Toxic Wild West Syndrome
J. Michael Ryan in COVID-19, 2020
Related to social control, Durkheim’s (1951) concepts of anomie and egoism help explain the public response to COVID, from fear to recklessness. Anomie refers to a situation in which social regulation has broken down into normlessness, and old ways of acting fail. The unexpected situation means that people struggle to find rules that work in order to maintain some sense of order and control over their lives. The COVID pandemic has made certain prosocial behaviors dangerous, including large gatherings and baring one’s face in public due to the way the virus spreads through droplets in the air. Everyday norms of behavior must be suspended and replaced in order to adapt to a rapidly shifting public health situation. Egoism can be an effect of anomie; it refers to a lack of belonging and a heightened sense of isolation. An anomic society lacks community regulation, whereas in an egoistic society, individuals seek independence instead of interdependence, valuing the self over society. If anomie is a lack of regulation by a community, egoism is a lack of integration into a community.
Hunting home, chasing health
Susan Bradley Smith, Janette Turner, Jill Gordon in Friday Forever, 2018
It was the French sociologist Emile Durkheim who introduced the concept of anomie, using it to describe a condition of deregulation in society, as he saw it. He suggested that when the rules of behaviour break down in society, then people no longer knew what they could expect from each other. He called this kind of confusion normlessness, and argued that it leads to deviant behaviour, either in the real or moral worlds. Criminality. Suicide. He was pretty concerned with the effects of social change, was Durkheim. As soon as social bonds cease to exist, life becomes impersonal, and therein the trouble begins. Is it true that we can’t find our proper place in society without clear rules to guide us? Is it true that changing conditions and life adjustments lead to conflict? Durkheim surely argued that sudden change causes a sate of anomie. What else can one do when one feels like this, lost, unregulated, misplaced, except move again? Personal unrest is a curse; it is alienating and makes you feel uncertain about all decisions. This in turn erodes, for me at least, a sense of purpose that may have been fragile in the first place. If anomie can be thought to mean the state of being unable to find a psychological home in one’s own society, then it is also responsible for its eternal re-creation. Who stays anywhere they don’t feel at home? Well. I am. I do. Now. I am digging in. Trying to.
Attitudes about suicide over the ages
Donald Campbell, Rob Hale in Working in the Dark, 2017
Suicide is commonly held to be part of a depressive state in which the person feels that life is not worth living and that death is preferable. Certainly, sadness and pessimism are often present, but they do not in themselves account for the major drive towards suicide. A second assumption is that suicide is a cry for help. This is a view that may be influenced as much by the professional’s need to help as it is by the patient’s crying out for it. A third assumption is that suicide is a means of manipulating others. Again, this is in part true. A fourth assumption is that suicide can be a solitary or solipsistic act in which the person rationally decides to take leave of life. This has also been referred to as the rational suicide, or the suicide of anomie. Although such acts may occur, they are, in our experience, extremely rare. Each of these assumptions is only partly true, and, if taken as the whole truth, is misleading because they fail to recognise the complexity of the act and the centrality of the violence inherent in the suicidal act.
Drug-Using Behaviors of Turkish Armed Forces Service Members: A Social Control Perspective
Published in Military Behavioral Health, 2020
Suheyl Gurbuz, Muhammed Yildiz, Celia Lo, Ozgur Solakoglu
Deviant behaviors and mental health disorders are relatively more prevalent among service members compared to their civilian counterparts (Tekbaş et al., 2003; Ünlühisarcıklı 1994). That prevalence may well spring from the demanding new environment young service members enter—the adoption of a completely new way of life with strict discipline and a heavy workload of physical nature. The unique environment of military service features a hierarchic structure that does not take personal, social, or cultural differences into consideration; as well, the armed forces largely segregate themselves from each other and from the remainder of Turkish society (Ünlühisarcıklı, 1994). Conscripted military personnel lose such social supports as family, spouse, and friends (if temporarily). Their introduction to military life entails mastering many physical and social standards absent from their civilian pasts. Not infrequently, they develop anomie, a state of ambiguity and uncertainty in social life (Thorlindsson & Bernburg, 2009). Although military environment has many norms, rules, and standards they do not always necessarily reinforce integration and regulation for service members. Anomie is not only limited to a state of normlessness but it also refers to a state of ambiguity and uncertainty in social life, which is very common among nonprofessional service members serving their mandatory military duty (Tekbaş et al., 2003; Ünlühisarcıklı, 1994). Any or all such factors can reinforce deviant behaviors like drug use, making drug use an especially significant problem in the military setting.
Changes in society and young people’s mental health1
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2021
In this section we broaden the picture to consider disruptions in social cohesion and solidarity that may be raising anxiety and depression. The general proposal that social cohesion is a protective factor for individual level of stress is common in current social epidemiological theory (Marmot, 2010), but has a history since the beginning of social science in Emile Durkheim’s work on social factors in suicide (Durkheim, 1897/1952; Parsons, 1937). Hypothesized protective mechanisms involve stability in basic social categories and practices that enable an individual to have enough certainty and sense of control, agency or autonomy, over salient outcomes. Risk mechanisms conversely: instability leads to uncertainty and perceived lack of control, raising risk of anxiety and depression. Durkheim proposed a typology of social organization, but also theorized the penetration of these social factors into aspects of individual personality, relevant specifically to suicide and related conditions of depression and anxiety. Our main interest here is Durkheim’s Anomie type, which etymologically refers to absence of laws or norms. Social Anomie is a type of social organization characterized by breakdowns of social regulation and group control, implying a problematic, stressful ‘freedom’ for the individual (Durkheim, 1897/1952, p. 241f.; Parsons, 1937, p. 334f.; Wray et al., 2011, p. 521.)
The Societal Context of School-Based Bullying Victimization: An Application of Institutional Anomie Theory in a Cross-National Sample
Published in Journal of School Violence, 2023
James Tuttle, Gregorio Gimenez, Beatriz Barrado
Some scholars have elaborated upon IAT to explicate the social-psychological characteristics of anomie. As Konty (2005) argues, the cultural elements of anomie result in “microanomie,” which is a value system that promotes self-interest over the collective well-being. Similarly, Groβ et al. (2018) have developed the concept of “market mentality” to operationalize IAT at the individual level. Market mentality emphasizes economic role functions, success, individualism, and monetary-fetishism, all of which place self-interest above considerations of the community. The values promoted by microanomie (or “market mentality”) may produce “frustration, anger and fear when these interests are blocked or unavailable” (Konty, 2005, p. 124), resulting in higher rates of crime and deviance. Additionally, the egoistic values imparted by a cultural emphasis on market competition and lack of altruism (see, Chamlin & Cochran, 1997) indicated by a meager social safety net provide the social and cultural context for conflict and predation based upon self-interest. Therefore, societies that possess a greater degree of balance between economic and non-economic institutions should exhibit cultural values that are less prone to microanomie or market mentality (Hövermann & Messner, 2021).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Motivation
- Social Norm
- Socialization
- Suicide
- Belief
- Nature Versus Nurture
- Homogeneity & Heterogeneity
- Regimen
- Collective Behavior
- Social Alienation