FREE ESSAY ON DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

A person would be considered to be acting deviantly in society if they are violating what
the significant social norm in that particular culture is. What causes humans to act
certain ways is a disputed topic among researchers for some time now. There are three
types of researchers that have tried to answer this question. There is the psychological
answer, biological answer, and the sociological answer. With all of the studies that have
been performed, no one group has come up with an exact reason to why people behave
deviantly. Although, sociologists' theories have not been disproved as often as the
psychologists' and biologists' theories because their experiments are too hard to define
and no one definition for deviance is agreed upon by all experimenters (Pfuhl, 40). My
own curiosity to find out what the influences are behind deviant behavior is the purpose
for this paper. We have already discussed this topic during class in part two, chapter
four of the textbook which explains deviance and crime. This section talks more about
deviance being a learned behavior. I wanted to find out more information to see if
biological factors are also behind this kind of behavior. The most knowledge acquired for
why people act deviantly is from the sociological perspective. There is need for more
research, if possible, in the psychological and biological perspectives, but there is a
lot more known in the sociological viewpoint. The reality that the definition of deviant
behavior is considered different by everyone makes it complicated and unknown if a truly
accurate answer can ever be found (Pfuhl 18). This is why this topic is important to the
study of sociology. Sociologists have more information, and therefore may be closer to
finding the cause. For this reason, my main focus in this paper is at the sociological
stand point of deviance with some explanations from psychologists and biologists.
The family is the link to socialization in one's environment (Four Categories 1). In the
family, divorce, conflict within family, neglect, abuse, and deviant parents are the main
vindicates for the offspring's actions. Early researches first only thought parental
absence affects girls and whites. Modern research finds that the lack of supervision, or
support a child needs is a link to delinquency in any race. It occurs more in single
parent homes because they have a harder time doing those things. Poverty is also a reason
in the family for conflict because it can lead to both family breakups and delinquency.
Children need close, supportive, relationships with parents. What promotes deviance in
the home is the inhibition to talk to parents. The child may feel that they need to get
attention elsewhere, thus acting deviantly if their parents are not there for them.
Parents can prevent this by being competent, non-punitive (to a point), non-aggressive or
violent, and teach their child high self-confidence. 
Family conflict has more damaging effects on children than divorce. Where as parental
death has less impact than divorce (Four Categories 2). When a parent dies a child at
least knows that the parent did not want to leave on his own terms and probably also did
not inflict any abuse to his or her psyche before the parent passes away. Also, if a
child still has contact with both parents after a divorce, the less likely they will feel
neglected and react deviantly. Family size also leaves an adolescent without the
necessary attention they need as an individual. Middle children are more likely to behave
deviantly because they go unnoticed more than their younger or older siblings. 
The legal definitions of abuse and neglect varies from state to state but does, in any
form, create serious consequences for behavior. It occurs in patterns and not just once,
which causes stress, poor self-esteem, aggressiveness, lack of empathy, and fewer
interactions with peers. Child abuse is any physical or emotional trauma to a child for
which no reasonable explanation is found. Neglect refers to the deprivation that children
suffer at the hands of parents (Devinace 1). Such components that comply to these
definitions are non-accidental physical injury and neglect, emotional abuse or neglect,
sexual abuse, and abandonment. Over one million of the youth in America are subjected to
abuse a year. In terms of sexual abuse one in ten abused are boys and one in three of
them are girls. It is really unknown how many cases go unreported in any area of abuse or
neglect a year. From 1980 to 1986 reported cases did go up sixty percent. The most common
reasons found that parents abuse their children is because this is a learned function
they acquired from their parents. This tendency to pass down deviant behavior through
generations is a cycle of family violence (Lemert 48). Parents are unable to separate
childhood traumas from the relationships with their own kids. A group called Child
Protective Services are created to remove abuse from the sibling that can cause more harm
to the victim. This is not always the best option for a family because bigger problems
may arise out of seeking protective services. The rest of the family blames them for the
shame in their name and the main bread winner could go to prison. Another unhealthy thing
to learn from a parent is the feeling of isolation from family and friends. This is more
common is single parent families and lower classes. If a person is living in a lower
class, single-parent environment, they are then at a real disadvantage. It may be because
they do not feel they are good enough to belong in the realms of society. Delinquency is
when a child acts out their hostility towards the parent or abuser in a deviant manner
(Lemert 59). Parents need to correctly punish their child when they see deviant behavior
and give them love, but the problem is that some parents do not see it. 
Other influences outside of the home can cause of person to act deviantly. Peers, media
images, and other people in society set what the norm should be in a given area. In the
South higher numbers of people commit hate crimes still today. This hatred for a race is
practiced over one hundred years ago. The idea that one race should be inferior and hate
another race is something a person is not born with, and must have learned. Men are
taught that the norm is to be aggressive, and even violent. What is normal can be
relatively different in various areas of the world. Some may even accept harsher offenses
such as rape and murder. What is deviant can be changed over time once society as a whole
feels more comfortable and accepting of the certain type of deviant behavior. Only
certain people once got tattoos and now it is a current fad to cover your whole body with
them. Media portrays models and famous figures who get unusual tattoos, piercings, and
have certain attitudes for people, mostly teenager, to follow. There are more
devil-worshipers, or so they portray, in the music business. This says to children that
it is cool to wear the black clothes and act somewhat gothic, like them. This is just one
example. It may just depend on the person to how much their peers and media influence
them to go against the norms. 
Although, once a person is labeled deviant they continue to respond to society as if they
are. This aspect of deviance is called the Labeling Theory. They are sociologists who
seek to find why certain acts are defined as criminal, and others are not. They also
question how and why certain people become defined as a criminal or deviant. The acts
that they perform, in this idea, are not significant to the criminals, but it is the
social reaction to them that is (Overview 1). The response and label from other
individuals in society, such as peers, are how the individuals view themselves. When a
person does a deviant act they are then labeled by society and separated from the normal
people. Such labels in today's society are whore, abuser, loser, and etc. These people
are then outsiders and associate with other people who have been cast out of society.
When more and more people think of these people as deviant they, themselves think they
are too. The Labeling Theory says that once they feel this way they will continue to
behave in the way society now expects them to. 
The biological answer is found in heredity and genetic testing. This is where the
argument of nature vs. nurture comes up. Not in sociology, but in psychology because the
social causes are not being investigated. The question is, are humans genetically
predisposed at birth with the characteristics that make them act deviantly, or do the
people around them influence them to act this way. The early studies of Phrenology was
used by experimenters to determine if an area of the brain had the properties to
predispose a person the deviant behavior. They had more severe deviant behavior in mind
such as sex crimes, rape, theft, assault, murder, treason, and fraud. They figure that
they do not have the right controlling power for that area of the brain if they are
acting abnormal. This theory, like many biological studies trying to find factors of
deviance, is short-lived, but leads to another field of study, anthropology.
Anthropologists say that crime is rooted at heredity. Their studies do not go far either
because when they were measuring physical characteristics they found few differences to
support their hypothesis. Johannes Lange and other later experimenters used twin studies
to attempt to prove the biological theory. They looked at twins with criminal records to
see if both of the siblings are more likely to commit a crime than just one of the
siblings in a set of twins. This is also a contestable topic. The biological argument
would say that delinquents are inferior and inferiority is inherited. Sociologists would
counter act by saying that the person simply learned inferiority from their parents at a
young age and is not inherited. The XYY Controversy disputes that males can have an extra
Y chromosome that makes them extra aggressive. The YY sperm unites with and X ovum and
creates an XYY male. They can not prove that it is not just the pressures from society
that makes a person more easily inclined to act criminally. As is shown from all of the
disproved theories, biologists probably will never be able to defend their research in
trying to discover whether or not inherited characteristics predispose a child to acting
deviant (Berg, 34).
The psychological perspective is popular amongst many crime committers in the United
States today. What is meant by this statement is that a person can plead insanity for
defense and get out of the crime they committed, but the difficult part may be that
psychiatric support is needed. The psychological answer for deviance is the relationship
between crime and mental defectiveness. In the Irresistible Impulse Rule insanity is
emotional rather than an intellectual condition (Pfuhl 45). Mental illnesses can also
either be caused or helped become worse from drugs and alcohol. The test done by
psychologists were those to find out the mental characteristics found in offenders and
non-offenders such as emotions, moods, and temperament. This explanation also is not
accurate because it can be disproved by taking a circular form. For example, they ask a
person why he did what he did? The answer to that is because he is ill. It is then asked
how do we know he is ill? The answer to that is because he did what he did. 
Finally, we come to the third perspective of how deviant behavior is created. The
sociological perspective is the factor that has been the least questioned explanation of
the three, even though it does not also give the exact justification for where deviant
behavior comes from. Sociologists learn from culture's influences, other than a
biological or psychological bias. It is an emergence of a person's character (Pfuhl 50).
Rather than concern with behavior from certain people, sociologists view deviance as a
behavior engaged in a person by having a common socioculture or the same experiences
within a culture. Edwin H. Sutherland explains that deviant and non-deviant behavior are
learned in the same ways through his Differential Association Theory. Sutherland
demonstrates that criminal behavior is learned from intimate groups by the means of
communication. When they learn how to act deviantly they then know what is involved in
what drives a person to commit a crime. This does vary in people who have different
characteristics in concerns of how much a person will learn if they learn anything at
all. This is the most popular among sociological theories because it has not yet been
disproved. This is due to the enormity and difficulty measuring differential associations
in one with criminal or non-criminal patterns. 
Whatever the cause is for deviant behavior is, it is still a problem in society.
Although, behavior that was once thought of as deviant is no longer thought of in that
way anymore. More people are starting to accept differences in people such as gays,
tattoos, and piercings. It is even being taught to children that it is okay if they want
to be different, or feel that they are because everyone is unique and should not be
ashamed of that. The harsher acts of deviance are still looked extremely upon as horrid,
and will hopefully never change. What causes a person to act a certain way is, the least
to say a controversial topic. It may be from inherited traits, learned from society and
family, or even a combination of both. In this case, an exact answer will probably never
be known. 
REFERNCE PAGE
1. Becker, Howard S. Overview of Labeling Theories. http://home.ici.net/~
ddemelo/crime/labeling.html.
2. Berg, Irwin A. and Bass, Bernard M. (1961). Conformity and Deviation. 
New York: Harper and Brothers.
3. Deviance: Behavior that Violates Norms. Http://www.elco.pa.us./
Academics/Social_Studies/Care/ITTP_2/Chap.8.html.
4. Four Categories of Family Functions that Seem to Promote Delinquent 
Behavior. http://www.mpcc.cc.ne.us/aseffles/delcrslides/ch.09/tsld012.
Htm.
5. Lemert, Edwin M. (1972). Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social
Control. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
6. Pfuhl, Erdwin H. Jr. (1980). The Deviance Process. New York: D. Van 
Nostrand Company.