Deviant Behavior

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Just about everyone has done something that someone else disapproves of. In fact, almost all of us have done something we ourselves have reservations or second thoughts about. Perhaps we’ve stolen something, or told a lie, or gossiped about another person in an especially nasty way. Maybe on occasion we’ve gotten drunk, of high, or driven too fast, or recklessly. Have we ever worn clothes that someone else thought was out of style, offensive, or ugly? Have we belched at the dinner table, or did we ever break pick our nose in public? Maybe we failed to show up for an important class or read a crucial assignment, or permitted our eyes to wonder onto a neighbor’s answers during an exam. Do we like a television program that someone else finds stupid and boring? Didn’t we once date someone our parents and friends didn’t like? Maybe our religious beliefs and practices don’t agree with those of some other members of our society; it could be that they would regard us as too religious or not religious enough. For some people we may be too liberal, too conservative, or too much of a loser. Does someone else consider us too short or tall, too plain of exotic, to thin or heavy, too dark or to light skinned? The number of possible ways that what we believe, or do or are, could be judged negatively by others is infinite.

This means that almost any action or characteristic we could do or think of is approved in some social circles and condemned in others. Almost inevitably, we depart or deviate from someone’s rules, simply by acting or being ourselves, since we can’t conform to all the different sets of rules that exist. Sociologists refer to behavior that is regarded as wrongdoing that generates negative reactions in persons who witness or hear about it, as deviant behavior. Many definitions of deviant behavior exist. In the book titled Deviant Behavior by Alex Thio he states that there are many conflicting definitions for deviant behavior.

There are many theories about how the world came to be, was it the big band, evolution or creation? Well just like there are many different theories for this category, there are also different theories to the cause and origin of deviant behavior. I will mention a few and give a brief definition on what they state. Strain theory: Social strain causes deviance, Learning theory: Deviance is a learned behavior, Control theory: Lack of social control causes deviance. Those are the traditional theories of deviance. The modern theories of deviance are the following; Labeling theory: Relatively powerful persons are more likely to label the less powerful as deviant than vice versa, and being labeled deviant by society leads people to see themselves as deviant and live up to this self image by engaging in more deviancy. Phenomenological theory: Looking into peoples’ subjective interpretation of their own experiences is a key to understanding their deviant behavior. Another modern theory is the Conflict theory: involves different areas like legal reality, social reality, marxist, feminist and power. All of these theories’s put together make up my personal theory of deviant behavior. I think that each one of them is correct, just not alone. There could be many causes of deviant behavior, it could be the environment, the way people treat you, the names people call you, it can be a learned behavior, and you can learn form observing people. That’s what I think that causes deviant behavior; it can be something out of the norm, but the “norm” can very with each individual so there really isn’t a right or wrong answer to the causes of deviant behavior.

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