Matza, David: Becoming Deviant

Naturalism

Matza's naturalism—and its emphasis on appreciation of how the actor views his or her own situation—stands in marked contrast to the previous five decades of the dominant correctional perspective found in American criminology. [Page 584]Correctional theories are concerned with questions of causation and ultimately of getting rid of unwanted phenomena. For Matza, “the stress on the bad consequences of evil phenomena obscured … the possibility of evil arising from things deemed good and good from things deemed evil” (p. 22). Evil, or deviant, phenomena are pathological in nature, concrete, objective, and measurable.

Standing in contrast to a correctional approach are naturalistic theories. According to Matza, “naturalism … is the philosophical view that strives to remain true to the nature of the phenomenon under study or scrutiny” (p. 5, emphasis in the original). Naturalism focuses on the complex diversity of deviance and the deviant subject, requiring criminologists to appreciate or empathize with the deviant phenomenon, to consider it from the subject's definition of the situation, ultimately to understand how the world appears to the subject. In contrast to a correctional approach which emphasizes the need to get rid of pathologically deviant phenomena, Matza celebrates the diversity reflected in deviance as a necessary and vital part of society.

Affinity

In the last two-thirds of Becoming Deviant, Matza explores how criminologists have dealt with the question of the etiology of deviance. Affinity conceptualizes deviance as being the result of a combination of many possible factors in an individual's background—for example, biological or psychological factors, or cultural or social factors such as urban poverty. People have an affinity to deviance because it reflects an attractive force or deterministic notion of contagion. The favorite affinity of sociologists, according to Matza, has been “between poverty and pathology” (p. 96). Individuals do not choose their actions; rather they are objects predisposed or strongly drawn to deviance. According to Matza, however, becoming deviant is not a structurally predetermined process; instead it involves an unfolding of desire and choice.

Affiliation

In contrast to affinity, affiliation emphasizes the process of becoming converted to deviance through making conscious choices. From a correctional perspective, affiliation suggests contagion in which exposure to particular factors lead to deviance. From a humanized naturalistic perspective, affinity produces a simple willingness to act. The consequence of being exposed to the “causes” of deviance is not to act; instead the exposure opens the possibility of seeing oneself as the kind of person who might engage in a particular act.

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