The members of the society, at a particular time and place, create and impose rules, regulations, values, norms and laws and other forms of social control to maintain peace and order, to promote harmonious relations, and to preserve the stability of the existing social order. However, there are members who transgress the rules, violate the laws, defy the existing values, rebel against the established social order, and disregard the prevailing social standards and expectations. These people are tagged as deviants and their defiance or transgression is considered as deviant behaviour.
As pointed out by sociologists, deviance is any behaviour that the members of a social group define as violating the established social norms. In other words, there must be a social audience that will determine whether a behaviour is deviant or not. Since norms are relative from one society to another, it follows that what is considered deviant in one society may not be considered as such in another. What is considered as sinful and immoral in one society is not sinful and immoral in another; what is appropriate and acceptable in one society is inappropriate and unacceptable in another. For example, polygamy is moral and proper as well as legal among the Muslims, but not among the Christians; incest is an acceptable practice among some primitive tribes, but is strongly abhorred by many, if not all, civilized people.
Also, what is deviant in a particular society at a particular place and time may not be considered as deviant at a future time. Homosexuality and lesbianism may be labelled as deviant in a particular society but may not be considered as such therein at a future time. Human rights movements and the Gay and Women Liberation Movements can be instrumental rallying forces in such a relabelling or delabelling.
There are varied perceptions of and/or reactions to deviant behaviour. Deviant behaviour may be tolerated, approved or disapproved. For instance; homosexuality is tolerated in contemporary times; creativity, inventiveness, heroism and martyrdom are approved and highly valued, while criminality and incest are disapproved, abhorred and punished.
Theories of Deviant Behavior
Several sociological theories advanced to explain deviance as a social phenomenon include the following:
1. Social Pathology
Causes: Deviant behaviour is caused by people with actual physical and mental illness, malfunctions or deformities. People who exhibit socially disapproved behaviour are considered the ills or diseases of the society.
Solutions: Education, re-education, hospitalization, rehabilitation, imprisonment, capital punishment.
2. Biological Theory
Causes: Deviant behaviour is a result of aberrant genetiv traits in such cases as mental illness, criminality, and homosexuality. Cesare Lombroso, an Italian criminologist who studied the skulls and bodies of many prisoners, reported that there are “animalistic” physical patterns found in criminals, savages and apes; that people with enormous jaws, high cheekbones, and prominent superciliary arches – are born criminals. However, Lombroso’s theory was debunked by Charles Goring, a British physician, who found no physical differences criminals and ordinary citizens.
Witkin (1976) found that prisoners with an XYY chromosome pattern or with an extra Y chromosome (a normal man has an XY chromosome pattern) might predispose themselves to deviance. However, his was later debunked by a Danish study. The researchers speculated that men with an extra Y chromosome are less intelligent and easier for the police to catch.
Solutions: Education, re-education hospitalization, rehabilitation, imprisonment, capital punishment, and behaviour modification.
3. Psychological Theory
Causes: Deviant behaviour is brought about by deviant impulses toward sexuality and aggression. Failure to structure one’s behaviour in an acceptable way, worries, tensions, frustrations, traumatic experiences, exposure to models of violent behaviour; reinforcement for aggressive acts; and early commission of deviant acts are psychological causes that precipitate deviant behaviour.
Solutions: Psychiatry, psychological counselling, hospitalization and rehabilitation; shock therapy
4. Social Disorganization Theory
Causes: Deviant behaviour is caused by the breakdown of the norms, laws, mores, and other important values of the people. Society is viewed as a social system with interdependent parts that have special functions to perform for the organization of the system. Any disorganization on any part of the system affects the other parts and the whole system in general.
Solutions: Modification or rehabilitation in the part of the system which suffers from disorganization.
5. Labeling Theory
Causes: Society’s labelling on certain behaviors as deviant causes deviant behaviour. Behaviors are labelled or tagged as proper or improper, moral or immoral, good or bad. Behaviors are labelled or tagged as proper or improper, moral or immoral, good or bad. Behaviors which transgress the social norms and values are labelled or socially defined as deviant; they are, in turn, sanctioned by ostracism and punishment. Behaviors which conform to the norms are given positive sanctions, such as rewards and commendations. Therefore, one would not be deviant unless detected and there is a particular kind of social reaction to it. Deviant levels tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. One response to being labelled deviant is to embrace the role. People labelled as deviants undertake life patterns of the deviant culture labelled to them by others.
In sum, by labelling certain people deviant and shutting them out of conventional life, society virtually ensures the behaviour it is trying to prevent.
Solutions: Relabeling and delabeling certain people as “criminals,” “prostitutes,” “homosexuals,” “schizophrenic,” etc. once considered as deviant.
6. Anomie Theory or Structural Stress Theory
Causes: The social structure plays a significant influence in the sense that it prompts people to engage in deviant behaviour. Equilibrium exists when people who use the accepted means achieve socially approved goals and experience satisfaction. When the goals and the means are not in harmony, anomie or normlessness results. It can cause deviant behaviour when people are denied access to accepted means to reach approved goals.
Durkheim introduced the concept of “anomie” as a condition within society in which individuals find that the prevailing social norms are ill-defined, weak, or conflicting. For example, many people expect to have a job, but the economy may not provide enough jobs for everybody. Thus, a jobless job – seeker may resort to illegitimate or illegal means to achieve his goals.
Solutions: Giving access to approved goals; equal opportunity for all.
7. Value Conflict Theory
Causes: Conflicting values, vested interests, and scarce resources between conflicting individuals or groups cause deviant behaviour.
Examples: capitalists vs. workers; AFP vs. NPA; Christians vs. Muslims; political party vs. another.
Solutions: Equating or balancing the power between conflicting individuals or groups through collective bargaining (CBA); peace negotiations, truce ceasefire and sharing of power.
8. Conflict Theory
Causes: Deviant behaviour is caused by an unjust social structure, a partisan social order where there is unequal distribution of wealth, power and prestige in the society. According to Marx, the social arrangements and legal order serve the interests of the ruling or governing class and are stacked against the poor, the marginalized and culturally disadvantaged members of the society. This creates conflict between social classes.
Solutions: The moderates propose more reforms in the various social institutions; the radicals advocate a sweeping transformation or a revolutionary approach, an overhaul of the existing unjust social structure in order to bring about a more or less equal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige in the new social order.
9. Cultural Transmissions or Differential Association Theory
Causes: Deviance is created through the socialization or transmission of norms within a community or group. The standards people eventually adopt as their own are learned through differential association with others and supported by a sympathetic subculture, such as radical subculture, a drug subculture or a homo-sexual subculture.
Solutions: Education, re-education, role models of successful people hospitalization, rehabilitation, imprisonment, fines, censures, capital punishment.
