Deviance (Week 7) - Conan Chua

1. Summary

A violation of social norms is known as Deviance. The degree of violation can be split into two categories; Formal and Informal Deviance. Formal deviance are acts such as crime that lead to serious societal consequences. Informal deviance refer to more everyday types of “abnormal” social behaviour such as nose picking or farting in public. For an act to be classified as deviance of any kind is largely dependent on the culture, and the variance can be quite large. Cultural in the sense that is not limited to social but also religion.

Controlling deviant behaviour also comes in two forms, dealing with either Formal or Informal deviance. Formal Social Control includes correctional facilities (prisons) and mental health facilities. These facilities employ different methods of correcting social deviance, which include retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and societal protection (separating deviant and non-deviant people). 

Informal Social Control can be conducted by the people around you, such as when parents correct their children’s behaviour.

Robert K. Merton categorized deviance as rejection of cultural goals or normalized means of attaining goals. There are 5 combinations of the aforementioned qualities, resulting in 5 different types of deviance. Conformity is the acceptance of both cultural goals and the means of attaining those goals. Innovation is the acceptance of cultural goals but rejecting the normalized means. 

Ritualism is the rejection of goals but still adhering to the means. Retreatism is the rejection of both goals and means. Rebellion is when someone seeks a new goal through new means.

From the structural-functionalism perspective, deviance is seen as a “compliment” to normalized behaviour. As the saying goes, “there can be no good without evil”. The way society handles deviant behaviour can be a way to encourage more normalized behaviour.

From the conflict theory point of view, deviance arises from an imbalance in the power and resource distribution within a society, and deviant acts are only committed as a last resort to survive.

From the labelling theory point of view, deviant behaviour is the result of a deviant “label” being applied to a person, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, in this case, the deviant label has to first be established in another way for it to gain its deviant meaning.

2. Something of interest to me

I feel that deviant behaviour may not all have to be inherently bad. Deviant behaviour could be the reason why society progresses in the first place. If everyone just did things the same way since the very beginning, nobody will have any possible improvement in their lives. There is so much negative connotation to the word deviant that it may give people the wrong impression. The first time someone put 2 wheels and a frame together to ride around faster than they could walk, everyone would have seen that as deviant behaviour; but that’s how we got bicycles.

3. Discussion point

Learning about the many forms of deviance and the different perspectives that we can look at deviance brought one question to my mind. How can we look at deviance as a continuous process of societal growth? What was once a deviant act may become normalized as more and more people adopt the same thinking or action. At what stage of widespread use does a deviant act become normalized?