Informal Deviance

(noun)

Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime), as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores).

Related Terms

Examples of Informal Deviance in the following topics:

  • Norms and Sanctions

    • The act of violating a social norm is called deviance.
    • Studying norms and studying deviance are inseparable endeavors.
    • Like deviance, norms are always culturally contingent.
    • The violation of social norms, or deviance, results in social sanction.
    • Informal deviance, or violation of unwritten, social rules of behavior, results in social sanction, or stigma.

  • Sanctions

    • Informal sanctions may include shame, ridicule, sarcasm, criticism, and disapproval.
    • Informal sanctions can check deviant behavior of individuals or groups, either through internalization, or through disincentivizing the deviant behavior.
    • As with formal controls, informal controls reward or punish acceptable or unacceptable behavior, otherwise known as deviance.
    • Informal controls are varied and differ from individual to individual, group to group, and society to society.

  • Deviance

    • Karen Halnon of Pennsylvania State University studies informal deviance and focuses on what she calls "deviance vacations," whereby people of a certain socioeconomic status voluntarily enter another, usually lower, social strata.
    • Deviance is often divided into two types of activities.
    • Examples of formal deviance include robbery, theft, rape, murder, and assault.
    • Deviance can vary dramatically across cultures.
    • Current sociological research on deviance takes many forms.

  • Introduction to deviance

    • Deviance is any behavior that violates cultural norms.
    • Deviance is often divided into two types of deviant activities.
    • The first, crime is the violation of formally enacted laws and is referred to as formal deviance.
    • Current research on deviance by sociologists takes many forms.
    • Sociological interest in deviance includes both interests in measuring formal deviance (statistics of criminal behavior; see below), examining how people (individually and collectively) define some things deviant and others normative, and a number of theories that try to explain both the role of deviance in society and its origins.

  • Sociological Theories of Deviance

    • Sociological theories of deviance are those that use social context and social pressures to explain deviance.
    • Sociological theories of deviance are those that use social context and social pressures to explain deviance .
    • Four main sociological theories of deviance exist.
    • The third main sociological theory of deviance is conflict theory.
    • The fourth main sociological theory of deviance is labeling theory.

  • Deviance and Technology

    • Advances in technology have resulted in new forms of deviance as well as new forms of control.
    • In addition to new forms of deviance in traditional cultural mores, new forms of deviance have arisen within cyberculture.
    • For this reason, all of these behaviors are considered production deviance.
    • More serious cases of deviant behavior involve property deviance.
    • Discuss the impact of technological innovation on forms of deviance and social control

  • Strain Theory: How Social Values Produce Deviance

    • Thus, deviance can be the result of accepting one norm, but breaking another in order to pursue the first.
    • According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria:
    • Thus, deviance can be the result of accepting one norm, but breaking another in order to pursue the first.
    • In this sense, according social strain theory, social values actually produce deviance in two ways.
    • Apply Merton's typology of deviance to the real world and give examples for each type

  • The Functionalist Perspective on Deviance

    • What function does deviance play in society?
    • This question cannot be answered without investigating deviance .
    • For the structural functionalist, deviance serves two primary roles in creating social stability.
    • Deviance allows for the majorities to unite around their normativity, at the expense of those marked as deviant.
    • Deviance provides the key to understanding the disruption and re-calibration of society that occurs over time.

  • The Functions of Deviance

    • Deviance provides society the boundaries to determine acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in society.
    • What function does the notion of deviance play in society?
    • This cannot be answered without addressing this question of deviance.
    • For the structural functionalist, deviance serves two primary roles in creating social stability.
    • Describe how structural functionalism views the relation between deviance and social change

  • Psychological Theories of Deviance

    • Bales's alleged deviance.
    • One case study of a psychological theory of deviance is the case of conduct disorder.
    • Psychological theories of deviance do not necessarily have a biological element.
    • Bales's alleged deviance.
    • This goes to demonstrate the fluctuating nature of psychological theories of deviance.