This document discusses social deviation and deviant behavior. It defines deviant behavior as any behavior that violates certain group norms and exceeds the tolerance limits of a community. This can include crimes, drug addiction, and other behaviors. Deviations are judged based on their direction (approval, tolerance, or disapproval) and degree within a society. There are two types of deviations - aberrant behavior that violates norms without seeking to change them, and nonconformity which publicly challenges and aims to change norms. Whether a behavior is considered deviant depends on the reaction of both others in the community and the deviant themselves.

1. Watch Me!

2. SOCIAL DEVIATION
AND
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

4. Clinard (1968)

5. • Each society has sets of norms and
variations in attitudes toward
deviation from various normative
rules.
• Reactions to deviations from social
norms can vary in the direction of
approval, tolerance, or disapproval.

7. The deviant behavior of a
criminal group represents a departure
from societal norms, but the group
itself may be highly organized and
individual conduct may be in accord
with the norms of a subgroup of
which the law violator is a part.

8. • Deviations from politeness, dress,
table manners, and cleanliness
• Lying and malicious gossip
• Murder, burglary, and robbery

9. • Deviant behavior is essentially
violation of certain types of group
norms
• A deviant act is a behavior which is
proscribed in a certain way.

10. Only those deviations in which
behavior is in a disapproved
direction, and of sufficient degree to
exceed the tolerance limit of the
community constitute deviant
behavior.
– This includes such deviations from norms as
delinquency and crime, prostitution,
homosexual behavior, drug addiction,
alcoholism, mental disorders, suicide, marital
and family maladjustment, etc.

12. For some other deviations from norms
one might adopt Merton’s (1966)
distinction between Two Types of
deviation:
* Aberrant behavior
* Nonconformity

13. Aberrant behavior
Aberrant behavior resembles
much of what we have termed
deviant behavior, such as crimes
where individuals violate the norms
in the pursuit of their own ends and
do not seek to change the norms.

14. Nonconformity
The nonconformists, such as
beatniks, hippies, and often political
offenders, announce their dissent
publicly, challenge the legitimacy of
the norms and laws they violate, aim
to change the norms they are denying
in practice.

15. HIPPIES

16. BEATNIKS

17. { The extent and the degree of
disapproval in a particular instance
is dependent on the nature of the
situation and the community’s degree
of tolerance of the behavior involved.
{ A given situation of deviation
depends, therefore, on the reaction of
others and to some extent on the
reaction of the deviant.

18. [ Wide variations exist in the “social
visibility” of negatively regarded acts
of deviation, that is the extent to
which behavior comes to the
attention of people within a society
and the extent to which the acts are
defined as “deviant”.