Deck 7: Deviance and Social Control

Question 1

A sociologist would find it impossible to create a list of all deviant acts because

A) deviance is relative to the time and place in which acts are committed.
B) deviance is a psychological matter.
C) it would take too long.
D) deviance primarily is a matter of economic concerns.
E) all of these

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Whether a particular act is deviant depends on all of the following except

A) the subculture of the individual who commits the act.
B) the time period in which the act occurs.
C) the psychology of the individual who commits the act.
D) the status of the individual who commits the act.
E) the social context in which the act is committed.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following statements about deviance is true?

A) Deviant behavior is that which causes physical or objective harm.
B) Deviance has only negative consequences for society.
C) A behavior that is regarded as deviant in one society will likely be regarded as deviant in most societies.
D) none of these

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following statements about deviance is true?

A) Across all cultures, certain acts are considered to be deviant by everyone.
B) Within a particular culture, certain acts are considered to be deviant by everyone.
C) Across various time periods within a particular culture, certain acts are considered to be deviant by everyone.
D) According to sociologists, deviance refers to acts that violate minor social norms ("folkways") while criminality refers to acts that violate important social norms (mores and taboos).
E) Each of these statements is false.

Question 5

Cesare Lombroso believed that criminals were

A) possessed by demons.
B) endomorphs.
C) pagans.
D) atavists.
E) all of these (depending on the type of crime they had committed).

Question 6

Emile Durkheim called the values, beliefs, norms, and goals held in common by the people of a particular society the

A) social glue.
B) collective conscience.
C) common belief syndrome.
D) structural oil.
E) mythical substrata.

Question 7

According to Emile Durkheim, the changes wrought by the industrial, political, and social disruptions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had led to

A) structural strain.
B) reduction in the collective consciousness.
C) an increase in anomie.
D) an increase in egoism.
E) all of these

Question 8

Emile Durkheim said that modern society was tending toward anomie. By that he meant that

A) people had become too bonded to their social groups.
B) there was a lack of norms to guide people.
C) people had become fatalistic.
D) the judicial system was about to collapse.
E) people had become too self-centered.

Question 9

William Sheldon suggested that criminals tend to be of a certain body type. Today most sociologists suggest that if there is a relationship between body type and crime it is because

A) atavists cannot be sufficiently socialized.
B) endomorphs are fat, and therefore too lazy to work for a living.
C) ectomorphs are skinny (a sign of the high anxiety which leads them to criminal behavior).
D) mesomorphs tend to be socialized differently (to be strong and insensitive)
E) bulimics cannot control their behavior.

Question 10

Robert Merton's categories of conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion are

A) responses to anomie.
B) responses to structural strain.
C) types of deviance.
D) all of these
E) response to anomie AND to structural strain.

Question 11

According to Robert Merton, deviance is most likely to occur when there is a contradiction between culturally approved goals and

A) individual goals.
B) rituals and innovations accepted by individuals.
C) the existence of social retreats.
D) the legitimate means to achieve these goals.
E) all of these

Question 12

According to Merton's theory of anomie, many people in the United States turn to deviance because

A) they learn how to do and justify deviance from other people.
B) they are taught to want certain things (e.g., success) but are not given legitimate means to achieve these things.
C) they are labeled as deviant and then self-fulfilling prophecy takes over.
D) they are born with anti-social personalities.
E) by nature, people born in the US tend to be exceptionally greedy and egotistical.

Question 13

The statement that "deviance is not immutable" suggests that

A) Once a behavior is deemed deviant, it will remain deviant even if circumstances change.
B) Sodomy is now legal in all U.S. states.
C) Lesbians were allowed to serve in the military during World War II.
D) Behaviors that are deemed deviant at one time, may cease to be deviant at another time.
E) All of the above

Question 14

Professor Peter has been teaching English to first year college students for about 25 years. He started out his career full of idealism-he was going to really inspire his students and teach them how to express their most creative ideas in writing. About twenty years ago, however, Peters decided that there was
No way that his students would ever learn to write well. He still "teaches,"
But now he mostly checks for spelling and punctuation; he cares little about the overall quality of students' writing and nothing about the quality of their ideas. Merton would say that Professor Peters has adapted to his frustration by becoming

A) a conformist.
B) an innovator.
C) a ritualist.
D) a retreatist.
E) a rebel.

Question 15

According to Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin, deviance is most likely to occur when

A) there is a discrepancy between the socially prohibited goals and the socially stressed goals.
B) economic conditions take a downturn.
C) there is a sharp increase in the Gross National Product such that people's expectations become unrealistic.
D) adults introduce kids to new values.
E) the opportunity for learning how to be deviant exists.

Question 16

Becker's study of marijuana smoking teaches us that marijuana users have to

A) learn how to smoke, and perceive and enjoy the effects of the drug.
B) learn how to obtain, smoke it, and hide the effects of the drugs from their parents.
C) learn how to roll marijuana cigarettes, use bongs, and other accessories.
D) learn how to control the "munchies" in socially approved ways.
E) learn how to evade the cops.

Question 17

A research report cautions against sending first time offenders to prison because time spent in prison will limit the opportunities they face once they get out of prison. This research report supports which of the following theory of deviance?

A) Merton's structural strain theory
B) Durkheim's anomie theory
C) labeling or societal reaction theory
D) Lombroso's atavism theory
E) none of these

Question 18

In a recent speech, Senator Jones commented that if people want to decrease the crime rate, society needs to attack crime at its social roots: poverty, racism, and sexism. These things, she says, block people's access to success and so they turn to crime. Senator Jones's position is most similar to which theoretical perspective?

A) structural strain theory
B) primary deviance theory
C) secondary deviance theory
D) labeling theory
E) atavism

Question 19

By "primary" deviance, sociologists mean

A) the first form of deviance a person chooses to do.
B) a kind of behavior which generally leads to secondary deviance.
C) the kinds of acts that might be done (for any number of reasons) by people not generally thought of as deviant.
D) the most serious form of deviance a person does (also known as "master deviance")
E) early innovation.

Question 20

Every person who has been socially labeled as deviant shares which of the following characteristics?

A) criminal behavior
B) weak attachment to a primary group
C) stigma
D) little (if any) concern for social norms
E) all of these

Question 21

Attorney Mary Beth was caught embezzling funds from a variety of clients' accounts. She spent a year in prison and lost her license to practice law. Since then, her life has been going downhill-she can't find anyone who is willing to trust her enough to hire her. Erving Goffman would suggest that Mary Beth's identity

A) will be transformed to innovation
B) has been discredited.
C) is discreditable.
D) is lost.
E) is degraded.

Question 22

When he was 25 years old, Peter J. Peterson was arrested and convicted of a felony. He served his time in prison and since then has lived the straight life. One of the ways in which he has coped has been to keep his past a secret. For example, he always lies on job applications and says he has no convictions on his record. Erving Goffman would suggest that Peter's identity

A) will be transformed to innovation.
B) has been discredited.
C) is discreditable.
D) is stigmatized.
E) is degraded.

Question 23

Terry Miller is a man of superior intelligence. In fact, although he never graduated from college (let alone high school) he has just been made vice president of the bank. The problem is, ten years ago when he applied to work as a teller in the bank, he gave them a résumé that was filled with incorrect information (for example, he lied and said he had a college degree). Erving Goffman would suggest that Terry's identity

A) will be transformed to innovation
B) has been discredited.
C) is discreditable.
D) is stigmatized.
E) is degraded.

Question 24

Erving Goffman wrote that in all instances of _________ the same sociological features are found: "an individual who might have been received easily in ordinary social intercourse possesses a trait that can intrude itself upon the attention and turn those of us whom he meets away from him, breaking the claim that his other attributes have on us."

A) accreditation
B) false consciousness
C) spurious association
D) stigma
E) deviance

Question 25

Stigma is an important concept in

A) structural strain theory.
B) conflict theory.
C) labeling theory.
D) functional theory
E) control theory.

Question 26

All of the following are positive functions of deviance except

A) deviance helps to establish what the real norms are.
B) deviance can lead to positive social change.
C) deviance puts a strain on the economic resources of the social group.
D) deviance helps to unify the social group.
E) deviance can get people talking about what is important to them.

Question 27

Society can be divided into people who conform and people who deviate.

Question 28

Because norms vary across societies, what is thought to be deviant varies too.

Question 29

For a sociologist, to say that something is deviant is to say that it is bad or immoral.

Question 30

Durkheim's study of suicide is famous because it ignored statistics and investigated the meaning that suicide had to individuals who killed themselves.

Question 31

According to Durkheim, the industrial revolution mostly put an end to social anomie.

Question 32

Robert Merton suggested that a prominent feature of American society is a contradiction or strain between important goals and legitimate means to achieve those goals.

Question 33

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin criticized Merton's theory of deviance by pointing out that the very idea of structural strain was an American myth.

Question 34

Social labeling theorists seek to explain acts of deviance that occur after the individual has been labeled as deviant.

Question 35

Stigma can either be ascribed or achieved. List the three types of stigma described by Goffman and provide an ascribed and an achieved example of each type.

Question 36

Recently we have heard reports of things that have taken place during a war in Algeria: fetuses have been cut from the bodies of living women, people have been skinned, a man and a dog were beheaded and afterwards the killers swapped their heads and bodies. How can such behaviors be explained? Offer an explanation that makes use of Durkheim's concepts of "egoism"
and "anomie."

Question 37

Roger committed a rape. Discuss the circumstances in which his identity could be discredited and those in which it would be discreditable.

Question 38

One of the functions of deviance is that it can encourage social change. Explain how this happens; illustrate your answer by using at least one example from history.

Question 39

Pick XXX pairs of words from the following list. Define the terms in each pair. Provide an example with each definition. (In your answer, make sure to indicate which terms you are defining!)
Definitions

Question 40

Each of the following statements is false. Pick XX of these statements and refute them. (You need to do more than simply say the statement is false. Explain why it is false. Provide examples if these will clarify your answer.)
a. Sociologists study deviance in order to determine what acts are moral and what acts are immoral.
b. According to Durkheim, married people and Catholics are more likely to commit suicide.
c. Merton's typology of responses to anomie could just as well be called a typology of deviant behavior.
d. There are certain acts (e.g., killing another person) that are so bad that they are prohibited in every society.
e. According to strain theory, everyone has about the same chance to get ahead in society, it's just that some people prefer to use illegal means.
f. Durkheim suggested that crime and deviance are fundamentally bad for society and every effort should be made to get rid of them. Once we finally rid ourselves of deviance, society will be a better place in which to live.
g. According to Goffman, anyone who commits a deviant act will be stigmatized.