Normal Deviance

Deviance is a violation of the social norms, the consequence of which is societal disapproval or censure against the rule breaker or the behavior. Historically, there has been disagreement among sociologists concerning how to use the term accurately. Additionally, public perceptions about what constitutes deviant behaviors or situations further complicate researchers' abilities to develop meaningful, acceptable, and workable definitions.

Sociological theories of deviance usually emphasize how social structures and social environments exert strain on people pressuring them to engage in deviant behaviors. Émile Durkheim's early theory of deviance argues that since deviant behavior is present in all societies, it must fulfill some needs of the society for its survival. According to Durkheim, the deviant actor serves a positive role in society by helping define and publicize laws and social rules for others, thus creating social cohesion. The deviant individual functions as an outsider, someone whom the collective members of society can react against. Such reaction can lead to social change, ultimately providing a positive function in every society. Durkheim, along with American proponents of social disorganization theory, viewed the rapid social changes in society as a variable central to rates of deviance.

Proponents of symbolic interactionism, tracing their approach to the writings of the University of Chicago philosopher George Herbert Mead, stress the interpretive adjustment of humans to the real or imagined reactions of others, interpreting or defining others' actions instead of merely reacting to them. The reaction theorist Howard Becker asserts that a given act cannot be assumed to be deviant simply because it is commonly regarded as such. Researchers must observe the process by which that common definition arises—labeling. Becker's approach evaluates behaviors through (a) the concrete interactions between labelers and the potential targets of labeling and (b) the historical construction of labels themselves. Deviant labels emerge as the product of enterprise and conflict and are designated by groups with the social position and power to enforce rules, whether legal or otherwise. Described as moral entrepreneurs, these politically and socially powerful entities describe deviance through a society's political struggles within government, between interest groups, in the media, among social scientists, in law enforcement, and among those labeled deviant.

Becker's model of deviance unfolds over time, with patterns of behavior developing in sequence, such as what might be seen in the progressive stages by which an individual becomes a deviant drug user. At each stage of the process, the potential deviant experiences myriad social forces that influence whether or not there is an advance into further nonconformity. In the case of the deviant drug user, such forces might include availability of drugs, the environment in which to use drugs, access to money for drugs, and the associates with whom to use—all social factors contributing to the individual's increasing deviance.

People may initially deviate for biological, psychological, or sociological reasons. Gagnon and Simon, in their research on human sexuality during the 1960s, strayed from the traditionally biological and behavioral view of human sexuality and sexual deviance popularized by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey and approached their subject from a sociological perspective. Writing initially on the cusp of the 1960s “sexual revolution,” and during a period of second-wave feminism (during debates about sexual violence, pornography, and women's sexuality) and Stonewall (the symbolic start of a global gay and lesbian movement), Gagnon and Simon took a constructionist approach to human sexuality, identifying three categories of sexual deviance: normal, pathological, and sociological. Borrowing heavily from the social critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke, who described humans as symbol-using [Page 468]creatures, the authors viewed human sexuality as language, symbol, and metaphor, making sexuality different from that of the world of other animals.

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