Deviance and norms

 According to Wikipedia, Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules, as well as informal violations of social norms. There are two types of deviance. The first, crime is the violation of formally enacted laws and is referred to as formal deviance.The second type of deviant behavior refers to violations of informal social norms, norms that have not been codified into law, and is referred to as informal deviance.

 Also there are several types of theories about deviance such as Psycological Explanations, Social-Strain Typology, Structural-Functionalism, and Conflict Theory. Among these theories I am interested in Labeling Theory. It is very interesting and plausible. When I learned this in high school, I was pursuaded by this. And I find some reserch about this.


 In a research study called The Power of a Label: Mental illness Diagnoses, Ascribed Humanity and Social Rejection, they examined how ascribing humanity to an individual labeled with mental illness may influence perceptions of dangerousness and motivations for social rejection(Martunez, Piff, Mendoza-Denton & Hinshaw, 2011). Their findings were that people who were labeled as having a mental illness had serious social costs. The stigma associated with a mental illness label can have devastating social consequences. Individuals bearing such labels experience devaluation and rejection in their communities, effects that exceed those attributable to the symptoms  of  the  mental  disorder  itself (Link, Struening, Rahav, Phelan, & Nuttbrock, 1997). The question then is why people have such a negative view about mental illness. A frequent stereotype about persons with mental illness is that they are dangerous, with media portrayals emphasizing an extremely heightened potential for violence (Wahl, 1995). Knowing that someone has a mental illness gives the person who is given that label little chance for a social life and people have already stereotyped them in their heads. Americans report more comfort with individuals who are deaf or have facial disfigurement than people with mental disorders (see Hinshaw, 2007). With that said, that puts people with mental illnesses at the bottom.  It makes their lives a lot more complicated in general, not taking into consideration the adjustments they have to make with the symptoms they will have due to certain illnesses.

Looking at someone or something of labeling theory is not appropriate. So people have to be careful to look someone else not to look at their one's sight.

Thomas Szasz is Professor of Psychiatry. His classic The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) made him a figure of international fame and controversy. He believes that there is no such thing as “mental illness”. The following is a quote from Thomas Szasz’s Mental Illness: Sickness or Status?

        “Being the member of a community, a religion, a nation, a civilization entails joining the cast of a particular national-religious-cultural drama and accepting certain parts of the play as facts, not just props necessary to     support the narrative. Thus, we in the West today accept as facts that the earth is spherical, that lead is heavier than water, that malaria, melanoma, and mental illness are diseases. As against this perspective, I maintain that while there are mental patients, there are no mental illnesses. There is no mental illness or madness either -- in the bodies of the denominated subjects or in nature. Instead, there is a mental illness role into which a person is cast by his family and society, which he then assumes and plays, or against which he rebels and from which he tries to escape. Occasionally, individuals teach themselves how to be mental patients and assume the role without parental or societal pressure to do so, in order to escape certain unbearably painful situations or the burdens of ordinary life ( Szasz, 2006).”

All these things mentioned are labels. We accept them as a society because it’s what we are taught when we are growing up but who’s to say that we are right. By labeling these people mentally ill, gives them a negative on themselves and others have a negative view as well. By doing so, it causes people to be isolated and act as they are labeled.