SOCI 70 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Bachelorette Party, Labeling Theory, Liminality
Deviance
• defie hat’s aeptale eharior, a id people together agaist deiat
people, provides jobs for those who deal with deviance, allows innovation
1. Sanity (Rosenhan)
i. 8 pseudopatients admitted to mental hospitals; when admitted, they would
stop showing symptoms/be themselves and see how long it would take for the
staff to get the out, staff did’t detet pseudopatiets ut patiets ere ale
to; eventually dismissed with diagnosis schizophrenia in remission – considered
mental health as an irreversible condition/lifelong stigma, not able to obtain
release until agreeing they were mentally ill and take antipsychotic medication
ii. central finding:
• psuedopatients were not detectably sane, illustrates powerful function
of labels in psychiatric institutions (staff characterized regular behavior
in terms of mental illness)
• power of environment and attached labels – is labeled unnormal other
labels are tainted by unnormal label; stigma with mentally ill- physical
segregation
• danger of dehumanization/depersonalization (people treated like
objects, invasion of privacy, avoid direct interaction)
iii. similar to nacerima: we interpret behavior in context
• same situation can have different interpretations depending on if
ou’re o drugs or dreaig
2. Conditions
• due to context there are different interpretations; in what circumstances does
deviant behavior become not deviant?
i. Anomie (Durkheim): state of normlessness and insuffiecient regulation, loss of
rules due to rapid social change
ii. Liminality: passing from one status to another as an individual, being neither
one of these statuses; rules that govern behavior are unclear→ temporary
suspension from societal expectations, not accountable for actions
• ex: high school to college: senior pranks are deviant but when you’re a
senior its not as bad; before marriage, people have bachelorette parties
that are wild
3. Theories
i. Labeling theory: (Becker)
• laels of sols of eaig that affet our pereptio ad the
way we treat people, similar to diagnosis: make sense of symptoms,
can be harmful or helpful
• stresses that deviance is a relative term, people become deviant not
because of the act itself but how people react to that act
a. Kids labeled as troublemaker will have a bias when we
perceive them
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