Deviance is a term utilized by society to specify behaviors that differ from the everyday public norm, this means that majority of folks in a culture must agree with the fact or comply with a certain action or patterns. In 1906, William Sumner developed the concept to categorize "norm" into three different categories: folkways, mores, and laws and regulations. He identifies 'folkway' as the easy day-to-day norm which was based on customs, practices and mannerisms. If one weren't to follow just how of 'folkway norm' it could probably cause others to assume that they are unusual or irregular but would not cause fury. Typical 'folkway norms' include design of dressing, personality, physical distance or closeness with others, and eating patterns. Shifting, 'mores' are norms which reflect wide-ranging social ethics. Interracial marriage, having an illegitimate child, and abusing drugs and alcohol would violate the 'mores' laws and regulations and would cause a havoc and produce much more serious interpersonal denunciation. Being in an interracial marriage may make one seem to be racially impure, bearing an illegitimate child can threaten communal definition of a marriage, and abusing or being addicted to drugs and alcohol shows success of hedonism over prudence. Those that don't comply with 'mores norm' may seem to be sinful, and arranged themselves up as a potential hazard to contemporary society. Furthermore, the 'laws and regulations norm' is the strongest custom from the other two norms. It is because it is supported by codified communal approval. Those that infringe this norm are punished with techniques ranging from a fine to imprisonment. Although one may break regulations, it wouldn't automatically label the offender as deviant. With this said, deviance and criminal offenses can respectively fall into one category. Think about this, if certain individual decides to burglarize or vandalize someone's property, or even causing harm to another being, it considered both deviant and a criminal offenses. Also, there are many other deviant acts that aren't considered criminal, such as being over or underweight, being literally or psychologically handicapped, being in an interracial marriage, and having an illegitimate child. To restate a prior point, these can be considered deviant because though it is not considered a crime, it violates the norm accepted by modern culture. Having said that, we can consider criminal offenses and deviance as overlapping categorizes with its own individual magnitudes. Attitude, patterns, and condition will be the ABC's of deviance. People may be tagged deviant based on their attitudes or belief system which include religion, political views and beliefs in the supernatural. Getting a mental sickness can also land into the deviant category. The 'B' in the deviant ABC's stands for habit which people are the most familiar with. Deviant behavior can occur intentionally or unintentionally, for example, one might unintentionally violate a dress-code, or some may intentionally take part in bizarre sexual activities, or one may commit murder. Last but not least, the 'C' stands for condition. Those who are considered deviant for their condition probably received it from birth such to be born un-wealthy, being truly a person of color in a mainly Caucasian dominated community, being blessed literally handicapped, or being elevation deviant. In this case, the individual has done nothing wrong or taken any negative actions to be labeled deviant; this also helps it be almost impossible to improve their deviant status. Although some activities that an individual chooses to adopt will be universally called deviant tendencies, others are judged purely based on cultural customs.
Heckert's notion of "positive" deviance would primarily refer to participating in less selfish activities and much more devotion toward the population. Heckert has described many different ways in which positive deviance is evitable such as altruism, pacifism, co-operation, temperance and so many more. Altruism is one of the very most appreciated form of positive deviance since it brings out the loyalty. All the martyrs are categorized as this category as they sacrificed themselves because of their nation plus they can't ever be forgotten. Those that spread the sign of peacefulness throughout the societies also fall under positive deviance such as Gandhi. Positive deviance is obviously evident atlanta divorce attorneys community where certain individuals or teams are more lucrative than other when everyone has received same resources but the strategies were different. Positive deviance is how efficiently a person, an organization or a community move forward to a better future and creates an example for other. Societies require positive deviance so they could move ahead with the rest of the world. Exemplory case of positive deviance is to progress and stop child labor in expanding countries and putting them in a institution for education.
Labeling theory which is also known as "social reaction theory" suggests that deviance is no inherit to act instead it's the people who obtain brands from how other view their tendency or behavior. It is the society that makes the criminals by keep being either unfair or by bogus accusations. Assume a person will commit a crime under very hard circumstances and down the road provides the label of an "criminal" will have negative effect on his personality and this person will be always regarded as a criminal. When the society has choose to look at a person dangerous for reasons such as past criminal record or the color of his/her pores and skin than perhaps it won't be any harder the next time because of this person to commit offense. Our societies also look for auxiliary characteristics within a posture or career. For instance, a doctor is consider as an white men, upper middle class and more. On other hands, black individuals were more attached to criminal activities and those who turned out to be doctors were hard to trust by the modern culture because these were never seen in that form. Essentially, an individual's previous action create or form his/her future and this lacks the fairness in sense this person might well have adopted better human being attributes. Students who review deviance should not make an assumption if the individual is actually a criminal or broken rule because the process of labeling might not exactly be infallible.
According to the conflict perspective, deviance is a social creation and the energy structure in virtually any society defines what things to be consider normal and what is not. So essentially there is no such thing as "human character, " hence deviance is the creation of the sociable structure rather than something build into our aspect. Alternatively, functional deviance approach believes that it is the majority associates of the population who defines what is normal and what's not. Both techniques look at the society as a whole rather than on individual level. Conflict theory mainly defines societies consisting of powerful or powerless. Powerful does not have any right to maintain power but manipulates other convince general public about their legitimacy. This can be related to Durkheim's state of anomie. Anomie is the result of collective conscious being collapsed. In this example, people tend to look from fundamental social targets and solely give attention to their self-interest. The long-term collapse of order and tranquility in both strategies are harmful to the contemporary society.
In conclusion, Human being norms make reference to the set behavioral standards on which human are likely to work. Deviance is a study that helps understand the real reason for violation of real human norms. There is not one particular answer that will do to justify individuals norms violation, hence many sociological scholars have offered different group of theories that will help us understand deviance with extensive perspectives. Some of the scholars that have played incredible part in understanding deviance are Erikson, Hackerts and finally the father of Sociology Emile Durkheim. Deviance will be present no subject how perfect the modern culture is, as Durkheim explained about the population of saints which is perfect but the id of deviance level would be so high that even smallest mistake can be seen as a strong disapproval from the modern culture.
