SOC211H5 Chapter 1: Ch.1.docx
Document Summary
We can enrich our lives with vicarious experience that is by living (in our heads) the apparently more exciting or interesting lives of others or by investigating them and discovering that our own lives are preferable. Reform as a research motivation has its own dangers. First, our search for reform policies sometimes outruns our tested knowledge. The currently popular assumption that lack of self-esteem causes delinquent behavior can result in programs that produce proud delinquents rather than ex-delinquents. Second, the belief that understanding means excusing often interferes when reform is the motivation. Third, reform impulse also ignores the fact that many kinds of deviance are not as harmful as they are made out to be. In the 1930s sociology and social psychology were used as tools to deal with social problems such as unemployment, mental illness, family breakup, delinquency and crime.
