For instance, a group has the norm that Jan always talks first. When the other group members choose to wait for Jan to speak first, they conform. If one day Harold says something before Jan, Harold has deviated from the group norm. Before we begin our examination of conformity and deviance, we need to discuss some important points about norms.
Groups can establish norms concerning almost any behavior, as long as they consider the behavior important. However, all norms are not created equal. They have different qualities, such as whether the group itself created the norm, or how much the group accepts the norm.
Here is an example. At Good Old State University , it has long been normative to dress in the "international student uniform," which consists of clothing such as blue jeans, tennis or running shoes, sweatshirts, T-shirts, and the like. At West Point , on the other hand, it is normative to dress in a very different kind of uniform, the cadet uniform.
These "dress" norms may have qualities that vary greatly. We can classify them and all other norms according to different criteria. For instance, we can group them according to their degree of formality versus informality. Another criterion is the extent to which they are imposed upon the group from outside or from within the group itself. Scientists have found that formal norms tend to come from an outside source. We can see this at work in the example of.
In contrast, informal norms tend to emerge, as in the "international student uniform," from the group itself. A further criterion is the degree of permissible deviation. Norms can also vary in degree of group acceptance. We can assume that the students at Good Old State U. Most West Point students probably do not wear their uniforms while on vacation, for example.
One last important point to remember about norms is that they can apply to group members in different ways. Some norms may apply to all members; other norms are relevant only to people taking specific roles in the group.
As we begin our discussion, we need to point out that there will be some ambiguity in this chapter. You may find yourself wondering at times if we are examining our topic in relation to how a group does things or in relation to the group's outcome.
You can intuitively see that norms apply to both behaviors. Groups create norms to direct their members' actions in the group, and they also approve norms that relate to specific policy proposals they consider. For example, a group develops norms that apply to how it runs its meetings. Beth always calls the meeting to order, Rob usually makes a joke to break the ice, the group votes on important topics, and so on. These norms relate to how the group does its job. The group might also, for instance, decide that all the members must wear green shirts to the meetings and that all must agree with a certain political philosophy.
Such norms apply to the group's outcome. In short, there is a distinction between how the group makes decisions and what the decisions are. However, this distinction is not very important from the structural perspective. For this reason, we will not specify when we are describing norms that apply to how a group works and when we are looking at norms regarding the outcome of a group. This ambiguity does not affect our discussion.
Why do people conform to group standards? First and foremost, group members must conform to make decisions. Conformity occurs when members choose the course of action that the majority favors. For instance, a group may have a norm that requires group consensus before it can adopt a course of action.
A group consensus exists if every member of the group is willing to accept a proposal. Consensus does not imply that every member of the group really likes the proposal; it does imply that they all feel they can live with the proposal.
Every person in the group must eventually conform to some decision, or the group remains stalemated. Another group might have a norm that a voting majority will dictate what the group does. In this case, only a majority of the members must conform to an option.
However, all group members need to conform to the idea that "majority rule" is the accepted procedure. Hence, group members in any kind of group must conform in some way before the group can successfully reach any decision. Without conformity, the group will stand still.
We can take this idea a step further. Members must conform to some operating procedure before the group can perform any task, including the task of making a decision. We can see why conformity is essential before a group can reach a decision.
For example, three people might come together in a school lunchroom. They consider themselves a group and have met to plan a school dance. However, the three people are not willing to agree on how the group should operate. They sit at their table and argue over whether the group should vote on topics or whether they should select a leader and allow that person to have a majority of the power. Without solving this problem, the group members try to decide if they should write a list of tasks, but they cannot make a decision because they do not know whether they should vote on it.
As you can see, the group is unable to accomplish anything because the members will not conform in any way. Motivational Reasons. The same motivational reasons that people have for joining groups in the first place can also cause people to conform. Their reasons for conforming are:.
To gain acceptance from the other group members. To achieve goals that the group intends to reach. To achieve personal goals that they can reach through group membership for example, impressing another member to whom they are attracted. To enjoy taking part in group activities and wanting to ensure the group's continuation. There is an additional motivational reason that could lead to conformity. People may conform because the group succeeds in persuading or pressuring them to do so. We will discuss this possibility further in the next section.
Social Comparison Theory. Some researchers have proposed that people also conform as a result of a psychological need to evaluate themselves. The theory is that people want to know whether their beliefs and opinions are what they should be. Festinger described this as a process of conformity for the sake of correctness.
Researchers call his hypothesis "social comparison theory. According to Festinger , humans have a need to be "correct. There are different kinds of standards. In the case of a belief about "physical reality," the criteria are absolute. For example, if we want to know whether we should think that an object is breakable, we only need to hit it with a hammer to find out what we should believe.
In contrast, the standards concerning beliefs about "social reality" are relative. Festinger divides beliefs about social reality into two categories. The first includes "beliefs about abilities," and the second involves "opinions. An important point is that these people cannot be too divergent from us. If they are, our comparisons with them will be meaningless.
For instance, a high-school basketball player who wishes to make a self-evaluation of his abilities as a player would be foolish to use either Michael Jordan as a standard or, at the other extreme, a three-year-old who is trying to dribble. As another example, a moderate Democrat wants to judge herself regarding an opinion. She should not use either a member of the Socialist Workers Party or a person from the Libertarian Party as a criterion. Festinger's theory also maintains that people will attempt to change their abilities and opinions if they are not satisfied with their self-evaluation.
However, the reactions to opinions and abilities differ because people cannot react to the two categories of beliefs in the same way. People can rank abilities on a scale from "good" to "bad.
It is clear that a person must move toward the "good" direction on the ranking scale in order to improve. People react to opinions differently. Instead of rating their opinions on a scale of "good" to "bad," they rate from "correct" to "incorrect. For the Democrat to "improve" her opinions, she must change them until they are closer to the opinions of other members of the Democratic Party.
She does so because she considers the opinions of other members of the Democratic Party correct. Cognitive Dissonance Theory Social comparison theory has been very influential in the field of small-group research. However, it is not a satisfactory explanation for conformity. The weakness in the theory is that the link between a need to evaluate oneself and a tendency to change oneself is not clear.
Why should a negative self-evaluation lead someone to change and conform? Perhaps a person is satisfied with his or her lot, whether good or bad. Festinger saw this weakness in the theory. He offered one explanation for why a person would change in reaction to a negative self-evaluation of abilities.
Festinger felt that there is a cultural value for self-improvement in our society. This, he said, is the link between judgment and change when abilities are involved. However, social comparison theory still could not explain why people would change their opinions in order to conform.
Festinger created a new theory to help explain why this might happen. In he proposed the theory called "cognitive dissonance. Festinger hypothesized that two beliefs are dissonant if one of them implies the opposite of the other. For example, a person may say, "I like my group," and also, "I disagree with my group. Without the third statement, the other two may never cause a conflict for the person. The implications of cognitive dissonance become more interesting if one of the "belief" statements involves an actual behavior.
For example, an individual may have three opinions about a group. One of these opinions involves a behavior. He or she might say, "I don't like the group," and "I don't like the task," but also, "I helped the group with the task. The first outcome is that the person experiences dissonance and must change something to be consistent. The third statement above involves the idea that the person agreed to do something. This is relatively impervious to change because it is about an actual behavior.
Thus, the person can only really change the first two statements. The theory is unable to predict for certain which of the two opinions will most likely change. This inability is a weakness of the dissonance hypothesis. The second possible outcome when a behavior statement is part of the equation is that the person will not experience dissonance and will not need to change beliefs.
This can happen because he or she may come to believe that the act of compliance is a result of pressure from the group. The group, and not the person, is responsible for the conforming action. If this occurs, the fact that the person complied is irrelevant to his or her beliefs. There is no need to change opinions. For example, Heidi agrees to paint a house with a group. After doing so, she realizes that she does not like the group, and she does not like to paint.
She may feel that she has agreed to be part of the group and is herself responsible for joining it. If she feels this way, Heidi probably will experience some internal conflict. In that case, she needs to decide either that she does not really mind the group or that she likes painting. Or Heidi may tell the group that she wants to quit painting, but the group pressures her and says that she must continue. In such a case, Heidi probably feels no dissonance; and she does not feel a need to change her beliefs.
She can continue to paint, feeling inside that she does not like what she is doing or the group around her. Thus, dissonance is a factor only when there is inconsistency between a person's beliefs and a behavior for which the person feels personally responsible.
If someone does not feel responsible for a conforming action, there is no internal conflict. We can find similar conclusions regarding responsibility for actions within attribution theory, which was described in Chapter 3. This similarity is no accident, as Bem has shown. Kiesler and DeSalvo study. Kiesler and DeSalvo performed a study in to explore the idea that a feeling of personal responsibility is necessary before someone will experience dissonance.
In their study, the researchers assigned women to task groups. They also led these women to believe that they disagreed with the rest of their group members regarding which tasks the group should perform. There were two possible tasks.
The experimenters further "gently" induced half of the participants to perform the "disapproved" task, while the other half merely "knew" of the disagreement but did not act on it. Lastly, they led the participants to believe that they would either like or dislike the group. For example, Mary and Sue come to the experiment.
The researchers tell Mary that the best task to do is Task Alpha. However, they also tell her that the group will want to do Task Beta instead. They further tell Mary that she can feel free to go ahead and pursue Task Alpha when the group meets and that she will like the other group members. Sue, on the other hand, hears that Task Alpha is the best, but the researchers do not comment on whether she should work on Task Alpha or Task Beta. Sue hears that she will dislike her group.
Kiesler and DeSalvo placed their participants in conditions similar to the ones we have described for Sue and Mary. Results showed that there were differences between the participants who simply "knew" about the disapproved task and the subjects who were "gently" induced to perform the disapproved action.
Those who merely "knew" of their disagreement with the group came to see less difference between the two tasks if they liked the other members, rather than if they disliked the group. The participants started to agree with their groups. They liked the task they had originally preferred less and liked the task the group preferred more.
In contrast, participants who complied with the "gentle" inducements came to see less difference between the tasks when they disliked the group, as opposed to when they liked it. This outcome fits cognitive dissonance theory. When a person dislikes the group, he or she must come to like the task to alleviate the internal conflict that results. As we have seen before, performing a duty and feeling personally responsible is very difficult if a person dislikes both the group and the task.
It is best if the person can come to like either the group or the group's task. As we can see, the study results agreed with cognitive dissonance theory. The less a group pressures a person to comply with the group, the more "inside" pressure a person will feel to accept the beliefs that compliant behavior would imply.
For example, Matt belongs to a group that voluntarily helps clean inner-city parks and playgrounds. When Matt helps clean, his compliant behavior implies certain beliefs about the value of cleaning the parks.
In order not to experience dissonance, Matt is likely to come to believe that there is value in his task. However, the amount of pressure that Matt feels from the group affects how much he personally urges himself to believe that cleaning is valuable. For instance, he may belong to a group with a carefree leader who lets people work at their own pace. In such a group, Matt will probably feel "internal pressure" to like the task of improving the inner-city areas.
In contrast, Matt might be in a group with a leader who starts to pressure group members, demanding compliance with the leader's rules. In this group, Matt will probably feel less compelled to believe personally in the project. Reactance theory. Brehm extended this notion in in his reactance theory. He claimed that people need to feel as if they have freedom to control their behavior.
If a group threatens this freedom, individuals will be aroused to protect it. Thus, extreme pressure from a group can backfire and lead to increased deviance. Matt, for instance, may even begin to dislike the very work he volunteered to do, cleaning parks, if his group becomes too pressure-filled. Compliance Versus Private Acceptance. In the previous section we summarized some reasons that people conform to their groups.
However, in our discussion, we have not formally divided these into the reasons behind compliance versus the causes that foster private acceptance. It may be impossible to make a clear division between the causes.
It is true that, as one of their tasks, some theories definitely attempt to explain why private acceptance can occur.
For instance, this is the case for the social comparison, dissonance, and reactance theories. It is also true that a factor such as agreeing with a group only to impress a member is unquestionably a reason that leads to compliance. However, the other reasons that we have mentioned, such as conforming to reach a decision, could cause either private acceptance or compliance. There are further complications regarding this matter.
What starts as compliance may end up as private acceptance. The theory of cognitive dissonance predicts this, and the experiment by Kiesler and DeSalvo revealed the process at work. Thus, it is not always possible to distinguish between the reasons that lead to private acceptance and those that cause compliance. Nevertheless, researchers have done some studies that relate specifically to compliance or to private acceptance.
Asch study. Imagine the following situation: You consent to participate in an experiment that you think is about perception. You show up at the site of the experiment and find eight other people waiting. The experimenter says that the nine of you will perform the study together. The researcher takes you all into a room, where you line up and face a viewing screen.
You are the seventh person in the line. The researcher flashes a slide on the screen showing this series of lines:. The person conducting the study asks which of the lines on the right is the same length as the "standard" on the left. The first person in the line answers, "A.
When your turn comes you say, "A," and think about how obvious the answer is. The second trial in the study is similar to the first. The lines look like this:. On the third trial, the lines look like this:.
The researcher begins to go down the line again, asking the participants for answers. The first person says, "A. The second person answers, "A. The third person also says, "A," as does the fourth. You cannot believe what you are hearing, but now the fifth and sixth participants answer, "A.
What do you say? This situation is the prototype for a series of studies performed by Asch , Researchers have interpreted his experiments as being relevant to compliance. Unknown to the real participant, the other eight "participants" in the line were confederates working with the researcher.
Asch instructed the confederates to unanimously give the wrong answer during 12 of the 18 trials. He intended their answers to be so obviously wrong that the real participants could not fail to be amazed at the discrepancy between what they saw and what they heard. Scientists have made the assumption that if the real participant in Asch's study conformed with the incorrect confederates, the conformity was compliance, not private acceptance.
This assumption requires some further analysis. Numeric results. First, let us examine the numeric results of Asch's experiment. On the average, 3. We can compare this outcome with the results from control groups. In the control groups, participants could see what others did, but they did not verbalize their own choices. Hence, there was no pressure to conform. These participants erred an average of only. Thus, it seems that the high level of conformity in the experimental trials was due to group pressure.
The pressure successfully led the test participants to give an opinion that they did not really share. However, this overall conformity result is misleading. It masks the great individual differences among the participants.
Out of participants, 29 did not ever conform with their group, 33 conformed on eight or more trials, and the remaining 61 participants went along with their groups only on occasion. Only As we can see, we must keep these individual results in mind as we examine the assumption that Asch's experiment shows compliance at work. Postexperimental interview results. Next, let us look at the results of postexperimental interviews with the participants.
These are crucial to our analysis of Asch's study. Participants who never conformed reported that they had not conformed for one of two reasons. Some did not conform because they were confident that their choices were right, and they were confident even though they acknowledged that they had been deviant in the face of unanimous agreement among the confederates.
Others who had not conformed claimed that they had concentrated totally on the demands of the task, and they had not really noticed what the confederates said. As for the conformists, a small percentage of them claimed to actually have seen the wrong line as a correct match.
If these participants were telling the truth, we must conclude that private acceptance was at work in Asch's study. These participants privately accepted the belief of the majority opinion.
They were not simply complying with the group. About half of the rest of the conformists claimed that they had seen the lines correctly but that when they heard the majority choice, they decided that they must have been wrong. They then went along with the group.
Whether this is compliance or private acceptance is debatable. However, the remaining conformists clearly complied. They said that they thought their choice was correct but that they had gone along with the group anyway.
Thus, as we can see, we cannot assume that Asch's experiment revealed solely elements concerning compliance. It appears that perhaps both types of conformity, compliance and private acceptance, were at work in his study.
Nevertheless, Asch's work reveals a great deal about compliance. He also performed variations on his original test that yielded further findings.
In addition, other researchers have been able to build on Asch's work. Asch compared his original findings with the results of some variations on his first test procedure. Some examples of his experiments, along with their results, are:. A test with two "real" participants instead of one.
If one of the two did not immediately comply, the other knew that he or she had an ally. This circumstance lowered the conformity rate to A study that had one confederate who always answered correctly. The real participant now always had an ally. This decreased the conformity rate further, to 5. We can conclude from this test that one ally is enough to markedly decrease conformity when someone faces an overwhelming majority. An experiment in which a confederate answered correctly at the beginning and then soon "deserted" to the majority.
This situation did not help the real participant's courage. The conformity rate was A study that had a confederate who stopped conforming and started to say the right answer, thereby joining the real participant. This was quite helpful for the participant and lowered conformity rates to 8. Asch also varied the number of confederates facing a lone test participant.
He did this to discover whether conformity would increase as the size of the opposing majority grew. As you recall, the control groups had participants who conformed at the rate of only.
The results when Asch increased the majority size to various levels were:. As the numbers show, there is a high percentage of conformity when a lone dissenter faces a unified majority of only three people. It appears that this small group size is sufficient to cause a conformity rate that is close to maximum potential. Increasing the number of confederates beyond three does not seem to raise conformity levels significantly.
Gerard study. More than a decade after these original experiments, Gerard examined the plight of the lone dissenter. He applied the tenets of cognitive dissonance theory to the results from Asch's study. As Gerard pointed out, the naive participant is faced with two unpleasant choices in Asch's experiment. He or she can conform, in opposition to his or her true impressions, or he or she can dissent in the face of possible ridicule and embarrassment. Both choices lead to dissonance.
We can see how conformity would cause a state of dissonance in Asch's experiment. The compliant participant has three internal statements that reveal how the internal conflict occurs.
He or she is thinking, for instance, "I saw that line C was closest to the standard," "I said that line A was closest to the standard," and "Line A and line C cannot both be closest to the standard. Gerard hypothesized that a compliant participant could lower his or her internal dissonance as the experiment continued.
The participant could do so by. This is what a small majority claimed to have done in Asch's study. Deciding that what they see is wrong. Many participants did this. Attributing the responsibility for what they say to the group. In this way, they feel that the group pressured them to say the wrong thing and that they can comply with a clear conscience.
Quite a few of Asch's participants relieved their dissonance in this way. It is similarly true that deviation, as well as conformity, leads to a state of dissonance. The participant feels that, "I said that line C was closest to the standard," "The group said that line A was closest," and "I am a member of the group.
A person could do this by telling himself or herself something like, "I know I am a member of this group, but I don't care whether the group likes me. I will continue to say the truth. Gerard saw these conditions at work in Asch's experiments. Gerard took these findings and hypothesized that a participant's first choice of behavior is important.
The person can choose to deviate or to conform on the first trial. Whichever action the person chooses, his or her cognitions will probably change so that internal dissonance will decrease in subsequent trials.
For example, Joe feels pressured by his group of friends to help them steal a car. Internally, Joe does not believe that he should help them. Joe needs to decide what he will do the first time his friends ask him to steal. Let us say that, as a first example, Joe does not go along with his friends. To have internal harmony, Joe dissociates himself from the group and decides that these particular friends are not very important to him.
As time goes by and as his friends pressure him to steal other things, the likelihood is that Joe will continue to refuse. He can do this because the group does not mean very much to him anymore. On the other hand, if Joe steals a car the first time, it is likely that he will continue to do so. He will probably tell himself that the group is right and that stealing is not so bad, in order to lower his internal dissonance. As you recall, there were consistencies in individual participants' behavior over trials during Asch's study.
These results supported Gerard's hypothesis. What is interesting about the dissonance interpretation of Asch's study is how it relates to an idea we discussed earlier. As we showed, a member will continue to disbelieve a group's opinion if he or she blames the group for his or her act of compliance. If, for instance, Joe is forced to go with his friends and steal the car, Joe will probably not come to believe that stealing is all right.
This is similar to the third response that we noted above for people who comply with a group. In fact, a person who feels this way may come to dislike the group and deviate more. However, once the compliant member comes to blame himself or herself for compliance, the stage is set for the person to begin to privately accept the group's decision.
If this happens, in all likelihood the person will like the group more. Italian School biological explanations have not resonated in criminal justice systems in America. However, some traces still exist. Now, the conversation about crime and biological explanations focuses more on the relationship between genetics and crime than the relationship between phenotypic features and crime.
Though the debate has mutated, a biological explanation for deviance and crime is still commonplace. Cesare Lombroso : Cesare Lombroso argued that criminality was a biological trait found in some human beings.
In many ways, psychological theories of deviance mirror biological explanations, only with an added emphasis on brain function. Whereas historical biological explanations, such as those provided by the Italian School, used biological traits from the whole body e. One case study of a psychological theory of deviance is the case of conduct disorder.
Conduct disorder is a psychological disorder diagnosed in childhood that presents itself through a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others and major age-appropriate norms are violated.
This childhood disorder is often seen as the precursor to antisocial personality disorder. According the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—IV the professional manual listing all medically recognized mental disorders and their symptoms , conduct disorder presents as aggressive and disrespectful behavior.
Compared to normal controls, youth with early and adolescent onset of conduct disorder displayed reduced responses in the brain regions associated with antisocial behavior. In addition, youth with conduct disorder demonstrated less responsiveness in the orbitofrontal regions of the brain during a stimulus-reinforcement and reward task.
These psychological symptoms of conduct disorder, both in terms of neuroanatomy and neurotransmitter regulation, help to explain the explanatory link between psychology and crime. Moreover, they demonstrate the increasingly fluid boundary between psychological and biological theories of deviance. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — IV : According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — IV, the professional manual listing all medically recognized mental disorders and their symptoms, conduct disorder presents as aggressive and disrespectful behavior.
Psychological theories of deviance do not necessarily have a biological element. Take, for example, the case of post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD.
PTSD is frequently invoked in cases of child abuse, in which the psychological trauma of having been abused as a child can contribute to deviant behavior in the future. PTSD is also discussed in cases of deviant, violent behavior on the part of individuals who have experienced trauma while in the military.
Consider the case of Sergeant Robert Bales. Bales is an American soldier who has served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. Bales is accused of getting drunk and going into a town nearby his post in Afghanistan and murdering 16 Afghanis without provocation.
Experts are already speculating that the psychological trauma of multiple redeployments contributed to Sgt. While psychiatric diagnoses are commonly used to explain deviance, one must remember that what counts as a legitimate diagnosis is always in contention.
The DSM, the manual for what the psychological community recognizes as a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, is a revised manual. One example of the importance of these revisions: homosexuality used to be included in the DSM as a psychiatric condition. Thus, until it was removed in , homosexuality the psychological condition could have been a psychological explanation for deviant sexuality.
However, since being removed from the DSM, homosexuality is no longer recognized as a legitimate psychiatric condition and, therefore, the now debunked homosexuality-as-psychiatric-condition does not serve an explanatory role in regards to deviant sexuality.
This goes to demonstrate the fluctuating nature of psychological theories of deviance. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Deviance, Social Control, and Crime. Search for:. By the time she was able to find a new job, the checks had bounced, and she was convicted of fraud under Mississippi law. Strickland pleaded guilty to a felony charge and repaid her debts; in return, she was spared from serving prison time. Strickland appeared in court in More than ten years later, she is still feeling the sting of her sentencing.
Because Mississippi is one of twelve states in the United States that bans convicted felons from voting ProCon To Strickland, who said she had always voted, the news came as a great shock. Some 5. These individuals include inmates, parolees, probationers, and even people who have never been jailed, such as Leola Strickland. Although there are no federally mandated laws on the matter, most states practice at least one form of felony disenfranchisement.
Is it fair to prevent citizens from participating in such an important process? Proponents of disfranchisement laws argue that felons have a debt to pay to society. Being stripped of their right to vote is part of the punishment for criminal deeds. Opponents of felony disfranchisement in the United States argue that voting is a basic human right and should be available to all citizens regardless of past deeds. Many point out that felony disfranchisement has its roots in the s, when it was used primarily to block black citizens from voting.
Even nowadays, these laws disproportionately target poor minority members, denying them a chance to participate in a system that, as a social conflict theorist would point out, is already constructed to their disadvantage Holding Those who cite labeling theory worry that denying deviants the right to vote will only further encourage deviant behavior.
If ex-criminals are disenfranchised from voting, are they being disenfranchised from society? Should a former felony conviction permanently strip a U. In the early s, sociologist Edwin Sutherland sought to understand how deviant behavior developed among people. Since criminology was a young field, he drew on other aspects of sociology including social interactions and group learning Laub His conclusions established differential association theory , which suggested that individuals learn deviant behavior from those close to them who provide models of and opportunities for deviance.
According to Sutherland, deviance is less a personal choice and more a result of differential socialization processes. A tween whose friends are sexually active is more likely to view sexual activity as acceptable.
A longitudinal study beginning in the s found that the best predictor of antisocial and criminal behavior in children was whether their parents had been convicted of a crime Todd and Jury Children who were younger than ten years old when their parents were convicted were more likely than other children to engage in spousal abuse and criminal behavior by their early thirties.
Even when taking socioeconomic factors such as dangerous neighborhoods, poor school systems, and overcrowded housing into consideration, researchers found that parents were the main influence on the behavior of their offspring Todd and Jury Continuing with an examination of large social factors, control theory states that social control is directly affected by the strength of social bonds and that deviance results from a feeling of disconnection from society.
Individuals who believe they are a part of society are less likely to commit crimes against it. Travis Hirschi identified four types of social bonds that connect people to society:. The three major sociological paradigms offer different explanations for the motivation behind deviance and crime. Functionalists point out that deviance is a social necessity since it reinforces norms by reminding people of the consequences of violating them.
Conflict theorists argue that crime stems from a system of inequality that keeps those with power at the top and those without power at the bottom. Symbolic interactionists focus attention on the socially constructed nature of the labels related to deviance. Crime and deviance are learned from the environment and enforced or discouraged by those around us. Although such ideas may raise a lot of skepticism, many influential people of the past century have been Skull and Bones Society members, and the society is sometimes described as a college version of the power elite.
Journalist Rebecca Leung discusses the roots of the club and the impact its ties between decision-makers can have later in life. Akers, Ronald L. Cantor, D. Durkheim, Emile. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hirschi, Travis. Causes of Delinquency. Holding, Reynolds. Krajick, Kevin. Laub, John H. Lott, John R. Mills, C. The Power Elite.
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