Chapter 2 – Positivist Theory

Positivist Theories

The causes of deviant behavior like the one of Cho Seung-Hui, the man behind the tragic Virginia Tech shooting, characterizes positivist theories of deviance.

Anomie-Strain Theory

• In 1938, Robert Merton developed a theory known as ​anomie theory​.
• Described as, “the breakdown of social norms that results from society’s urging people to be ambitious but failing to provide them with legitimate opportunities to succeed.”
• The theory was extended by emerging different concepts into this theory.
• Albert Cohen and Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin.
• In 1955, Cohen’s idea explained how the emergence of delinquent boys and common social factors contributed to their paths of delinquency.
• In 1960, Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin expanded the concept by including differential illegitimate opportunity.
• By the 1990’s, other attempts emphasized how the strain generated in people by anomie or other social conditions causes them to commit deviant acts.

Merton: The Goal- Means Gap

• With the following premise, Robert Merton developed his anomie theory.
• Merton disagreed with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of deviant behavior.
• Freud’s theory states that the criminal, pathological, or socially dangerous behavior represented the desire of free expression by the libido.
• Merton found a defect in the theory which was, “the assumption that the structured society restrains free expression of fixed impulses.”
• Society discouraging individual from engaging in deviant activities.
• Named this assumption “fallacious premise”.
• Instead, Merton believed society encourages individuals to engage in deviant activities.
• Sociologists believe Merton’s theory was inspired by Emile Durkheim.
• The first to use the term anomie as a sociological concept.
• However, the implication of Durkheim’s concept of anomie is contrary to the premise of Merton’s theory.
• Durkheim uses anomie as the absence of social norms.
• Merton assumes deviance will occur if society encourages it by pressuring individuals to commit it.
• Merton believes modern, industrialized US society emphasizes the cultural value of success.
• Kindergarten to college; books, magazines, online news; games, sports and athletic events- all encourage you to want to become successful yourself.
• Though, society is structured that people of lower social classes, compared to those of higher, have less opportunities to realize success aspirations.
• Many lower class resort to illegitimate means of achieving success aspirations such as stealing and robbing.
• Thus, lower class people are more likely to engage in deviant activities.
• Cause of lower class deviant activities, societal condition by the inconsistency between society’s overemphasis on success goal and its lack of emphasis on the means of achieving the goal.
• Encouragement of high aspirations and denial of success opportunities society produces strain which pressures us to commit deviance.
• Merton, goal means gap.
• Merton refers to deviant behavior of lower class people who accept the goal while rejecting the legitimate means for realizing the goal as innovation.
• Merton presents five types of responses.
• Conformity- most popular form of response, accepts both cultural success goal and use of legitimate means of goal.
• Innovation- largely found among lower class, the central subject of strain theory, rejects use of legal means instead favor illegal ones to achieve success goal they’ve learned to accept.
• Ritualism- common among lower-middle class, lower aspiration or abandon high success to easily realize aspirations. Instead ritualistically abide institutional norm of loyal worker.
• Retreatism- withdrawal from society into the shell of one’s self, no care of success. Doesn’t care to work.
• Psychotics, outcasts, alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.
• Rebellion- rejecting prevailing social expectation to work hard in the race to reach goal of success. Attempts to overthrow existing system to put new one. May encourage people to seek goodwill toward others.

Cohen: Status Frustration

• Anomie-strain proposed by Cohen fundamentally same as Merton’s.
• Suggests that industrialized US society encourages classes to achieve status while difficult for lower class to achieve.
• Lower class compelled to achieve status in own way, to engage in deviant acts.
• However, Cohen replaces the word ​success​with ​
  • Ex: lower class boys like middle-class peers, want to have status
• The place to achieve this is school, forced to attend.
• Most unlikely place for lower class boys, ensures failure.
• Middle-class system, run by middle-class teachers, middle-class standards, middle-class setting.
• Middle-class is successful meanwhile lower-class boys are not.
• Therefore, lower-class boys fail tremendously.
• Being a loser or an also-ran is frustrating.
• Driven by this frustration Cohen refers to as ​status frustration.
  • Lower class boys set up own competitive system known as ​delinquent subculture.
• Compete more fairly for high status in accordance with own criteria.
• Direct opposition of “respectable” middle-class conventional criteria.
• They judge wrong values/behaviors right and judge right values/behaviors as wrong.
• So-called delinquent activities involve, stealing “for the hell of it”.
• Cohen suggests goal-means gap can lead lower class boys toward deviant activities only if the boys encounter status frustration.
• Third intervening variable that enables means-gap to produce delinquent subculture.

Cloward and Ohlin: Differential Illegitimate Opportunity

• Accept idea that lower classes engage in deviance since they have been encouraged to hold high success, though unlike higher classes are denied the ​legitimate​means or opportunity of achieving goal.
• Extend it by introducing concept of differential ​illegitimate​
• Problem of diff. Illegitimate opp- low classes have less opportunity than others for achieving success in legitimate conforming manner.
• Though, Merton assumes lower classes when confronted with lack of opportunity would automatically engage in deviance.
• Fails to recognize that low classes after being confronted with problem of differential ​legitimate​opportunity are confronted with the problem of ​illegitimate
• While all low-class people suffer from lack of opportunity for engaging in legitimate/ conforming activities.
• They do not hold same opportunity for participating in illegitimate and deviant activities.
• Thus, when low-class persons are pressured to commit deviant act there’s no guarantee they will do it.
• Whether they do it or not depend on access to illegitimate opportunity in low-class neighborhood.
• There are three types of illegitimate opportunity, each provided by a deviant subculture:
• Criminal- subculture offers illegitimate opportunities for achieving success by stealing, robbing and fencing. This kind Merton assumes all lower-class youngsters will turn when denied conventional opportunities in society. Many of low-class youths are not part of criminal therefore do not enjoy criminal opportunities.
• Conflict- in subculture, youngster has opportunity achieve status within violent/ delinquent gang. Only available to youth who meet criteria for great fighting skill and risking injury or death in gang warfare. Many youth fail to meet criteria thus denied opportunity for achieving such status.
• Retreatist- only requirement for membership is willingness to enjoy use of drugs. If recruited to subculture likely to be those who failed to achieve success in criminal subculture or attain status in conflict.
• Due to failure of achieving success/status in both delinquent underworld and conventional upper-world, retreatist are referred to as “double-failures”.
• Extended Merton’s anomie-strain theory by introducing differential illegitimate opportunity as a third, intervening variable through which the goal-means gap leads to three different kinds of deviant acts.
• Disagree with Merton that lower class people are more inclined than others toward deviance because they are more likely to experience discrepancy between success aspirations and the opportunity for realizing aspirations.

Recent Developments

• Steven Messner & Richard Rosenfeld
• “Anything goes” mentality, as in the pursuit of the American dream.
• Mark Konty
• People have a strong self interest, and no social interest.
• The “American dream” is emphasizes dominance over others, instead of the welfare of others.
• Research shows people who engage in deviance, show strong sle interest while lacking social interests.
• Robert Agnew
• The “removal of positive stimuli” and the “presentation of negative stimuli.”
• The removal of positive stimuli, like the loss of a boyfriends or a close friend, and the presentation of negative stimuli, like child abuse and parents getting divorced.

Evaluating Anomie-Strain Theory

• It has two major faults and problems
• The first one being there is no evidence to support that lower class individuals engage in deviant activity more than any other class.
• Second, there is no evidence to support the assumption that the lower class tend to hold the same aspirations as any other class.
• This theory has given sociologist valuable information : society causes deviant behavior

Social Learning Theory

• Edwin Sutherland (1939) – deviant behavior is learned through one’s interactions with others.

Sutherland Differential Association

• If an individual associates with people who hold deviant ideas more than those who embrace conventional ideas, the individual is likely to become deviant.
• The ​excess​of deviant behavior over conventional.

Glaser Differential Association

• Daniel Glaser created this theory on 1956 because he criticized Sutherland’s theory for having a “mechanistic image” of deviance.
• Conveys an image of a person being automatically involved in deviant behavior if they’re associated with deviants.
• “Ignored an individual’s role taking and choice making ability”.
• Associating yourself with deviants is harmless unless you identify yourself with them
• The theory doesn’t refer to 1 type of association.
• You don’t necessarily become deviant if you have a lot of contact with deviant ideas.
• Rejects the idea that the association with deviants will automatically cause you to be one
• It’s okay to associate yourself with deviants as long as you do not identify yourself with them.
• Cannot idolize any deviants (criminals).
• If a person identifies with deviants more than non deviants, then they have a higher chance of becoming a deviant.
• Glaser argues:
• Differential association -> differential identification -> deviant behavior

Burgess and Akers Differential Reinforcement

• Robert Burges and Ronald Akers argue that Sutherland is simply implying that people with differential association must go through a learning process before they become deviants.
• Burgess and Akers uses a known psychology theory to explain what the learning process consist of:
• “We are motivated to continue behaving a certain way if we have been rewarded for doing so, or to discontinue the behavior is we have been punished for it”
• Deviants will continue to have deviant ideas and actions if they have been rewarded for it in the past
• Robbers
• Law of Differential Reinforcement states that when a person has multiple deviant and conventional actions/ ideas to choose from they will choose whichever was more satisfying for them in the past.
• More likely to choose a deviant actions/idea if they have been more exposed to deviant ideas than conventional ones.

Evaluation Social Learning Theory

• “People cannot identify the person from whom they learned deviant and anti deviant ideas”
• Sociologists claim that they have only ground support/ evidence for their own interpretation of Sutherland’s theory.
• Some sociologists only look at the association aspect of differential association.
• Glaser version of this theory seems to be supported by empirical data.
• High schoolers who hang out with delinquent friends are most likely delinquent.
• There is no conclusive evidence that delinquent friends is the cause of delinquency because the teenagers could have already been delinquent before they began to associate themselves with delinquent people.
• Burges and Akers theory doesn’t explain what causes a person to commit their first deviant act however it demonstrates why deviants continue with their deviant actions.
• Been rewarded in the past so they are satisfied with the outcome of deviant acts.
• People who don’t continue to do delinquent acts were punished in the past for them.
• No evidence leading to what causes a person to commit their first delinquent act just explanation why it continues to happen.

The Deterrence Doctrine

• The deterrence doctrine focuses on formal social control executed by judges and other law-enforcement agents.
• Assumes that humans are basically rational.
• The doctrine assumes that punishment (a form of social control) deters crime—and lack of punishment encourages it.
• There are three ways in which punishment can be carried out, each being assumed to affect the likelihood of committing a crime.
• First, punishments can be made more or less severe.
• Second, punishment can be made more or less certain.
• Third, punishment can be made more or less swift.
• Whatever the mode of punishment, whether it be severe, certain, or swift, it is assumed to achieve two kinds of deterrence: general and specific.
• General deterrence= the punishment of a criminal deters the public from committing crimes.
• Specific deterrence= the punishment of a criminal deters the criminal from committing more crimes.

Evaluating Control Theory

• There are three control theories that suggest that some form of control prevents people from committing deviant acts and the lack of controls prompts the commission of such acts.
• First, many studies have supported Hirschi’s social bond and self-control theory.
• Deviants (such as juvenile delinquents, drug users, and drunk drivers) have been found to have a weaker social bond or self-control than non-deviants.
• Japanese college students have been found to engage in significantly less deviance than their American counterparts, because of their society.
• These studies effectively suggest that deviance causes deviance.
• Second, Braithwaite is only partly convincing in his argument that the United States can reduce crime by treating criminals with the same lenient as Japan does.
• This treatment may work for first-time offenders who have committed relatively minor crimes and still retain a sense of shame for their crimes.
• Third, the deterrence doctrine has received only conflicting support from research.
• For example, various studies show that arresting wife-beaters reduces further violence more than less severe forms of punishment such as ordering the offender to leave the victim for eight hours.
• But, studies on released prisoners suggest just the opposite: The more severe their punishment (and the longer the sentence), the more likely former inmates will commit crimes again.
• Finally, various control theorists share a simplistic view of social control, regarding it as only a ​preventer ​of deviance. They fail to see control as a possible ​cause ​of deviance.