SOCY 275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Science, Homicide, Price Fixing
15 Jun 2018
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WEEK 1
September 15, 2017
Deviant definitions
- The statistical approach
o Missing the evaluation of judgement of the behaviour
o Look at a behaviour to see if its frequent or if only a small group of people do it.
If a small number of people are doing something than its probably wrong. But
some things that minorities do are not always wrong wither ex. Skydiving. This
approach is missing a judgment of the behaviour. People will judge what’s right
and what wrong and what they should and shouldn’t do.
- The absolutist approach
o The social scientist will set the standards about what will be deviant or not
o Functionalist
▪ Sees society as an organism- when we get sick a part of our body isn’t
working properly—deviant behaviour is the part of society that is not
working properly
▪ The social scientist thinks it’s bad for the society
o Radical/Marxian and humanist
▪ Radical
• Take a broad perspective—see any sort of behaviour where there is
an exploitation of people that benefits other people or that
threatens the dignity or quality of people or that threatens them to
achieve some sort of self-actualization as being wrong
▪ Marxian approach:
• Capitalists are taking the surplus value (money earned by workers)
and taking it away
• If it makes those people from us doing that, it makes them engage
in crime
▪ Humanists
• Argue that racial discrimination is deviant
• Deprives a group of people of equal rights and human dignity
▪ Social scientists who define these problems have conflicting opinions with
one another—a lot of it is based on the definer’s values
- The legalistic approach
o Defining deviance by looking at what is illegal in our society
o If the law prohibits or requires and act that one does not perform – that is deviant
o Certain groups of people get to decide what is right or wrong
o Consensus type of crime – everyone agrees it is wrong (homicide)
o Issues:
▪ Many things that people think are immoral or deviant are actually not
illegal
▪ Some things that are illegal people don’t see as being deviant
▪ Restrictive approach – only looks at behaviours that are illegal
- Social harmfulness
o Look at behaviours and how much damage they do to our society or certain
peoples
o Anything that is harmful is defined as being deviant
o We find that people often exaggerate the harm of certain things that aren’t very
harmful or they deemphasize the effects of certain actions that are very harmful
- Reactive approach:
o Look at behaviours that we see people respond to negatively
o Tells us that there has been a violation of our behavioural standards
o Things that are deviant are only those behaviours when people are caught and
there is a negative reaction
▪ If I kill someone but I’m not caught then that is not deviant
o Issues:
▪ There are certain behaviours that we see are wrong, but there is no
reaction
▪ Sometimes there are reactions to behaviours that we don’t see are wrong
- Group evaluation approach:
o Best portrayed as public opinion
o If most people think an action is wrong, then that is deviant
o Finding out the standards of behaviour by asking people to define what actions
they think are good or bad
o Useful:
▪ Allows us to see why people think certain behaviours are wrong
▪ See why there are certain things that are wrong but aren’t illegal and why
there are illegal things that aren’t wrong
▪ Why people think there are certain things that are wrong that everyone
does (e.g. speeding)
▪ We can assess the levels of wrongness that people view certain things as
being bad
- Normative definition approach
o Rules where we have expectations of peoples conduct in situations
o Rules that we have acquired to regulate behaviour
o Deviance is something that violates social norms in situations
- Synthetic approach
o Combines the reactive approach with the group evaluation approach
o Look at behaviours that people in the group find unacceptable or that evoke some
kind of collective response
o Things that are going to be disapproved of or that are seen as being bad
behaviours
