Question

What are the four functions of deviance? Explain four different times in your life when each of these functions was present.

Answer 1

Deviance defines acts or attitudes that contradict social norms, including a formally enforced law (e.g., crime), as well as implicit breaches of social norms (e.g., denial of folk and morals). Deviance is a behavioral condition that does not adhere to an institutionalized set-up or code of conduct.While deviance may have a negative connotation, the viola may have a negative connotation.In some cases positive deviation occurs. While breaching a rule, an action can still be marked as positive or reasonable.

Across society, and between cultures, social norms vary. A certain act or behavior may be perceived as deviant, receiving sanctions or punishments within one society, and considered a normal behavior in another. In fact, as the understanding of social expectations in a culture changes over time, so does the common sense of deviance. Deviance is proportional to the location it was committed, or the time the crime happened. For example, killing another person is generally considered incorrect, except when governments allow it during warfare or for self-defence.

Deviating actions can be declarations of uniqueness and identity, and therefore as defiance against collective standards of the dominant culture and in favor of a subculture.

In a society, an individual's or a group's actions defines how a deviant establishes norms. Émile Durkheim argued that deviance was actually a normal and essential part of social organization.He mentioned four important functions of social organization,which are:

1. Deviance affirms societal values and norms. The concept of morality is based on an opposite notion of vice: there can be no good without evil and no punishment without crime.

2. Deviance determines moral boundaries, people learn right from wrong by defining people as deviant.

3. A severe form of deviance compels people to come together and respond against it in the same way.

4. Deviance tends to push moral barriers which, in turn leads to social change.

Instance for function one, hunting or killing an animal for your own greed and purpose while the animal can be of cultural and economic importance to some tribes or community.

Instance for function two, intake of illegal and hallucinogenic drugs or smoking.

Instance for function three, assault ,molestation and eve teasing.

Instance for function four, styling gothic , doing practices and rituals of different culture or country which are yet unacceptable in the region.