Social norms, social conformity and social deviance

1. Social norms: meaning

A norm is a shared rule or standard of behaviour that tells members of a group what they should or should not do in a given situation. Norms make behaviour predictable.

• Robert Bierstedt: a norm is a rule or standard that governs our conduct in the social situations in which we participate.
• Broom and Selznick: norms are blueprints for behaviour, setting limits within which individuals may seek alternative ways to achieve their goals.

Characteristics

1. Universal — every society has norms.
2. Based on values — norms put values into practice.
3. Learned through socialisation and internalised.
4. Relative — they vary between societies, groups and times.
5. Backed by sanctions — approval and reward for conformity, ridicule or punishment for violation.
6. Not all equally important — some are mere conventions, others moral imperatives.

Types of norms

• Folkways (W.G. Sumner, Folkways, 1906) — everyday customary ways: greetings, dress, table manners. Violation brings mild disapproval.
• Mores — folkways considered essential to group welfare, with moral force: do not steal, respect parents. Violation brings strong reaction. Taboos are negative mores (incest taboo).
• Customs — long-established practices accepted by the group.
• Laws — formal norms enacted and enforced by the State.
• Prescriptive (what to do) and proscriptive (what not to do) norms.

2. Functional importance of social norms

1. Maintain social order — without norms social life would be chaotic.
2. Make behaviour predictable — we know what to expect of others.
3. Integrate society — shared norms create solidarity.
4. Act as social control — they define and check deviance.
5. Guide the individual — ready-made patterns of action save the effort of deciding afresh.
6. Help achieve goals — they fix acceptable means.
7. Transmit culture — norms carry values across generations.
8. Protect the weak — norms of hospitality, care for the aged.

3. Social conformity: meaning

Conformity is behaviour in accordance with the norms and expectations of the group. It is the opposite of deviance. Most people conform most of the time; that is why social order is possible.

Solomon Asch’s line-judgment experiments (1951) showed how strongly group pressure works: many subjects gave an obviously wrong answer when the rest of the group (planted by the experimenter) gave it.

4. Elements or bases of social conformity

Why do people conform? The reasons, treated by textbooks as the elements of conformity, are:

1. Socialisation and internalisation. Norms learned in childhood become part of the self; people conform because they believe the norm is right.
2. Habit. Repeated behaviour becomes automatic.
3. Utility. Conformity is useful: it gets things done and avoids friction (traffic rules).
4. Group identification. People conform to remain accepted by the groups they value; the desire for belonging and fear of isolation.
5. Sanctions. Fear of punishment, ridicule or loss of status, and hope of reward.
6. Ignorance and apathy. Many conform simply because they have not considered any alternative.
7. Religious and moral belief in the sacredness of norms.
8. Authority and leadership — obedience to elders, priests, the State.

Merton listed conformity first among his five modes of adaptation (below): acceptance of both the culturally approved goals and the approved means.

5. Social deviance: meaning

Deviance is behaviour that violates the norms of a group or society. It is relative: what is deviant in one society or period may be normal in another. Not all deviance is crime (rudeness, eccentricity), and not all deviance is harmful (reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy deviated from the norms of their time).

• Albert Cohen: deviant behaviour is behaviour which violates institutionalised expectations.
• Howard Becker (Outsiders, 1963): deviance is not a quality of the act but a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions; “the deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied”.

Types

• Positive and negative deviance.
• Individual and group deviance (gangs, sub-cultures).
• Primary and secondary deviation (Edwin Lemert): the first act, which does not change self-image, and the deviance that follows once the person accepts the label.
• Formal deviance (crime) and informal deviance (breach of folkways).

6. Factors facilitating deviance

1. Defective socialisation — broken homes, neglect, conflicting values.
2. Anomie or normlessness — rapid change weakens norms (Durkheim).
3. Gap between goals and means (Merton).
4. Bad company and deviant sub-cultures (Sutherland, Cohen).
5. Poverty, unemployment and inequality.
6. Urbanisation and anonymity — weak informal control in cities.
7. Labelling by police, courts and community.
8. Media influence, alcohol and drugs.
9. Weak social bonds (Travis Hirschi’s control theory, 1969: attachment, commitment, involvement, belief).
10. Biological and psychological factors — once stressed by Lombroso, now given limited weight.

Merton’s anomie theory (1938)

Edwin Sutherland’s differential association (1939): deviance is learned in interaction with intimate groups, when definitions favourable to breaking the law outweigh those against it.

How this is examined

Short notes on norms take the definition, folkways, mores and laws, and five functions. Conformity questions want definition, Asch, and the eight bases. Deviance questions want definition, relativity, types, factors, and Merton’s table.