What Is Deviant Behavior?

Charles Farnham is a software writer with an enormous collection of commercial programs for his Apple Macintosh computer. Like millions of other people, he has not bought most of the programs—he has simply copied them from his friend’s soft ware. Federal law prohibits this kind of behavior, but many computer users who would not steal a library book or cheat on a test have no qualms about copying soft ware illegally. Farnham explains that most software is too expensive and that there is nothing wrong with sampling a program before spending $500 or more (Markoff, 1992).

General Definitions and Theories of Deviant Behavior

On the other hand, Aleta Walker, an obese 36-year-old woman, has a different kind of experience. Throughout her life she has been ridiculed and abused for her weight, especially during her childhood and adolescence. Every day, when she walked down the halls at school, boys would step back and yell, “Wide load!” It was worse at lunchtime. As she said, “Every day there was this production of watching me eat lunch.” One day, schoolmates threw food at her. Spaghetti splashed on her head and face, and the long greasy strands dripped onto her clothes. “Everyone was laughing and pointing. They were making pig noises. I just sat there,” she said (Kolata, 1992).

Is Farnham deviant for copying software illegally? Some people would say yes, but others would say no. Is Walker deviant for being overweight? Again, some people would agree, but others would disagree. In fact, some would say that it is her tormentors—the so-called normal people—who are deviant because they are grossly insensitive, nasty, or cruel. There is, in fact, a great deal of disagreement among people as to what they consider deviant. In a classic study, J. L. Simmons (1965) asked a sample of the general public who they thought was deviant. They mentioned 252 different kinds of people as deviants, including prostitutes, alcoholics, drug users, murderers, the mentally ill, the physically challenged, communists, atheists, liars, Democrats, Republicans, reckless drivers, self-pitiers, the retired, divorcees, Christians, suburbanites, movie stars, per petual bridge players, pacifists, psychiatrists, priests, liberals, conservatives, junior exec utives, smart-aleck students, and know-it-all professors. If you are surprised that some of these people are considered deviant, your surprise simply adds to the fact that there is a good deal of disagreement among the public as to the conception of deviant behavior.

A similar lack of consensus exists among sociologists. We could say that the study of deviant behavior is probably the most “deviant” of all the subjects in sociology. Sociologists disagree more over the definition of deviant behavior than they do on any other subject.

CONFLICTING DEFINITIONS

Some sociologists simply say that deviance is a violation of any social rule, while others argue that deviance involves more than rule violation—that it also has the quality of provoking disapproval, anger, or indignation. Some advocate a broader definition, arguing that a person can be a deviant without violating any rule or doing something that rubs others the wrong way, such as individuals with physical or mental disabilities. These people are considered deviant in this view because they are disvalued by society. By contrast, some sociologists contend that deviance does not have to be conceived as only negative but instead can also be positive, such as being a genius, reformer, creative artist, or glamorous celebrity. Other sociologists disagree, considering “positive deviance” to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms (Goode, 1991; Dodge, 1985; Harman, 1985; Sagarin, 1985, 1975; Nettler, 1984, 1974; Hirschi, 1973; Merton, 1971; Cohen, 1966; Parsons, 1951).

Some of these sociologists apparently assume that, whether it is positive or negative, disturbing behavior or disvalued condition, deviance is real in and of itself, that is, endowed with a certain quality that distinguishes it from nondeviance. The logic behind this assumption is that if it is not real in the first place, it cannot be considered positive, negative, disturbing, or disvalued (Nettler 1984, 1974; Hirschi, 1973; Akers, 1968). But other sociologists disagree, arguing that deviance does not have to be real in order for behaviors and conditions to be labeled deviant. People can be falsely accused of being criminal, erroneously diagnosed as mentally ill, unfairly stereotyped as dangerous because of their skin color, and so on. Conversely, committing a deviant act does not necessarily make the person a deviant, especially when the act is kept secret, unlabeled by others as deviant. It is, therefore, the label “deviant”—not the act itself—that makes the individual deviant (Becker, 1963; Erikson, 1962).

Some sociologists go beyond the notion of labeling to define deviance by stressing the importance of power. They observe that relatively powerful people are capable of avoiding the fate suffered by the powerless—being falsely, erroneously, or unjustly labeled deviant. The key reason is that the powerful, either by themselves or through influencing public opinion or both, hold more power for labeling others’ behavior as deviant. Understandably, sociologists who hold this view define deviance as any act considered by the powerful at a given time and place to be a violation of some social rule (Ermann and Lundman, 1996; Simon, 1996; Thio, 1973).

From this welter of conflicting definitions we can discern the influence of two opposing perspectives: positivism and humanism. The positivist perspective is associated with the sciences, such as physics, chemistry, or biology. The humanist perspective is fundamental in the humanities, such as art, language, or philosophy. Each perspective influences how scientists and scholars see, study, and make sense of their subject. The two perspectives have long been transported into sociology, so that some sociologists are more influenced by the positivist perspective while others are more influenced by the humanist one.

In the sociology of deviance the positivist generally defines deviance as intrinsically real, while the humanist more often defines deviance as a label imposed on some behavior. Each perspective suggests other ideas about deviance, so that it has been referred to in various terms. Thus the positivist perspective has also been called objectivist, absolutist, determinist, structuralist, factist, and essentialist (Goode, 1997; Wit tig, 1990; Henslin, 1988; Troyer and Markle, 1982). The humanist perspective has also been referred to by the terms subjectivist, relativist, voluntarist, individualist, definitionist, constructionist, critical, and postmodernist (Lyman, 1995; Goode, 1994; Seidman, 1994; Henslin, 1988; Troyer and Markie 1982). The positivist perspective has a longer tradition in the sociology of deviance; it started to influence sociologists as early as the 1930s. The humanist perspective did not begin to exert its influence until after the early 1960s. Thus, in this and the next two chapters, we refer to the first as traditional and the second as modern. At the same time, we call the first group of sociologists traditional sociologists or traditionists and the second group modern sociologists or modernists. Each perspective suggests how to define deviance, but reveals through the definitions what subject to study, what method to use for the study, and what kind of theory to use to make sense of the subject.

THE TRADITIONAL PERSPECTIVE

The traditional perspective consists of three assumptions about what deviance is. These assumptions are known to positivists as absolutism, objectivism, and determinism.

Absolutism: Deviance as Absolutely Real

The traditional perspective holds deviance to be absolutely or intrinsically real, in that it possesses some qualities that distinguish it from conventionality. Similarly, deviant persons are assumed to have certain characteristics that make them different from conventional others. Thus, sociologists who are influenced by such a perspective tend to view deviant behavior as an attribute that inheres in the individual.

This view was first strongly held by the early criminologists who were the pro genitors of today’s sociology of deviance. Around the turn of this century, criminologists believed that criminals possessed certain biological traits that were absent in noncriminals. The biological traits were believed to include defective genes, bumps on the head, a long lower jaw, a scanty beard, and tough body build. Since all these traits are inherited, criminals were believed to be born as such. Thus, if they were born criminals, they would always be criminals. As the saying goes, “If you’ve had it, you’ve had it.” So, no matter where they might go—they could go anywhere in the world—they would still be criminals.

Then criminologists shifted their attention from biological to psychological traits. Criminals were thought to have certain mental characteristics that noncriminals did not. More specifically, criminals were thought to be feebleminded, psychotic, neurotic, psychopathic, or otherwise mentally disturbed. Like biological traits, these mental characteristics were believed to reside within individual criminals. And like biological traits, mental characteristics were believed to stay with the criminals, no matter what society or culture they might go to. Again, wherever they went, criminals would always remain criminals.

Today’s traditional sociologists, however, have largely abandoned the use of bio logical and psychological traits to differentiate criminals from noncriminals. They recognize the important role of social factors in determining a person’s status as a criminal. Such status does not remain the same across time and space; instead, it changes in different periods and with different societies. A polygamist may be a criminal in our society but a law-abiding citizen in Islamic countries. A person who sees things invisible to others may be a psychotic in our society but may become a spiritual leader among some South Pacific peoples. Nevertheless, traditional sociologists still regard deviance as absolutely or intrinsically real. Countering the relativist notion of deviance as basically a label imposed on an act, traditionist Travis Hirschi (1973), for example, argues: “The person may not have committed a ‘deviant’ act, but he did (in many cases) do something. And it is just possible that what he did was a re suit of things that had happened to him in the past; it is also possible that the past in some inscrutable way remains with him and that if he were left alone he would do it again.” Moreover, countering the relativist notion of mental illness as a label imputed to some people’s behavior, Gwynn Nettler (1974) explicitly voices his absolutist stance: “Some people are more crazy than others; we can tell the difference; and calling lunacy a name does not cause it.” These traditional sociologists seem to say that just as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so deviance by any other label is just as real.

Because they consider deviance real, traditional sociologists tend to focus their study on deviant behavior and deviant persons, rather than on nondeviants who label others deviants, such as lawmakers and law-enforcers, which modern sociologists are more likely to study, as will he explained later.

Objectivism: Deviance as an Observable Object

To traditional sociologists deviant behavior is an observable object in that a deviant person is like an object, a real something that can be studied objectively. Traditional sociologists therefore assume that they can be as objective in studying deviance as natural scientists can be in studying physical phenomena. The trick is to treat deviants as if they were objects, like those studied by natural scientists. Nonetheless, traditional sociologists cannot help being aware of the basic difference between their subject, human beings, and that of natural scientists, inanimate objects. As human beings themselves, traditional sociologists must have certain feelings about their subject. However, they try to control their personal biases by forcing themselves not to pass moral judgment on deviant behavior or share the deviant person’s feelings. In stead, they try to concentrate on the subject matter as it outwardly appears. Further, these sociologists have tried to follow the scientific rule that all their ideas about deviant behavior should be subject to public test. This means that other sociologists should be able to analyze these ideas to see whether they are supported by facts.

Such a drive to achieve scientific objectivity has made today’s traditional sociologists more objective than their predecessors. They have, therefore, produced works that can tell us much more about deviant behavior. No longer in vogue today are such value-loaded and subjective notions as maladjustment, moral failing, debauchery, demoralization, sickness, pathology, and abnormality. Replacing those out-moded notions are such value-free and objective concepts as innovation, retreatism, ritualism, rebellion, culture conflict, subcultural behavior, white-collar crime, norm violation, learned behavior, and reinforced behavior.

To demonstrate the objective reality of these concepts, traditional sociologists have used official reports and statistics, clinical reports, surveys of self-reported behavior, and surveys of victimization. Traditionists recognize the unfortunate fact that the deviants who are selected by these methods do not accurately represent the entire population of deviants. The criminals and delinquents reported in the official statistics, for example, are a special group of deviants, because most crimes and delinquent acts are not discovered and therefore not included in the official statistics. Nevertheless, traditionists believe that the quality of information obtained by these methods can be improved and refined. In the meantime, they consider the information, though inadequate, useful for revealing at least some aspect of the totality of deviant behavior. A major reason for using the information is to seek out the causes of deviant behavior. This brings us to the next, third assumption of the traditional perspective.

Determinism: Deviance as Determined Behavior

According to the traditional perspective deviance is determined or caused by forces beyond the individual’s control. Natural scientists hold the same deterministic view about physical phenomena. When traditional sociologists follow natural scientists, they adopt the deterministic view and apply it to human behavior.

Overly enthusiastic about the prospect of turning their discipline into a science, early sociologists argued that, like animals, plants, and material objects that natural scientists study, humans do not have any free will. The reason is that acknowledgment of free will would contradict the scientific principle of determinism. If a murderer is thought to will or determine a murderous act, then it does not make sense to say that the murderous act is caused by forces (such as mental condition or family background) beyond the person’s control. Therefore, in defending their scientific principle of determinism, early sociologists maintained their denial of free will.

However, today’s traditional sociologists assume that humans do possess free will. Still, this assumption, they argue, does not undermine the scientific principle of determinism. No matter how much a person exercises free will by making choices and decisions, the choices and decisions do not just happen but are determined by some causes. If a woman chooses to kill her husband rather than continue to live with him, she certainly has free will or freedom of choice as long as no one forces her to do what she does. Yet some factor may determine or cause the woman’s choice of one alternative over another, that is, determine the way she exercises her free will. One such causal factor may be a long history of abuse at the hands of her husband. Thus, according to today’s traditional sociologists, there is no inconsistency between free dom and causality.

Although they allow for human freedom or choice, traditional sociologists do not use it to explain why people behave in a certain way. They will not, for exam ple, explain why the woman kills by saying “because she chooses to kill.” This is no explanation at all, since the idea of choice can also be used to cxplain why an other woman does not kill her husband—by saying “because she chooses not to.” According to traditionists, killing and not killing, or more generally, deviant and conventional behavior, being contrary phenomena, cannot be explained by the same factor, such as choice. Further, the idea of choice simply cannot explain the difference between deviance and conventionality; it cannot explain why one per son chooses to kill while the other chooses not to. Therefore, although tradition ists do believe in human choice, they will not attribute deviance to human choice. Instead, they explain deviance by using such concepts as wife abuse, broken homes, unhappy homes, lower-class background, economic deprivation, social disorganization, rapid social change, differential association, differential reinforce ment, and lack of social control. Any one of these causes of deviance can be used to illustrate what traditionists consider to be a real explanation of deviance be cause, for example, wife abuse is more likely to cause a woman to kill her husband than not. Etiological theories essentially point to factors like these as the causes of deviance.

In sum, the traditional perspective on deviant behavior consists of three assumptions. First, deviance is absolutely real in that it has certain qualities that distinguish it from conventionality. Second, deviance is an observable object in that a deviant person is like an object and thus can be studied objectively. Third, deviance is determined by forces beyond the individual’s control.

THE MODERN PERSPECTIVE

Since the 1960s the modern perspective has emerged to challenge the traditional perspective, which had earlier been predominant in the sociology of deviance. Let’s examine the assumptions of the modern perspective that run counter to those of the traditional perspective.

Relativism: Deviance as a Label

The modern perspective holds the relativist view that deviant behavior by itself does not have any intrinsic characteristics unless it is thought to have these characteristics.

The so-called intrinsically deviant characteristics do not come from the behavior itself; they come instead from some people’s minds. To put it simply, an act appears deviant only because some people think it so. As Howard Becker (1963) says, “Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.” So, no deviant label, no deviant behavior. The existence of deviance depends on the label. Since, effectively, they consider deviance unreal, modern sociologists understandably stay away from studying it. They are more interested in the questions of whether and why a given act is defined by society as deviant. This leads to the study of people who label others as deviants—such as the police and other law-enforcing agents. If modern sociologists study so-called deviants, they do so by focusing on the nature of labeling and its consequences.

In studying law-enforcing agents modern sociologists have found a significant lack of consensus on whether a certain person should be treated as a criminal. The police often disagree among themselves as to whether a suspect should be arrested, and judges often disagree among themselves as to whether those arrested should be convicted or acquitted. In addition, since laws vary from one state to another, the same type of behavior may be defined as criminal in one state but not so in another. Young adult males who father babies born to unwed teenage females, for example, can be prosecuted for statutory rape in California but not in most other states (Gleick, 1996). There is, then, a relativity principle in deviant behavior; behavior gets defined as deviant relative to a given norm or standard of behavior, which is to say, to the way people react to it. If it is not related to the reaction of other people, a given behavior is in itself meaningless—it is impossible to say whether it is deviant or conforming. Modern sociologists strongly emphasize this relativistic view, according to which, deviance, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Subjectivism: Deviance as a Subjective Experience

To modern sociologists the supposedly deviant behavior is a subjective, personal experience and the supposedly deviant person is a conscious, feeling, thinking, and reflective subject. As humanists, modern sociologists insist that there is a world of difference between humans (as active subjects) and nonhuman beings and things (as passive objects). Humans feel and reflect, and are thus distinguishable from animals, plants, things, and forces in nature, which cannot. Humans also have sacred worth and dignity, but things and forces do not. It is proper and useful for natural scientists to assume nature as an object and then study it, because this study can produce objective knowledge for controlling the natural world. It can also be useful for social scientists to assume and then study humans as objects because it may produce objective knowledge for controlling humans, but this violates modern sociologists’ humanist values and sensibilities.

Modern sociologists are opposed to the control of humans; instead, they advo cate the protection and expansion of human worth, dignity, and freedom. One result of this humanist ideology is the observation that so-called objective knowledge about human behavior is inevitably superficial whenever it is used for controlling people. To control its black citizens, for example, the former white racist regime in South Africa needed oniy the superficial knowledge that they were identifiable and separa ble from whites. To achieve the humanist goal of protecting and expanding a certain people’s human worth, dignity, and freedom, a deeper understanding is needed. This understanding requires appreciating and empathizing with each individual or group, experiencing what they experience, and seeing their lives and the world around them from their perspective. We must look at their experience from the inside as a partici pant rather than from the outside as a spectator. In a word, we must adopt the inter nal, subjective view rather than the external, objective one.

The same principle, according to modern sociologists, should hold for under standing deviants and their deviant behavior. Modernists contrast this subjective ap proach with traditionists’ objective one. To modernists, traditionists treat deviance as if it were an immoral, unpleasant, or repulsive phenomenon that should be con trolled, corrected, or eliminated. In consequence, traditionists have used the objective approach by staying aloof from deviants, by studying the external aspects of their de viant behavior, and by relying upon a set of preconceived ideas for guiding their study. The result is a collection of su facts about deviants, such as their poverty, lack of schooling, poor self-image, and low aspirations. All this may be used for con trolling and eliminating deviance, but it does not tell us “what deviant people do in their daily round of activity and what they think about themselves, society, and their activities” (Becker, 1963).

In order to understand the life of a deviant, modernists believe, we need to use the subjective approach, which requires our appreciation for and empathy with the deviant. The aim of this subjective approach, according to David Matza (1969), “is to comprehend and to illuminate the subject’s view and to interpret the world as it ap pears to him.” Thus modern sociologists tend to study deviants with such methods as ethnography, participant observation, or open-ended, in-depth interviews.

As a result of their subjective and empathetic approach, modern sociologists of ten present an image of deviants as basically the same as conventional people. The deaf, for example, are the same as the nondeaf in being able to communicate and live a normal life. They should therefore be respected rather than pitied. This implies that so-called deviant behavior, because it is like so-called conventional behavior, should not be controlled, cured, or eradicated by society.

Voluntarism: Deviance as a Voluntary Act

The modern perspective holds that supposedly deviant behavior is a voluntary act, an expression of human volition, will, or choice. As humanists, modern sociologists take this stand because they are disturbed by what they claim to be the dehumanizing implication of the positivist view of deviant behavior. The positivist view is said to imply that the human being is like “a robot, a senseless and purposeless machine reacting to every fortuitous change in the external and internal environment.” In contrast, the humanist view emphasizes that human beings, because they possess free will and choice-making ability, determine their own behavior.

To support this voluntarist assumption, modern sociologists tend to analyze how social control agencies define some people as deviant and carry out the sanctions against them. Such analyses often accent, as Edwin Lemert (1972) has observed, “the arbitrariness of official action, stereotyped decision-making in bureaucratic contexts, bias in the administration of law, and the general preemptive nature of society’s controls over deviants.” All these convey the strong impression that control agents, b ing in positions of power, exercise their free will by actively, intentionally, and purposefully controlling the “deviants.”

Modern sociologists also analyze people who have been labeled deviant. The “deviants” are not presented as if they were robots, passively and senselessly developing a poor self-image as conventional society expects of them. Rather, they are de scribed as actively seeking positive meanings in their deviant activities. In modern sociologist Jack Katz’s (1988) analysis, for example, murderers see themselves as morally superior to their victims. The killing is said to give the murderers the self- righteous feeling of defending their dignity and respectability because their victims have unjustly humiliated them by taunting or insulting them. Katz also portrays robbers as feeling themselves morally superior to their victims—regarding their victims as fools or “suckers” who deserve to be robbed. (More of this analysis will be presented in Chapter 3.) Such insight into the subjective, experiential world of deviance constitutes a noncausal, descriptive, or analytical theory.

In brief, the modern perspective consists of three assumptions. First, deviant behavior is not real in and of itself; it is, basically, a label. Second, supposedly deviant behavior is a subjective experience and therefore should be studied with subjectivity and empathy. And, third, putatively deviant behavior is a voluntary, self-willed act rather than one caused by forces in the internal and external environments.

AN INTEGRATED VIEW

To know what deviant behavior is, then, we need both traditional and modern per spectives. (See Table 1.1 for a quick review of these two perspectives.) The combination of the two can give us a better picture than either one can by itself. The two perspectives may appear to be in sharp contradiction, but their differences are largely in emphasis. By giving consideration to one side, we do not necessarily deny the reality of the other. Both traditional and modern sociologists, in emphasizing their own views, assume in a way their opponents to be correct. Each group merely thinks of the other’s argument as less important than its own. Thus, while they accept mod ernists’ view of deviance as a label, traditionists simply take it for granted, consider ing it less important than their own assumption of deviance as real behavior. On the other hand, while modernists accept traditionists’ view of deviance as an act that has really occurred, they consider it more worthwhile to focus on society’s definition of the act as deviant.

Now that we know the two opposing perspectives, we can bring them together. As Chinese people are fond of saying, “Things that oppose each other also complement each other” (Mao, 1967). Thus we may see deviant behavior as being both a real act and a label. One cannot exist without the other. If there is no real act, there is no deviant behavior; if there is no label, there is no deviant behavior. In order for us to use the label “deviant,” the behavior must occur. Similarly, for us to understand that behavior, the label “deviant” must be used.

But in complementing each other the two conflicting perspectives are not necessarily equally applicable to all types of deviant behavior. On the contrary, one perspective seems more relevant than the other in studying the types of deviance that more easily fit its assumptions and the temperaments of the sociologists embracing that perspective.

Specifically, the traditional perspective is more relevant to the study of what society considers relatively serious types of deviant behavior, such as murder, rape, armed robbery, and the like. The study of these types of deviance responds well to the traditional perspective for three reasons. First, these forms of deviant behavior, which characteristically enter into the official statistics analyzed by traditionists, can be defined as really deviant. Such deviant acts are intrinsically more harmful than conforming behavior, are likely to elicit wide consensus from the public as to their deviant characteristics, and therefore are easily distinguishable from conforming behavior. Second, people who commit serious crimes, such as murder and robbery, generally come from the lower classes, quite unlike the traditionists who study them. These are crimes that traditionists themselves—as researchers, scholars, or professors—generally would not commit or could not conceive themselves capable of committing. It is easy, therefore, for traditionists to stay aloof from these criminals, ana lyzing their behavior objectively, without empathizing with them or romanticizing their behavior. Third, since traditionists can easily separate themselves from the peo ple who commit serious deviant acts, it is natural for them to study these deviants as if they were passive objects “out there” rather than active subjects “in here” (like traditionists themselves). It is thus natural for traditionists to investigate these “passive” individuals with an eye to seeking out the causes of their deviance rather than under standing the operation of their free will.

In the same way, the modern perspective is more pertinent to the less serious kinds of deviance, particularly those that do not gravely harm other people. This perspective, as a modernist puts it, “finds itself at home in the world of hip, drug addicts, jazz musicians, cab drivers, prostitutes, night people, drifters, grifters, and skidders: the ‘cool world’” (Gouldner, 1968). Again, three reasons explain the convenient fit between perspective and subject matter. First, there is a relative lack of consensus in society as to whether the less serious forms of deviant behavior are indeed deviant. Some members of society may label them deviant, while others may not. It is therefore logical for modernists to emphasize that deviant behavior is basically a matter of labeling. Second, those so-called deviants are considered by society as less dangerous than the criminals typically studied by traditionists. They also engage in the so-called deviant activities that modernists themselves could enjoy, participate in, or at least feel themselves capable of engaging in—quite unlike the more dangerous acts committed by “common” criminals. Therefore, modernists can more easily empathize with these supposed deviants and consider the latter’s subjective experience useful for understanding deviance. Third, since they can empathize with these harmless deviants, it is natural for modernists to consider them active subjects like themselves rather than passive objects. This may be why they emphasize the voluntary, self willed nature of the putative deviants’ experience.

At bottom, the types of deviant behavior—seen through the traditional and modern perspectives—differ in the amount of public consensus regarding their deviant nature. On the one side, a given deviant act is, from the traditional standpoint, “intrinsically real,” largely because there is a relatively great public consensus that it is really deviant. On the other side, a given deviant act is, from the modern perspective, “not real in itself but basically a label,” largely because there is a relative lack of public consensus supporting it as really deviant. We may integrate the two views by defining deviant behavior with public consensus in mind.

Deviant behavior, we may say, is any behavior considered deviant by public consensus, which may range from the maximum to the minimum. Defined this way, deviant behavior should not be regarded as a discrete entity that is clearly and absolutely distinguishable from conforming behavior. Instead, deviance should be viewed as an act located somewhere on a continuum from total conformity at one extreme to total deviance at the other. Given the pluralistic nature of U.S. society, with many different groups having conflicting views of whether a given act is deviant, most of the so-called deviant behaviors can be assumed to fall in the large gray areas between the two poles of the continuum. Hence deviant behavior actually means being more or less, rather than completely, deviant. It is a matter of degree rather than kind. Keeping this in the back of our minds, we may classify deviant behavior into two types, one more deviant than the other: higher- and lower-consensus deviance.

Higher-consensus deviance is the type that has often been studied by traditional sociologists. Lower-consensus deviance is the type that has more frequently been studied by modern sociologists. Today, however, either traditional or modern sociologists are more interested than before in investigating both types of deviance.

SUMMARY

I. How do sociologists define deviant behavior? In sociology there are many different definitions of deviant behavior. They can be divided into two major types, one influenced by the traditional perspective and the other by the modern perspective. The traditional perspective holds the absolutist view that deviant behavior is absolutely real, the objectivist view that deviance is an observable object, and the determinist view that deviance is determined behavior, a product of causation. The modern perspective consists of the relativist view that the so-called deviance is largely a label applied to an act at a given time and place, the subjectivist view that deviance is itself a subjective experience, and the voluntarist view that deviance is a voluntary, self-willed act.

2. Can we integrate those two perspectives? Yes. We can integrate them into a larger perspective that sees deviant behavior as an act located at some point on a continuum from maxi mal to minimal public consensus regarding the deviant nature of the act. With this integrated view, we can divide deviant behavior into two major types. One, higher-consensus deviance, is generally serious enough to earn a great amount of public consensus that it is really deviant. This type has often been the subject of research by traditional sociologists. The other, lower-consensus deviance, is generally less serious and thus receives a lesser degree of public consensus on its de viant reality. This type has more often attracted the interest of modern sociologists.

A Summary of Two Perspectives

Traditional Perspective

-Absolutism: Deviance is absolutely, intrinsically real; hence, deviance or deviants can be subject of study.

-Objectivism: Deviance is an observable object; hence, objective research methods can be used.

-Determinism: Deviance is determined behavior, a product of causation; hence, causal, explanatory theory can be developed

Modern Perspective

-Relativism: Deviance is a label, defined as such at a given time and place; hence, labelers, labeling, and impact of labeling can be subject of study.

-Subjectivism: Deviance is a sublective experience; hence, subjective research methods can be used.

-Voluntarism: Deviance is a voluntary act, an expression of free will; hence, noncausal, descriptive theory can be developed.