SOCIOL 2CC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Cognitive Dissonance, Scapegoating, The Scarlet Letter
20 Nov 2018
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Justifications | sykes and matza 1957: are explanations regarded as valid by the individual, but not by others. I. e. peers, family, legal system, police, larger society: are used to resolve contradictions between what people say and what they do. I. e. how a person drifts from illegitimate to legitimate behaviours while retaining their normative moral code. Excuses and justifications: scott and lyman - accounts 1968, refined concept of accounts (retrospectively, claimed all accounts are either excuses or justifications, are invoked when a person is accused of doing something wrong, excuses. Individual admits act was wrong, but denies responsibility for it. It should have happened, but it wasn"t my fault: justifications. Individual denies what they did was wrong, but admits responsibility for it: mea culpa/my fault, but it was the right thing to do, 4 types of excuses (i) appeal to accidents. Stuff happens, it couldn"t be helped (ii) appeal to defeasibility (to negate/render void)
