judged as deviant, they are expected
to explain their behavior (primary deviance)
• Often accomplished by the use of Vocabularies of Motive
• Provides a strategy for the individual to create/maintain
“distance” between the deviance and their own self
concept
• Common Assumptions about Vocabularies of Motive
- Rely upon consensus about conventional norms
- Those labeled “deviant” feel the sting of stigma and moral
judgment it implies
- Deviants admire & respect those with some claim to
conventional status
Vocabularies of Motive: The
Sociology of Mitigating Stigma
Vocabulary of Motive (C. Wright Mills)
An attempt to present an act that produces a
negative reaction in terms that are culturally
acceptable
2 Frameworks that identify types of Vocabularies of
Motive:
•Techniques of Neutralization (Matza and Sykes
1957)
•Accounts (Scott and Lyman 1968)
Negotiating a Deviant Identity
Techniques of Neutralization
• People labeled “deviant” employ rationalizations to
“free” them from social bonds (constrained acts).
Employed prior to act.
• Sometimes associated with Control theory
(Hirschi). How come?
– Denial of Responsibility (Social forces caused individual
action)
– Denial of Injury (No real harm was caused; no blood no
foul)
– Denial of Victim (Victim deserved harm)
– Condemnation of Condemners (Shift focus to actions of
social control agents)
– Appeal to Higher Loyalties (Subcultural values associations take precedence over conventional value
systems)
Influence of Situational Cheating Among
College Students (Reserve 5 - McCabe)
Analysis of Techniques of Neutralization
used by students.
Data Source?
Extent of Cheating?
Review of Neutralization Techniques
Most common techniques used?
Examples?
Vocabularies of Motive
Accounts
Linguistic tools that attempt to remove some of the blame or
responsibility for an act judged as deviant after it has been
committed.*
Socially approved vocabularies effectively neutralize the act or its
consequences for the actor’s self concept
*Note that this is one important difference b/t Accounts and
Techniques of Neutralization (which Matza and Sykes claim must
occur before the (deviant) act).
Vocabularies of Motive
Accounts
2 Types:
• Excuses
• Justifications
Both entail 2 elements:
1. Stance on the moral judgment of the act
2. Stance on the culpability of the (deviant) actor
Vocabularies of Motive
• Excuses
Admit the act is bad (agree with social judgment
of the act)
Does not accept full responsibility
• Justifications
Deny social judgment of the act as wrong (in
conflict with social norms)
Justifications suggest that the act was
appropriate in light of the circumstances
Accepts responsibility for the act (logical - since
the act is not conceived of as morally wrong)
Rapists Vocabulary of Motive
(Scully and Marolla, Ch 24)
• Data Source?
• Breakdown of Rapists Linguistic Strategies
– Admitters
– Deniers
• Excuses
• Use of Alcohol and Drugs (denial of responsibility)
– Rapist vs. Victim Patterns
• Emotional Problems (denial of responsibility)
• Nice Guy Image
– Social Capital of Rapist
Rapists Vocabulary of Motive
(Scully and Marolla, Ch 24)
• Justifications
– Broadly available in contemporary American society - ♀ as
commodities
– Available to both Rapists/Victims and Society as a whole
•
•
•
•
Women as Seductresses (sexually aggressive)
“No” really means Yes (denial of injury)
Most relax and enjoy it (denial of injury)
Nice girls don’t get raped (Sexual reputation of victim, A/D use,
appearance – denial of victim)
• Guilty of a minor wrong (denial of injury)
What strategy was being employed by Kobe Bryant’s
defense team?
Conclusions about the Medical Model (rape as a psychiatric
pathology)? Perhaps, but most rapists are NOT “sick” –
though they may use that as an excuse in the active use of
cultural scripts to disavow their rapes
Priests & Pedophilia (Ch. 25) Thomson, Marolla
and Bromley
Extension of the Accounting for Deviance Model
Accounts include Justifications and Excuses (like Ch. 24)
• Justifications -Denial of Injury most common (consensual behavior)
• Excuses
-Accident (redeems church)
-Scapegoating (focus on motives of the accuser(s)
-Defeasibility (fallibility of priests as human)
Identify a new type of Account: “Disclaimer”
Disclaimers precede the act of deviance (more consistent with
Techniques of Neutralization)
Disclaimer: a verbal device employed to ward off and defeat in
advance doubts and negative typifications.
Function to Cushion anticipated reaction
Priests & Pedophilia (Ch. 25)
Thomson, Marolla and Bromley
5 types of disclaimers used by pedophilic priests:
1. Hedging
Uncertain about response to anticipated action
2. Credentialing
Most common among priests: use of authority to approve behavior
3. Sin license
Usual rules are contextually suspended to allow action
4. Cognitive
Intended to forge agreement about appropriate action in light of the
“facts” of the situation
5. Appeals for the suspension of judgment
Wait to pass judgment until the meaning of the behavior is clarified