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Understanding Deviance: Conscious Choices and Contributing Factors

This work explores the complex nature of deviance, emphasizing the conscious decisions individuals make to deviate from societal norms. It assesses various contributing factors, including social background, effective environments, and the role of peers in shaping attitudes toward deviance. The text discusses key concepts such as commitment to conformity, techniques of neutralization, and the influence of biography on decision-making. Ultimately, it highlights the interplay between agency, social context, and the moral evaluations that accompany deviant behavior.

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Understanding Deviance: Conscious Choices and Contributing Factors

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Presentation Transcript

  1. Becoming Deviant(Erdwin Pfhul & Stuart Henry) • Key Assumption • People know • Deviation: a conscious decision

  2. Becoming Deviant: Contributing Factors • “The Effective Environment” • Actual circumstances • & interpretation

  3. Becoming Deviant: Contributing Factors • Biography • Our social background • Effective environment & biography shape: • Affinity • Willingness

  4. Factors Contributing (to Affinity & Willingness) • Everyday life: • where we are now • Role of others • Friends: role models • Provide reasons, rationales • Support

  5. Factors Contributing (to Affinity & Willingness) • Commitment • Commitment to conform, P of deviance • Inverse relationship • Hirschi • Definition of self • “Am I the kind of person that would do that?”

  6. Factors Contributing (to Affinity & Willingness) • Deciding to deviate • Overcoming moral constraints • Techniques of neutralization, again (Sykes & Matza)

  7. Additions to Sykes and Matza • Metaphor of the Ledger: (Klockars, 1974) • one bad act in an otherwise good record • Claim of Normality: (Henry, 1978) • yes, it's illegal, but . . . • Rule’s moral significance is trivialized • Denial of Negative Intent (Moss, 1990) • Acknowledge harm, but claim that the harm was not intentional • "just having fun", "never meant for it to go so far"

  8. Additions to Sykes & Matza, cont’d • Claim of Relative Acceptability (Moss, 1990) • others' behavior is worse than the action in question

  9. Cautionary Notes • Willingness is NOT commitment • Willingness has to be renewed (people change) • People aren't deviant for all time • Biography is always in the making

  10. Continuing the Deviance? • People evaluate their deviant experience • Good? bad? • Motives(affect decision initially and whether to continue) • $ • Recreation • Status

  11. Motives • Motives (cont’d) • Political • protest; desire to change meanings • Problem-Solving • Moral emotions: humiliation, indignance • To maintain in a stressful situation • Self-help • Interpersonal/Social • The deviance maintains a relationship

  12. Summary Comments • Emphasis on “Agency” and Choice • Irony: Common ground with Classical Theory • BUT – • Still focused on moral entrepreneurs and agents of control

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