Sociology Assignment
Deviance is the habit of going against the norms of society and provokes society to react negatively. These behaviors are sometimes dangerous to the extent of being banned by the government through the enacting of laws. Some of these behaviors are crimes that also disregards the enacted rules and absolutely, it is a significant type of deviance that affects society. Therefore every community should ensure that social norms are obeyed through social control as they can arouse the society in reacting negatively.
Regarding being a deviant in one of the days, I faced the harsh societal reaction after attempting to violate the informal social norm, which is enacted informally. One of the strictly observed everyday norms that I noted an instance which was part of what I violated was society believe in any supermarket what you have placed in cart belong to them even if they haven’t paid for it yet. Their claim was so valid in their mind also though the commodities were still within the supermarket premises and them literary, they belong to the supermarket until they are paid for. As I had scheduled, I went to the supermarket normally to pick my commodities in the underground shelves in violation of this claimed norm. Still, before I located where what I needed was, I found a cart having everything that I was looking for and I opted to serve myself from it, and I acted normally as if nothing was out of order. An immediate alarm and screaming were raised with a claim that I was stealing, backed up with evidence of the CCTV cameras. My reactions to the scenario remained constant despite the aggressive reaction of the angered customers. Some tried to humiliate me before the mob but trying to tap my head and scolded me.
Regarding this reaction, they can result in consequences reach too far from forming an identity of a deviant person in society. According to the theory of labeling, they would call this act the primary deviance. Those who commit these acts are affected eventually by the risk of being labeled thieves, and this label, according to this theory, it can become a dominant label incase they label sticks. With time if it persists, this may make the individual involved accepting the label and may end up redefining his identity in regard to the label and even acting with respect to the title. Labeling theorists regard this as secondary deviance which resulted from the reaction of the society to the primary deviance. According to Erving, such instance may result the individual to suffer from stigmatization and this may lead to isolation in the society and them entering to the group o the stigmatized. This reinforces the conformity to the deviant identity, which is called career by the sociologist. This shows the original actions act as the first contributing step from normal status to deviant status.
In conclusion, a single act that deviates the norm of the society may cause one to end having a social stigma after disproval and disgrace by the society thus, they end up being negatively disguised and perceived in the society. Manning (2013) has conceptualized how Erving Goffman, a sociologist who came up with this theory, explained stigmatization with explanation, including the mode of deity spoiling. An act like I did of the supermarket, if not resolved, would have resulted in my stigmatization. The stigma is necessarily not on the prevalence of deviants characters but on how society perceives one. The definite advantage of stigma work to encourage conformity and control members who are deviant in the society
Reference
Manning, P. (2013). Erving Goffman and modern sociology. John Wiley & Sons.