SOC 153 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Reference Group

• School: Miami University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 153
• Professor: Nelson Steven

Document Summary

Deviance is any violation of social norms. Deviance refers to behavior, belief, and feelings, or any personal characteristic, achieved or ascribed. Deviance is relative to culture, place and time. So the particular reference group should be identified. Not a quality of the act a person commits, it is a consequence of how others perceive it (negatively) Essentialist- it is bad or wrong in and of itself. This is often our main question, particularly when we"re talking about crime or other problematic behavior.