Deviance

Deviance is the behaviors, beliefs, or traits that violate the laws, rules, or norms of a society. Whether it is a direct act or a simple comment, deviance is the defilement of a custom that does not fit into society's picture of what is right. It is typically commited by a non-comformist, a person who does not meet or follow the basic standards or regulations of the said society. That being said, Professor Steven Landsburg was considered a deviant amongst a great portion of the people's eye. At…

A major question that has plagued the field of abnormal behavior is, what are the criteria for abnormal behavior (or psychopathology, mental illness, or a similar term)? Perhaps a clue to the answer can be seen in the medical profession, that can diagnose physical illness or disease fairly accurately. In the history of developing successful diagnostic procedures in medicine, a primary prerequisite has been a fairly precise knowledge of what constitutes normal anatomy and physiological…

Femme Fatale and the affirmation of “the hierarchies and relations between the sexes sanctioned by bourgeois society,” Marlowe chooses to idealize past conceptions of gender and label anything that exists outside this conception with “the status of deviance” (Hoefer 50). In this way, Chandler, vicariously through Marlowe’s perceptions and thoughts, chooses to view those who are outside of his preconceived notions as the…

In criminology, the strain theory depicts social structures inside society that may support individuals to do wrongdoing. Strain theory was created from work by Durkheim and Merton an gotten from the theory of anomie. Durkheim focused on the decrease of societal control and the strain that was caused at the individual level, and Merton broke down the social association that is available between the individual and the measures of society. Anomie can be part into two separate levels. The first of…

Deviant behavior in the workplace can be defined as any employee conducting behavior(s) that are against the norms of the organization and threatens its members, well-being of the organization itself, or both (“Workplace Deviant Behavior,” 2014). Studies have indicated that deviant behavior in the workplace is responsible for at least 30 percent failure rate of businesses (Nair & Bhatnager, 2011, p. 289). Covering up an organization’s deviant or criminal behavior(s) can be detrimental to…

friend, Nico, is from the same hometown as me and we became friends in high school. He was a relatively quiet kid and stayed out of trouble all throughout high school. It was not until he went away to college that he found himself in trouble with deviance. He was not the typical case of a kid who goes away and cannot handle all of the freedom and responsibility that is presented with college. He was on the football team at college, so he did not go out much, and spent most of his weekend…

Many Sociologists, like Durkheim, express that Deviance is necessary for society. Durkheim portrays the idea of Adaptive functions and Boundary maintenance(Giddens, 2013). He indicated that deviance can bring new ideas into society and can bring social and cultural ideas. Many sociologists may conclude that his knowledge is correct, however, crime still today is affecting social instability in major factors. Major negative factors that will be brought upon in this essay is the affect on the…

Deviance is pretty much the “labor” that society successfully applied to an individual. “The consequence is that we become more interested in the process by which deviants are defined by the rest of the society, than in the nature of the deviant act itself.” (Sociology 149) I found that the text of the contributions of labeling theory to be the gist of success or failure in schools. However, I feel that self-fulfilling prophecy can be defined as any expectation, positive or negative, a…

Fear of the Psychologically Abnormal in Faulkner’s Pre-modern American Era Society has always been based upon a diverse mixture of cultural norms and perceived deviance. In Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily some of these sociologically deviant behaviors are displayed by Ms. Emily Grierson. Throughout A Rose for Emily psychological abnormality is an ongoing theme. Faulkner was born during the Second Industrial Revolution and lived through The Great Depression and World War II before dying in the…

distinction between deviance and non-deviant behavior. Being labeled can have a tremendous effect on an individual's self-image, this can result in the individual rejecting themselves, and result in more deviant behavior as a result of the label. In the 1960’s, Howard Becker an American Sociologist developed labeling theory and applied it to studying deviant behavior. In the 1963 book titled Outsiders Becker first book discussing labeling theory, Becker explains : “social groups create deviance…