Watch Me!

SOCIAL DEVIATION AND DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Clinard (1968)

• Each society has sets of norms and variations in attitudes toward deviation from various normative rules.

• Reactions to deviations from social norms can vary in the direction of approval, tolerance, or disapproval.

Social

deviatio

n

Deviant behavior

The deviant behavior of a criminal group represents a departure from societal norms, but the group itself may be highly organized and individual conduct may be in accord with the norms of a subgroup of which the law violator is a part.

• Deviations from politeness, dress, table manners, and cleanliness

• Lying and malicious gossip

• Murder, burglary, and robbery

• Deviant behavior is essentially violation of certain types of group norms

• A deviant act is a behavior which is proscribed in a certain way.

Only those deviations in which behavior is in a disapproved direction, and of sufficient degree to exceed the tolerance limit of the community constitute deviant behavior.

– This includes such deviations from norms as delinquency and crime, prostitution, homosexual behavior, drug addiction, alcoholism, mental disorders, suicide, marital and family maladjustment, etc.

For some other deviations from norms one might adopt Merton’s (1966) distinction between Two

Types of deviation:

* Aberrant behavior* Nonconformity

Aberrant behavior

Aberrant behavior resembles much of what we have termed deviant behavior, such as crimes where individuals violate the norms in the pursuit of their own ends and do not seek to change the norms.

NonconformityThe nonconformists, such

as beatniks, hippies, and often political offenders, announce their dissent publicly, challenge the legitimacy of the norms and laws they violate, aim to change the norms they are denying in practice.

HIPPIES

BEATNIKS

{ The extent and the degree of disapproval in a particular instance is dependent on the nature of the situation and the community’s degree of tolerance of the behavior involved.

{ A given situation of deviation depends, therefore, on the reaction of others and to some extent on the reaction of the deviant.

[ Wide variations exist in the “social visibility” of negatively regarded acts of deviation, that is the extent to which behavior comes to the attention of people within a society and the extent to which the acts are defined as “deviant”.