Disordered and offensive sexual behaviour
John C. Gunn, Pamela J. Taylor in Forensic Psychiatry, 2014
Sexual deviance refers to sexual behaviours that contravene the norms of society, and may or may not amount to sex offending. It involves regular, rather than one-off or occasional, interests or behaviours. What is recognized as deviant depends on the shared norms of a culture (Bancroft, 1989), although it may reflect a general perception of what should be ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ rather than what people actually do in private. Like sex offending, concepts of sexual deviance also vary greatly over time and between societies (Grubin, 1992). Attitudes towards homosexuality, and the continuing uncertainty in the minds of some about whether homosexual practices should be considered deviant or not, are a good example of the fluidity inherent in the concept of sexual deviance. Another illustration can be found in the history of medical attitudes to masturbation (Hare, 1962).
Concepts and issues in mental illness
Kelvyn Jones, Graham Moon in Health, Disease and Society, 1987
Secondary deviance is the term applied to the behaviour of a person who has previously been labelled as a deviant. Thus, in the context of mental illness, the initial act of labelling a person as mentally ill means that all subsequent behaviour by that person will be forced into a role conforming to societal preconditions of behaviour in madness. One of the longer-term consequences of this secondary deviance is institutionalisation, whereby long-term residents in mental hospitals become progressively more dependent upon an institutional environment. Incarceration in a mental hospital removes an individual from any contact with the norms of the society against which he or she was once deemed to have offended. The reference point of ‘normality’ is replaced by the internal hospital norms of regimentation. Secondary deviance therefore reinforces the previous label of insane with the result that the patient has even greater difficulty, on release, in adjusting once more to life in mainstream society.
Advocacy
Michael Farrell in Psychosis Under Discussion, 2017
Labelling theory applied these ideas from symbolic interactionism and from phenomenology to deviance and crime, specifically to deviant acts and identities. This led to an emphasis on the ways in which acts and identities are constructed, interpreted, evaluated and controlled over time. In labelling theory, language is crucially important in the process of developing a ‘career’ of deviance. Labelling taking place in the criminal justice system is believed to have particular power and authority. An individual commits an initial delinquent act (the so-called primary deviance) and then experiences the reactions of others identifying him or her as deviant. The individual may respond in a deviant role, for example as a means of defence or attack. If so the deviance becomes ‘secondary’. That is, it incorporates the knowledge, stereotypes and experience of others in shaping identity and future behaviour (Becker, 1963).
Mental disorder and social deviance
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2021
Awais Aftab, Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed
Social deviance refers to actions or behaviours that violate social norms, and it has existed for as long as societies and norms have existed in human history. Social norms can be explicit or implicit, formal or informal, and violations of these norms can range anywhere from serious legal crimes to benign violations of etiquette (Goode, 2015). All societies have developed ways of managing social deviance through formal and informal means of social control. The ways in which societies exercise their power for control has received tremendous attention from philosophers, sociologists, ethicists, and criminologists, among others (Goode, 2015). Notions of “madness” and “insanity” have historically been intricately related to social deviance, and the lens of psychopathology is one of the ways by which social deviance has been viewed (Scull, 1977; Szasz, 1997).
Gender Minority Stress: A Critical Review
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2020
Kyle K. H. Tan, Gareth J. Treharne, Sonja J. Ellis, Johanna M. Schmidt, Jaimie F. Veale
In Meyer’s original conceptualization of MST (2003), reference was made to Merton’s (1968) work on institutionalized social norms in relation to minority groups. According to Merton, social norms generate stressors that conflict with the minority cultures and with the interests of minority groups. In societies where distinctions of social status between dominant groups (e.g., cisgender people) and minority groups (e.g., TGD people) are particularly prominent, there is a tendency for dominant groups to marginalize minority groups. Meyer (1995) drew on societal reaction theory to provide explanations for the “processes by which persons come to be defined as deviant” by societies (Kitsuse, 1962, p. 248). A behavior or social norm is considered “deviant” if it departs from the conventional understanding of an appropriate behavior or social norm (Kitsuse, 1962). This theory assists in identifying the members of a minority group who are defined by social norms as deviant, as well as determining how these members are thus treated.
Review of School Violence in Taiwan: Prevalence, Types, and Strategies
Published in Journal of School Violence, 2022
Schools at all levels in Taiwan, including universities, are required to report school-related incidents such as violent and deviant behavior to the Ministry of Education annually. Violent and deviant behavior includes fighting, theft, truancy, intimidation and blackmail, manslaughter, arson and bullying (Ministry of Education, 2019). Particularly, school bully is defined as the continual use of words, text, pictures, symbols, physical actions, or other methods, which directly or indirectly derogate, isolate, bully, harass, or tease others (students). While the government considers school bullying as a type of school violence, more specifically, researchers in Taiwan put school violence and bully into different subcategories. Cheng and Huang (2010), for example, suggested that school violence refers to more extreme acts of intentional injury and threats to individuals or groups whereas school bullying refers to repeated, intentional, aggressive behavior toward individuals who cannot defend themselves, which implies “a power relation that consists of repetition, power imbalance, and intentionality” (Olweus, 1993, p. 9). Given that school bullying has received the most attention among the different types of school violence from the public in Taiwan, the discussions on school violence in this study also included school bullying (Cheng & Huang, 2010; Child Welfare League Foundation, R. O. C. 2019).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Altruism
- Social Norm
- Structural Functionalism
- Incest
- Mores
- Taboo
- Shame
- Humiliation
- Rape
- Conformity