M2D1: Using Theory to Understand “Why I Love Shoplifting” Upon successful completion of this activity, students will be able to: 1. Explain the concept of social deviance and provide examples of devia
Module 2: Learning & Assessment Activities
During this module you will:
Read:
Required
Module 2: Module Notes: Understanding Why People Engage in Deviant Behavior
Patricia Adler & Peter Adler: Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction Part 2 (pages 57-108)
“Why Do the Wealthy Shoplift? (https://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/02/18/why-do-the-wealthy-shoplift/)”
https://youtu.be/Osplq4VZATg
View:
Required
Why I Love Shoplifting From Big Corporations
Discuss:
M2D1: Using Theory to Understand
Explain the concept of social deviance and provide examples of deviant behavior in social context.
3. Acquire a basic understanding of how to apply theories of deviance to their own personal and
professional experiences.
4. Apply appropriate social science theories and methodologies to do an in-depth analysis of an important question, issue or problem (Social Science Learning Outcome 2)
As you watch the video, “Why I love Shoplifting,” see how many themes you can pick up from our discussions and readings, so far. You may want to watch the video more than once to catch all of the details.
After watching the YouTube Video, “Why I Love Shoplifting,” use at least one of the theoretical approaches to explain and/or discuss your theory about why the character in this clip is engaging in shoplifting behavior. Make sure to draw on your textbook (lecture notes are optional for this posting) to discuss how the behavior you observe in this video can be explained using these theoretical approaches.
Upon successful completion of this activity, students will be able to:
Analyze social phenomena utilizing theoretical frameworks
Explain the concept of social deviance and provide examples of deviant behavior in social context
Acquire a basic understanding of how to apply theories of deviance to their own personal and professional experiences
Please read the Instructor’s Notes, Alder & Alder Part II (pages 57-108), and Why Do the Wealthy Shoplift? (Links to an external site.). Also, watch: “Why I Love Shoplifting" (Links to an external site.) [Video File][05 Min 09 Sec].
Module 2 introduces students to various theories of deviance; this section builds on the foundation from Module 1, in which students developed an understanding of what deviant behavior is. The theories in Module 2 are derived from major schools of social scientific thought, and each describes and explains why individuals and groups people engage in deviant acts.
The major theories describing why people engage in deviant behavior are as follows:
Biological and Psychological Theories: These theories predate the academic fields of sociology and criminal justice. These early theories of deviance focus on the biological and psychological makeup of “deviant” individuals and seek to attribute deviant behavior to characteristics of the individuals who commit criminal/deviant acts. Early biological theories of deviance focused on “body type” as an explanation for deviant behavior. Some of these theories attribute deviant behavior to “personality,” while others point to brain activity and IQ scores. The major shortcoming of these theories is that they fail to account for the social context and structural elements of deviant behavior in their explanations, and they look at deviant acts as fixed, rather than situational—they do not account for the fact that the same act can be “normal” in one setting and “deviant” in another. These explanations are still often used to understand why extreme deviant acts are committed. For example, even when we take all social explanations into account, many scholars still believe that there is something fundamentally different about individuals who engage in serial rapes and murders. Although social explanations can shed some light on these behaviors, most individuals, regardless of their social context or social history, do not engage in these extreme, violent, deviant acts.
Structural Theories: Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology, introduced this theory of deviance as part of his “functionalist” explanation of society. According to Durkheim, societies can be compared to living organisms, or bodies, with various groups of people serving as various parts of the organism; each part depends upon the others for the whole organism to function. According to this theory, deviance contributes to a healthy society as an expression of collective beliefs about good and evil. Durkheim contends that part of what makes a society strong is a shared understanding the rules of conduct and behavior. From this perspective, a healthy society is made up of a diversity of individuals and groups which cannot all conform to every norm of society; therefore, rule-breakers stretch and bend the rules of society, and the shared ideas of right and wrong are able to become stronger as they evolve and grow in response to normal differences between individuals and groups. From this perspective, social response to deviant behavior is also an important part of a functioning society. There are many modern examples of how laws and rules have changed in response to society’s evolving and changing beliefs about what is “deviant.” Take, for example, gay marriage and civil unions and the “Don’t ask don’t tell” law within the US Military and subsequent efforts to repeal this law. Consider how our society’s laws and rules have responded as we see growing consensus within media and society that homosexuality is a normal part of modern society.
Cultural Theories: Cultural explanations for why individuals and groups engage in deviant behavior focus on norms within cultures, subcultures and groups seeking to effect social change. Cultural theories of deviance have their roots in social conflict theory. This approach explains that groups often engage in organized or semi-organized deviant acts and actions in order to make changes in society or to survive and thrive in societies where they are marginalized. These theories are sometimes used to explain youth street gangs, countercultural movements and the illegal economy of prostitution and drug trafficking. According to these theories, individuals and groups who are not able to achieve mainstream success in their societies establish alternative cultures that are either couched within the dominant culture or in opposition to the dominant culture. These subcultures and/or countercultures evolve with their own sets of norms, values and ideas about what is considered “deviant,” and these norms are often different from those of the mainstream culture.
Interactionist Theories: Social interactionist theories do not reject any of the above theories of deviance; instead, they contend that each of these theories has much to contribute to the larger picture of deviant behavior. The Interactionist approach has its roots in the Social Constructionist perspective. According to this perspective, deviant behavior does not occur with predictability under any of the conditions described by the earlier theorists, and this is because there are forces of interaction that influence how each of us behaves in any given situation. Interactionist methods for understanding why people engage in deviant behavior use “micro-sociology,” which looks at small-scale settings and then uses these observations to develop theories about human behavior, rather than “macro” approaches, which attempt to understand the individual by first forming theories about the larger social world. The Interactionist approach to understanding deviant behavior holds that deviant behavior is constructed, learned and performed through lived interaction between people who have agency and have the ability to change their behavior. Further, this approach contends that deviance is situational and, therefore, dependent on the context of any given act. Recall from Module 1 that this theory holds that any act can be considered normal or deviant, depending upon when and where it is performed.
