Sociologists refer to deviance as any behavior, characteristic or a belief that violate, or deviate, or depart from, a basic norm and is likely to generate negative reactions or perceptions by the persons who observes or hears about the norm violation (Bartos and paul, p17). In addition, they further outline the ABCs of deviance as: Attitudes, Conditions and behaviors. Adler and Adler (2009) clearly explain why these ABCs are considered to be the major types of deviance. He explains Attitudes as any unpopular, unconventional beliefs that may or may not depict themselves in overt actions. In regard to behavior, he explains it as being overt actions that also includes failure to act, and attracts condemnation, punishment or hostility. Conditions can be explained as any physical characteristic or traits that may position an individual as a target for derision, disapproval, avoidance or any other forms of negative social reactions. Sociologists refer to various conditions to being forms of deviance; nevertheless I consider it not fair or sociologically meaningful in any way. These conditions include being extremely poor, having a congenital physical disability or having mental illness. Additionally belonging to a certain national, ethnic or racial category should not be termed as a form of deviance since it is usually not the person’s choice to be born or to fall under that category.
In the mid 20th century, the treatment for mental disorders only included two basic sources of healthcare: The psychiatrist’s private office or the more popular mental hospital. The persons with mental disorders who went to these two places often stayed there for many months or even years. However, in the past two or three decades, the treatment for mental disorders has undergone a positive revolution by providing an array of treatment options depending on the medical need of the patient. Nowadays, there is 24hour inpatient care at all general hospital’s psychiatric unit, state and federal public psychiatric hospitals and also in the private psychiatric hospitals. These changes have greatly improved the provision of care and efforts to restore the maximum independent living using the appropriate level of care for patients with mental disorder.
Deviant beliefs such as religious cult membership, political extremists and Satanists differ from deviant behavior since deviant behaviors is achieved by people casting into deviant label for overt acts such as dress code violation, abuse of drugs, speech convections or involvement in violent acts. The deviant beliefs may or may not manifest themselves in an overt action while deviant behaviors are made up of any overt action. On the other hand, there exist differences and similarities between behavioral deviance and the involuntary acquired, undesirable physical characteristics. One of the difference is that, deviant behaviors usually result from a decision that an individual makes, for instance involvement in drug abuse is a choice that one makes in their lives while on the other hand, the undesirable physical characteristics in an individual are the traits that one acquired but they do not posses any power or ability to change them, this includes being extremely ugly, very short, obese or even deformed. In regard to their similarities, the acquisition of deviant and undesirable physical characteristics may be as a result of voluntary action. Such as disfiguring oneself or getting a full body tattoo. However, these generations may not at all times apply to all societies due to differences in the perception of social behaviors.
Gendered sexuality can simply be explained as ways in which gender and sexuality are usually recognized as likened constructs. The role of an individual’s gender is informed by and impacts others opinion of their sexuality. For example, if a man behaves like a lady, people may question his heterosexuality and may end up terming him as a gay. Another example of transgendered sexuality is the notion that the man is the head of the family and no the woman, this is a role that a man is presented to because of his gender.
As a form of constructivism, the conflict theory aims at looking to the social and economic factors as the major causes of deviance and crime. Unlike their counterparts, the functionalist theorists, conflict theorist do not see the economic and social factors as positive functions of the society but as only the evidence of inequality in the whole system. This theory challenges social control theory and the disorganization theory where they argue that they both ignore socioeconomically and the racial aspects and oversimplifying social trends (Bartos and paul, p113). In addition, the conflict theory seeks to explain deviant behaviors and criminal behavior to the correlation of race and gender with the level of poverty and crime.
Despite the fact that alcohol and tobacco smoking is legal, it still falls under the categories of deviance because, sociologists assert s that, even if we actually do believe in a given thing, our behavior is usually weighed more heavily than our beliefs (Weltz, p163)Top of FormTop of ForTop of Form.Therefore, the fact that the government has not yet banned or made the consumption of alcohol and smoking of cigarettes illegal does not make this form of behavior socially acceptable. This is because, as Goffman explains in his book, most of the people see the behavior that the society regards as deviant as those that may be indicating “a person’s character blemishes”. These behaviors range from drug abuse, adultery, gambling and also alcoholism. However, the level of deviance in regard to alcohol varies with age, for instance it becomes very defiant when a child opts to indulge into alcoholism as compared to an adult. They become deviant activities because they do not help in the growth but mostly intoxicate the individual leading to the destruction of other societal norms.
All the organizations mentioned i.e. WorldCom, Tyco, Global crossing and Enron Corporation are mostly known for their corporate unethical practices that lead to their downfall. For instance, all these corporations are well known to have largely involved themselves in financial fraud that almost crippled the US securities markets and led to massive losses to the investors (Clarke, Thomas p153). Conversely, this form of fraud belongs to different forms of deviance. This unhealthy practice creates a distinction from the usual forms of deviance because it is a corporate deviance which is guided by professional ethics and not the usual societal norms that governs individuals in a society. This form of distinction is important because the society has little or no authority in the monitoring of these corporate deviances since they appear to be beyond their capacity to monitor them and impart their good moral values. Therefore, I think that the distinction makes sense and ought to continue to exist so as to clearly show the distinction between corporate and society deviances.
Works Cited
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Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity.
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