Mary Catherine Weaver

SS1 SOC 2024 Deviant Behavior

Quiz 2
Due Midnight 06/08/14
Instructions: Type your name at the top. Answer each question. Turn this back in as an attachment in the quiz
section. Do not pay much attention to style. You will be graded based solely on the answer you provide. You may
use only your book or powerpoint from the week unless stated otherwise in a question.
Time Limit: 45 Minutes
1) How is the constructionist perspective different from the positivist perspective discussed in chapter 1?
4pts
Rather than focusing on deviance as an action like from the positivist perspective, the rules and enforcement of
deviance are focused on. The deviance does not even need to have happened, because the focus is not on the act
of the deviant behavior itself but on the response to the perceived deviance.

2) Differentiate between informal social control and formal social control? When is formal social control
needed? Which operates most often? Give an example of informal social control and formal social control
(examples that are not mentioned in the book).
8pts
Informal social control tends to be ordinary citizen to ordinary citizen, whereas formal social control tends to be
between an ordinary citizen and law enforcement. An example of informal social control might be rolling ones
eyes to show annoyance with someone, whereas an example of formal social control is being forced to serve
community service as a substitution for jail time for being caught underage drinking. On a day to day basis I would
imagine informal social control operates most often because almost every human wants to be accepted and will
commit to informal social control in order to do so. I think that formal social control is more needed, however,
because in the case of drunk driving, someone might not care to avoid drunk driving if their friend disapproved of
it, but if they were looking at $10,000 in fines and potential jail time, they would be more convinced that driving
drunk is not worth it.

3) Pick any two constructionist theories from the readings and explain how the two are different from each
other. For each theory give an example of deviance (not mentioned in the book) that it would explain.
8pts
The interactionist perspective works to look at the implications punishment, and the label of being deviant,
has on the identity of the person rather than the act of deviance itself. The Penn State child sex abuse scandal
left a stigma on the entire program, and from a labeling theory perspective, the sex abuse itself wouldnt be
focused on, but rather the implications it had on the people associated with the program. Feminist theorists
have focused on the absence of literature on female deviance, like prostitution, and look towards analyzing
patriarchy in order to analyze their perceived position in the field. The forms of deviance that women tend to
engage in are different from the forms men tend to engage in, and therefore the field needs to be studied.
These two theories are different because interactionist theorists focus on the consequences of labeling
someone as a deviant and the effects on the person, and feminist theorists focus on the omission of labeling
Mary Catherine Weaver
women as deviants and the effects on the field. An example of deviance typically found exclusively in women
might be the tendency for mothers to kill their children suffering from post-partum depression or
Munchausens Syndrome by proxy.