SOCY 275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Self-Concept, Social Control, Charismatic Authority
15 Jun 2018
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September 19, 2017
The organization of crime and deviance
Manifestations of organization:
- Sociality
o Does the deviant behaviour typically involve or require two or more people
o Some acts are done solo
o Others require more than one person (i.e. a cult)
o Some acts require people up to a point but the actual act is done solo (i.e. getting
drugs requires other people, but you do drugs by yourself sometimes)
- Pervasiveness
o The amount of time and resources that people devote to the activity
o The more time resources, the more organized the activity
- Communication
o The frequency, depth, and effectiveness of communication among participants
o Solo acts and acts in which a participant is being secretive, the level of
communication will be quite low.
o Group acts like cults and terrorist groups require a lot of communication
- Differentiation and coordination
o Different roles and a hierarchical distinction between the roles (e.g. leaders and
followers)
o Is there a coordination between the roles?
- Culture
o Whether the activities are going to be characterized by its own distinct culture
o Ideas, artifacts, rules, language forms, -- things that can be passed from one
participant to another
- Self identity
o The extent to which a participant will root their self identity in the activity
- Philosophical integration
o What is the comprehensiveness and integration of the legitimizations that the
practitioners use to justify their actions
o Elaborate philosophy that one can provide about the meaning of their actions –
they can rationalize what they’re doing
- Social control from within the group
o People within the group punishing others for not participating in deviant acts
o Implies that there is a collective normative expectation of behaviour and a
hierarchical differentiation in roles (someone above everyone else to punish the
others)
o More organized groups are going to have more social control
- Recruitment
o More organized types of deviance are associated with more organized recruitment
strategies
o The ease of recruitment depends on the appeal of the activity
- The organizational continuum
o Ranking the nine previous manifestations on a continuum
A model of initiation, continuation, and social change
- Sources of new behaviour:
o Random events
▪ People discover deviance by just doing things and then they find
something they find enjoyable
o Imitation
▪ People learn from other people – can learn from people already practicing
the behaviour
o Exploration
▪ Sometimes people set out tot discover new ways of doing things/new fun
things, either out of boredom or for an economic reason (looking to make
money).
▪ E.g. creation of a new drug
o Imposition
▪ Through persuasion or coercion, people engage in deviance
o Accommodation
▪ Something that arises when people are responding to an event
▪ E.g. a fire in BC burns all the crops, they can’t send in food so you eat
bugs
o Invention
▪ Deviance doesn’t exist but people just think that people are practicing it.
Transforming behaviour into deviance
- Bad habits
o Continuing to engage in a bad behaviour but since no one else is seen doing it, it
is just seen as a bad habit
o E.g. collecting ear wax on your own
- Seeking companions
o Bad habits are transformed to deviance when they begin seeking companions
o E.g. trying to find other people to collect ear wax with you
- Social response
o The social response turns this behaviour into deviance
o Communication and association with each other attracts attention
o People see the behaviour as wrong and try to get some social control
How deviance succeeds
- Deviant group organization
o Mechanisms for promoting commitment
▪ Sustaining philosophies
Document Summary
Pervasiveness: the amount of time and resources that people devote to the activity, the more time resources, the more organized the activity. Culture: whether the activities are going to be characterized by its own distinct culture, ideas, artifacts, rules, language forms, -- things that can be passed from one participant to another. Self identity: the extent to which a participant will root their self identity in the activity. Recruitment: more organized types of deviance are associated with more organized recruitment strategies, the ease of recruitment depends on the appeal of the activity. The organizational continuum: ranking the nine previous manifestations on a continuum. A model of initiation, continuation, and social change. Bad habits: continuing to engage in a bad behaviour but since no one else is seen doing it, it is just seen as a bad habit, e. g. collecting ear wax on your own.
