Deviance And Social Control

Deviance and Social Control

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Deviance and Social Control

Violating the norms of the society, or not conforming to the norms is considered deviance, which disturbs the social control. The society makes the individuals follow and conform to the norms by applying sanction on them. Some sanctions are positive, which are meant to appreciate the conformity or right attitude of the public. On the other hand, some sanctions are negative, which are meant to punish the people for their wrongdoings. The sanctions are formal and informal as well, which is mainly due to the utilization of proper channel or reacting individually towards deviance. Recently, I experienced a scenario in which I utilized the informal negative sanctions, in order to ensure the conformity to norms and maintenance of social control in society.

My niece, who is thirteen years old was secretly going out of home at nine in the night when she is not allowed to step out of the house after eight in the night. She was probably waiting for my sister to get into her room, so she could go without being noticed. I caught her in action and stopped. I locked her in her room for the night, as she was not going by taking the permission of her mother and I did not want to create a scene at that time. I was responding to the deviance of my niece, which she depicted by not conforming to the norms of her family, as well as the society. The society generally practices the norm that the children have to go out of their homes or do something by taking permission from their parents or guardians, or they need to inform them at least. However, my niece expected that her mother would not allow her to go out at that hour, so she deviated from the norm (Hong, Kim, & Piquero, 2017).

My action affected my niece in the way that she was not able to fulfill the bet she made with her friends and had to face the anger of her mother as well. She was famous as mama's girl among her friends, who were of the view that she cannot do anything without the permission of her mother. My action made her upset as she thought she would not be able to prove her friends wrong. (Hendry, 2017)

My reaction helped maintain the social control in the way that if my niece had to succeed in her first attempt, she would have enjoyed being a rebel, as her social circle would have approved it. She would have been least concerned about the worries and affection of her mother and become deviant, which would have affected the social control.

The action fits into the social order in the way that the children need the care, attention, and guidance of their parents. However, after entering the teenage, they start thinking that they do not need the guidance of their parents anymore and try to rebel, by not conforming to the norms of family and society, which disturbs the social order.

The theory applicable to the scenario is labeling theory, which states that the labelling of the society motivates the individual towards deviance. The labeling of her friends, motivated my nice to not conform to the norms. The symbolic interactionist perspective applies to the scenario in the way that the constant recalling of her friends, made my niece think that she was acting on the restrictions of her mother and not on her own will, so she tried to exercise her will by secretly leaving the house (Little, Vyain, Scaramuzzo, Cody-Rydzewski, Griffiths, Strayer, & Mcgivern, 2012).

Maintaining social control is one of the most important purposes of social institutions. In order to ensure the maintenance, the institutions introduce norms and apply formal and informal sanction over the individuals. In the scenario, I exercised the informal negative sanction on my niece to ensure the maintenance of social control.

References

Hendry, J. (2017). Individualism and individuality: entry into a social world. In An Anthropological lifetime in Japan (pp. 201-215). BRILL.

Hong, J. S., Kim, D. H., & Piquero, A. R. (2017). Assessing the links between punitive parenting, peer deviance, social isolation, and bullying perpetration and victimization in South Korean adolescents. Child abuse & neglect, 73, 63-70.

Little, W., Vyain, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Griffiths, H., Strayer, E., ... & Mcgivern, R. (2012). Introduction to Sociology 2e. OpenStax College.