Project 1 Being A Deviant For A Day

Among any community there is a set of boundaries that must be respected under penalty of being labeled as deviant. Consequently, a community will create agencies of control in order to punish and fight against all the forms of behavior considered as deviant. In his Study in the Sociology of Deviance, Kai T. Erikson defends the point that deviant forms of behavior are a natural and beneficial part of social life. One of his main arguments is that, in our modern society, “the agencies of control often seem to define their job as that of keeping deviance within bounds rather than obliterating it altogether” (Wayward Puritans 24:2). Now, what if society gave to its agencies of control the role of annihilating deviance? What if the set of

Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect one another. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.

The four theories of deviance are The Learning Theory, The Strain Theory, The Social-Bond Theory and the Labeling Theory. These theories alone can explain the reasoning behind someone’s deviant behavior. But, in There Are No Children Here we see all of these theories being demonstrated. This lets us have an understanding of exactly why we are seeing the deviant behavior that we are.

People who suffer from personality disorders often display deviant behavior. The mental illness itself is not deviant. They typically have problems with social skills, mood swings, emotional states, and are often unable to maintain healthy, stable relationships. Many sufferers do not possess the capability to have genuine emotions, including empathy for others. A personality disorder is the basis of many circumstances of maladaptive behavior including substance abuse, self-harm, suicide, and criminality.

Deviance is an action or behavior that violates social norms, including a formally enacted rule, as well as informal violations of social norms. Deviant behavior is any behavior that is contrary to the dominant norms of society. Norms are rules and expectation by which members of society are conventionally guided. Social norms differ from culture to culture. Deviance can be criminal or non-criminal.

In my Norm Violation assignment I chose to break the common dining etiquette norm of eating with your hands. Since eating with your hands is only deviant behavior in certain dining situations, I chose to break this norm at a local sit-down restaurant in Eugene, Café Soriah. I went to the downtown restaurant with a group of friends for an afternoon meal without telling them of my Norm Violation assignment. Being the only informed one in the experiment seemed like the best way to get the most candid reactions from my peers.

The concept of Sociological Perspective of Deviance also known as “rule-breaking” behavior or “counter culture” can be defined as culture norms, values, and morals which shape the social acceptance of individuals or group through their actions or “unmoral or illegal” behavior.

To understand social cognition, a reaction based on internal and automatic thought processes, you must first understand the deeper function behind the reaction. This practice is called social psychology. In this field, psychologists typically explain human behavior as being a result of mental interferences, mental states, and immediate social situations. Human behavior is certainly less complex than the general population may believe. There are only so many reactions that a human will typically choose in response to activities and situations, and almost all do. To discover what these reactions are and what they have been, a scientist or psychologist needs to put the test subject under existential experiments. In

Social cognition is our ability to understand other people, and it enables us to predict their behaviour and share experiences.

According to www.teenrehabcenter.org, 68% of 12th graders have tried alcohol and high school seniors are about as likely to smoke weed as they are to drink. Throughout high school I knew numerous people that smoked and drinked or that have tried it, but I am proud to say that I was part of the 32% of high school seniors that never experimented with smoking nor drinking. Not having contributed to this deviant behavior or having contributed results because of different theories that one believes or has gone through.

Social cognition on the other hand is how people stores, processes and applies the information formed throughout the years determining how we behave in certain social interactions.

Social deviance is a violation of social norms. So what qualifies as a social deviant? According to sociologist, Howard S. Becker the best definition of social deviance is, “It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that do something deviant.” In cultures around the world, there are many practices Americans find deviant, but in other cultures, it’s the norm. In many countries around the world, girls are married as young as 11 years old. To Americans, that is considered child abuse and rape, but that is only because of our social norms. To the men and parents in different countries, it is perfectly normal because their social norms. In America, social deviance comes in many different forms. We have our sexual deviants,

Deviance is described as being behaviour that is not part of the norms in your particular society. This can be different throughout the world because some cultures have very different norms (Stephens and Leach, 1998:17). Most deviant behaviour will attract disapproval from others in the society or punishment from authorities. There are many different types of deviance such as addiction, mental illness, alcoholism, criminality and homosexuality. Throughout this essay six types of theories will be discussed about how and why people are deviant. Four of these theories support the idea of deviance being biological and three support the idea of it being caused by your social construction. Also the essay will talk about the differences between

Social constructionist use the term social construction to imply that our understanding of the world in which we live is constructed from the social interactions we have on a daily basis. In reference to identity, social constructionist theory (SCT) proposes that we as social beings actively construct our identities using social tools as the means in which to construct our identities, the foremost one being language.

Social psychology is the understanding of an individual’s behavior in a social context. It is the scientific field that focuses on the nature and causes of that individual’s behavior in social situations. It looks at the human behavior that has been influenced by others and in the social context with which it occurred. Social psychology pays attention to how feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are constructed and how these factors influence our behavior and interactions with others. This paper will examine the principles of social psychology and help us to