Deviancy in Society

There are many different kinds of deviancy in today’s society. In this essay I will tell you the meaning of deviance, the different kinds of deviancy, the biological, social, and psychological factors on deviant behavior, and how they differ from each other.

According to James M. Henslin, Editor of Down to Earth Sociology, “For society to exist, people must be able to know what to expect of others.” “People develop norms to provide regularity to social life.” “Deviancy is the violation of these rules and expectations.” So according to Mr. Henslin, we all have deviant tendencies in us at some point in our lives. We all violate rules and expectations others have created whether it is a minor or large-scale offense.

In today’s society, the word deviant is used very commonly and its meaning becomes distorted. People might associate the word deviant with being twisted, nasty, or perverted. “Deviance is not a term for negative judgment.” It just means anyone to violate the expectations of others. The norms that we create cover three basic aspects of human behavior: our appearance, manner, and conduct. The rules of appearance and manner, if broken, are usually called civil disobedience and conduct is usually called criminal disobedience.

The first major type of deviance that will be mentioned is against the appearance norm. The expectations of appearance concerns clothing, make-up, hairstyle, and other “social extensions of a person.” There are even certain expectations on things that represent a person like their car, home, or even pets. Deviance could be achieved by just not conforming to people’s expectations. For example, “goths” do not adhere to society’s expectations of appearance. They generally wear all black, they pierce parts of their body that many other people would not, men usually have longer hair while girls sometimes shave their head, and generally men wear make-up unlike men who live by societies expectations.

The second norm that is mentioned is manner. By manner, I mean the way we do things. “People have a certain expectation of the style of which we express ourselves, such as our facial expressions, gestures and other body languages.” Manner includes personal style and group style. Personal style is the expectations that people have on us because of how we have acted in the past. Group style is the expectations people have because of our membership to a specific group of people. For instance, race, ethnic background, gender, occupation, age, etc. are all types of group styles. There are both small and large incidences where people do not abide by society's rules of how a specific group is supposed to act. An example of small deviant behavior in occupational and racial standpoints against group style is when people do not sing in society's designated styles of music. For example, "white" people are expected to stay to country music and heavy metal, but people like "Eminem"