Deck 5: Deviance and Crime

Question 1

When they study deviance, sociologists tend to focus on what is "wrong" with people who deviate.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

In modern times, student cheating on college campuses has become a relatively uncommon pattern of behavior.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

There are some societies and some periods of history in which no behavior is considered to be deviant.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Establishing norms and defending them are necessary for social order to exist and to be perpetuated.

Question 5

Child abuse is one example of deviant behavior that has been redefined as less serious.

Question 6

Ostracism among friends is a common form of formal sanctions.

Question 7

Because there are many systems of morality in existence across societies and over time, we cannot understand deviant behavior without understanding the normative context in which it may occur.

Question 8

Deviance is any behavior that violates a norm.

Question 9

Because norms are not always clear, each time a member of a social group is censured for deviant behavior, the deviance tends to help highlight and sharpen the meaning of the norm.

Question 10

By occasionally engaging in deviant behavior, we acquire a stronger self-identity and a sense of independent well-being.

Question 11

The Etoro of New Guinea believe that oral sex with boys should lead to the loss of reputation and to a long prison term.

Question 12

Deviance can be viewed as having positive, or "integrative," consequences for social life.

Question 13

Although norms are frequently violated, they are important mechanisms of social control and social organization.

Question 14

What we think of as deviant can be an ordinary part of everyday life.

Question 15

Norms seldom allow for variant behavior.

Question 16

Deviance is viewed as dysfunctional for society in that it can undermine our willingness to play our roles and contribute to the larger social setting.

Question 17

Deviance is a property conferred upon particular behaviors by social definitions.

Question 18

Internalization is the process by which individuals incorporate within their personalities the standards of behavior prevalent in the larger society.

Question 19

The example of the Etoro of New Guinea serves to show that deviance is not absolute, but rather relative to people and their culture.

Question 20

Informal sanctions are reactions to deviance that tend to occur in small communities, among groups of friends, and in the family.

Question 21

Secondary deviance is behavior that violates social norms but usually goes unnoticed by the agents of social control.

Question 22

Nearly a third of all Americans have become victims of identity theft.

Question 23

Index crimes are increasing in the United States.

Question 24

Structural strain theory suggests that conflicts between socially accepted goals and socially accepted ways of achieving them may produce deviant behavior.

Question 25

Women accounted for a quarter of all arrests in 2010.

Question 26

Without norms for governing behavior,

A) life would go on without much change.
B) interaction in such groups as families would be impossible.
C) we would still intuit what is permissible behavior.
D) we would still be able to anticipate what people might do in different social settings.

Question 27

An increasing number of U.S. citizens support legalizing marijuana, with about 80 percent of survey respondents saying they support legalization.

Question 28

Deviance is a property inherent in one's behavior.

Question 29

According to the text's discussion of cheating among college students,

A) cheating is uncommon.
B) some studies suggest that the percentage of students who cheat in college is at least 90 percent and may be as high as 99 percent.
C) the motive for cheating usually has little to do with career enhancement.
D) colleges and universities have given up worrying about cheating.

Question 30

A large number of white-collar criminals are prosecuted and convicted, and they usually receive sentences comparable to those of other criminals.

Question 31

Control theory claims that people conform because they are integrated into mainstream institutions; this theory is an outgrowth of the conflict perspective.

Question 32

Anomie is a social condition in which people have difficulty guiding their behavior by norms that they experience as weak, unclear, or conflicting.

Question 33

Richard Quinney said the U.S. legal system reflects the interests of American society as a whole.

Question 34

According to the text, ____________ is any behavior that violates a norm.

A) crime
B) mental illness
C) social control
D) deviance

Question 35

Merton argued that deviant behavior is generated when a society extols common symbols of success for all while restricting the access to approved means for acquiring such goals.

Question 36

Labeling theorists note that only a minority of the members of society engage in deviant behavior by violating norms.

Question 37

A critical element in the definition of deviance is

A) the notion of immorality as opposed to morality.
B) the understanding that there is right and there is wrong.
C) the idea that deviance is a matter of social definition.
D) the belief that some people are born deviant.

Question 38

An important concept in the analysis of deviance is that

A) whether something is deviant depends on who is evaluating it.
B) determining whether an act is deviant is an objective, absolute process.
C) when important norms are violated, social control is lost.
D) deviance can only be considered as a specific act and never can be viewed in a relative manner.

Question 39

Edwin H. Sutherland's differential association theory builds on the interactionist perspective.

Question 40

Crime is an act of deviance that is prohibited by law.

Question 41

Many nonconformist patterns do not occur to us because

A) we are culture bound; the patterns are not know to our society.
B) Americans are quite relativistic in their views of other ways of doing things.
C) what we see in other cultures we tend not to like because of ethnocentricity.
D) conformity is so ingrained in our attitudes.

Question 42

Which of the following methods of exchanging saliva would most Americans define as deviant?

A) drinking from the same soda bottle as another person
B) kissing
C) spitting into a spoon and offering it to another person
D) taking turns using the same spoon to get bites of ice cream

Question 43

Among the Etoro of New Guinea,

A) homosexual acts between adult males and young boys are mildly rejected as a lower-level pattern of deviance.
B) homosexual acts between adult males and young boys are strongly rejected.
C) oral sex with boys is considered a normal and essential part of everyday life.
D) homosexuality does not exist.

Question 44

According to Durkheim, a social condition in which people find it difficult to guide their behavior by norms they experience as weak, unclear, or conflicting is called

A) stress.
B) anomie.
C) deviance.
D) schizophrenia.

Question 45

Deviance appears to be a constant

A) and the definition of deviant behavior rarely changes.
B) and those who exercise deviant behavior are almost always punished.
C) but particular behaviors that people define as deviant change over time.
D) and it seems to "crop up" in the same sorts of people generation after generation.

Question 46

The example of the Etoro of New Guinea shows that

A) morality has no basic importance to human experience.
B) deviance is relative and a matter of social definition.
C) "anything goes" in matters of human sexuality.
D) moralities across different societies tend to be very similar in content.

Question 47

When individuals incorporate within their personalities the standards of behavior prevalent in the larger society, the process is called

A) internalization.
B) socialization.
C) conformity.
D) normative intervention.

Question 48

The dysfunctions of deviance

A) help society through the reinforcement of social organization.
B) include the undermining of our willingness to play our roles and contribute to the larger social scene.
C) result in a stronger family life.
D) help us to better trust our social institutions.

Question 49

________ is NOT a sociological approach to understanding deviance.

A) Cultural transmission theory
B) Anomie theory
C) Hereditary predisposition perspective
D) Labeling perspective

Question 50

Internalization, the structuring of our world experiences, and formal/informal sanctions are types of

A) dysfunctions of deviance.
B) functions of deviance.
C) social control processes.
D) anomie in operation.

Question 51

Which of the following is not an important element of defining a behavior as deviant?

A) who does the defining
B) who has the power to make the definitions stick
C) the time and place in which the deviance occurs
D) whether the behavior upsets other people

Question 52

Examples of informal sanctions are

A) fines and imprisonment.
B) community service as a court-mandated punishment.
C) ridicule and ostracism from a group of former friends.
D) probation as the result of a plea bargain.

Question 53

Deviance is often

A) defined by those who have the power to make the social definitions stick.
B) independent of time and place.
C) seen as decadent, depraved, and evil, but not as an illness.
D) clearly inborn, a part of human nature.

Question 54

Fines, expulsion from school, and imprisonment are examples of

A) informal sanctions.
B) formal sanctions.
C) deviance reinforcement.
D) punishments that have little to do with the normative system itself.

Question 55

The methods and strategies that regulate behavior within societies are termed

A) social structure.
B) social control.
C) deviance.
D) norms.

Question 56

When biologists and psychologists look at deviants, they typically ask

A) what is different about them and what the source of the behavior might be.
B) why some acts are defined as deviant in one setting and not in another.
C) why some people are severely punished while others are not punished for the same behavior.
D) why the incidence of deviance varies from group to group.

Question 57

Smoking, child abuse, and date rape are all examples of behavior that have been

A) redefined as not deviant.
B) defined as deviant throughout history.
C) redefined as deviant.
D) receiving less media attention than they did in the 1970s.

Question 58

Internalization occurs when

A) norms are "intuited" from the behavior of others.
B) the individual questions the legitimacy of the norms.
C) normative expectations are sharpened.
D) we understand and believe in the legitimacy of the norms.

Question 59

Richard Quinney, a key proponent of the ____________ perspective on deviance, argues that the U.S. legal system reflects the interests and ideologies of the ruling capitalist class.

A) control
B) structural strain
C) conflict
D) cultural transmission

Question 60

Deviance is

A) a property inherent in certain forms of behavior.
B) a property conferred upon particular behaviors in an absolute manner.
C) what people say it is.
D) a behavior that often exists independently of norms.

Question 61

Conflict theorists argue that the most important question to ask regarding deviance is

A) how deviants differ from nondeviants.
B) how different groups' values and norms increase their chances of engaging in culturally transmitted deviance.
C) which group will be able to translate its values into the rules of society and make these rules stick.
D) which group will experience the anomie necessary to give rise to deviance.

Question 62

When access to socially approved means of success (material wealth) is blocked or frustrated, Merton would call it a condition of

A) high anxiety.
B) justified frustration.
C) structural strain.
D) frustration-aggression.

Question 63

Individuals learn deviance primarily in intimate groups of deviant others, such as small groups of friends. This view typifies

A) differential association theory.
B) control theory.
C) Freudian theory.
D) labeling theory.

Question 64

________ was one of the first people to suggest that we acquire deviant behavior much as we acquire other behaviors.

A) Robert Merton
B) Gabriel Tarde
C) Peter Rosemont
D) Karl Marx

Question 65

Critics of Merton's structural strain theory note that Merton

A) doesn't emphasize conformity enough.
B) focuses too much on the deviance that arises from a conflict of values.
C) ignores the fact that not all deviance stems from gaps between goals and means.
D) doesn't tell us anything about monetary crime.

Question 66

According to labeling theorists, behavior that violates social norms but usually goes unnoticed by agents of social control is called

A) primary deviance.
B) secondary deviance.
C) tertiary deviance.
D) ambulatory deviance.

Question 67

According to labeling theorists, deviance that individuals may adopt in response to negative labels is

A) functional deviance.
B) primary deviance.
C) secondary deviance.
D) tertiary deviance.

Question 68

Which of the following is NOT one of the categories of crime outlined by Richard Quinney?

A) crimes of ultimatum
B) crimes of domination
C) crimes of resistance
D) predatory crime

Question 69

The cultural transmission perspective was developed in part from the research of a group of sociologists at the University of Chicago who concluded that

A) deviance was a problem of morality.
B) deviance is entirely a product of economic conditions.
C) deviance is culturally passed from one generation to the next.
D) people become deviant genetically.

Question 70

Marxists regard ________ as a product of the moral degeneration and estrangement fostered by the oppression and exploitation of the poor, women, and African Americans or other minorities.

A) capitalism
B) alcoholism, family violence, and prostitution
C) socialism
D) communism

Question 71

Studies by Messner and Rosenfeld suggest that the strain toward deviance, particularly crime, is

A) stronger when the economy is a relatively weak institution in the society.
B) stronger when the economy is the dominant institution in the society.
C) not related to the position of the economy in the society.
D) weaker when penal institutions dominate the society.

Question 72

Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association illustrates the ________ perspective on deviance.

A) structural strain
B) cultural transmission
C) conflict
D) labeling

Question 73

From Merton's perspective, those who reject both culturally approved goals and means and substitute new norms are

A) innovators.
B) ritualists.
C) rebels.
D) retreatists.

Question 74

According to Merton, anomie represents society's struggle between its

A) conformists and deviants.
B) values and attitudes.
C) goals and means.
D) successes and failures.

Question 75

Richard Quinney contended that to understand crime we have to understand the development of the political economy of capitalist society. This is a reflection of the

A) conflict perspective.
B) functionalist perspective.
C) interactionist perspective.
D) developmental perspective.

Question 76

Merton described five responses to anomie. An embezzler stealing money from his company to fund his high mortgage payments is an example of a(n)

A) conformist.
B) innovator.
C) rebel.
D) retreatist.

Question 77

According to Merton, losing touch with success goals while abiding compulsively by the institutionalized means is

A) retreatism.
B) innovation.
C) conformity.
D) ritualism.

Question 78

Which group is most likely to see crime as a normal characteristic of capitalism?

A) conflict theorists
B) functionalists
C) labeling theorists
D) cultural transmission theorists

Question 79

Labeling theorists promote the idea that

A) we all engage in deviant behavior by violating some norms.
B) deviance is something inherent in the "badness" of the act.
C) we engage in deviant acts only when pushed beyond normal stress limits.
D) deviants perceive right and wrong differently than nondeviants.

Question 80

Labeling theory essentially argues that

A) society needs to place more emphasis on the labeling of deviants so deviants can be singled out.
B) labeling deviants helps them come to grips with their personal problems.
C) often those who are labeled as deviant develop a deviant identity and embark on a career of deviance.
D) the labeling of people as deviant is a latent function arising from the world of crime and delinquency.