Robert King Merton, an American sociologist submitted a model organizing where people fit in the sequence of adopting cultural ethics. Merton recognized that society displays affection towards individualism and economic prosperity, nevertheless, he detected the imbalance in social equality and the possibility of growth in all factors of life. Those who are a part of the lower to middle class do not have equal opportunity to grow than those who are born into the upper class. When one is put in a situation where they are forced to use extreme effort to real their goals, it produces a strain. Due to this strain, human beings may adapt differently. He adopted this model as a way to explain the origin of social deviance. Merton stood out from other …show more content…
Humans under this category aim for success through socially adequate paths. This group of people obeys their surroundings; they do not show signs of divergence and they do not question the people in charge of them. Next to conformity, comes innovation. This is a group that embodies, strives and accepts opulence, but who turn to crime after they become conscious about the fact that their place in society does not match with the goals they have. Innovators are not necessarily violent, but still commit socially unacceptable actions. This type of adaptation describes the ‘’high rate of crime committed by uneducated and poor individuals who do not have access to legitimate means of achieving the social goals of wealth and power.’’ (Merton 1968) The next type is Ritualism, this is a form of adaptation that involves hard work and goal oriented people, but they often reject ‘’the cultural goal of monetary rewards.’’ These citizens do not perpetrate authority and/or wealth. The fourth adaptation is retreatism. These are the citizens that typically abandon their goals and ‘’the socially legitimate means of achieving it.’’ (Merton, 1968) The final adaptation is
There are five different forms of this theory, with two being represented by Llewelyn Moss, conformity and innovation. Inferring from the setting of this movie, the socially acceptable goals of the time were more than likely for a man to settle down and provide for his family. Moss attempts this conformity for as long as he can, until a better opportunity, the money, comes along. He decides that his current life isn’t enough for him, and attempts to innovate to raise his status in life. Unfortunately for Moss, he gets randomly killed by a separate party for the money, coinciding with the basis of Merton’s theory, that crime serves as a way to enforce these
Merton recognised that individuals receive messages from society, which set acceptable behaviours to follow. He noted that a majority of citizens abide the acceptable behaviours, though there are numerous pressures that associate with the American Dream and the importance of the economy, which leads individuals to participate in deviant behaviours. Merton associated criminality and deviance with the American Dream goals, and how people attempt to achieve them, particularly the wealth component (Murphy & Robertson, 2008). Merton argued in 1938 that within unbalanced societies, the discrepancy between success goals and the endorsement of the means to achieve the goals, combined with limited opportunities manufactured the state of anomie. Further, Merton suggested that the anomic conditions in society were likely to tempt strain upon individuals, forming criminal behaviour adaptations. Particularly, the strain theory emphasised that those with high monetary aspirations are likely to innovate, resorting to unlawful activities, with the desire to channel success (Antonaccio, Gostjev & Smith, 2014). The strain theory connects to social causes, linking criminality with selfishness and egoism as the desire to
Merton’s theory consists of five things. Conformity is when one accepts conventional goals and strive to earn those goals through socially accepted means. The kids in the neighborhood, their shared beginning, could most likely not afford to attend college at USC. So some of them could apply for a community college. But realistically college was not a common goal for the kids, completing high school and going was even struggle. In their shared beginning we see innovation the most. The people accepting cultural goals, but rejecting the accepting way of achieving them. Instead of getting a job to have these means, they often resort to selling jobs or living off of robberies. They want money and items money can buy, but they do not want to have a job or work. This relates to all of the gang activity we see. Parents in the neighborhoods however, can be applied to ritualism. Single mother’s working one or two minimum wage jobs to support their families. They gave up on achieving the goal, but they still continue to practice the socially accepted practices for obtaining jobs. They are working these minimum wage, under-paid jobs forever to support their family. While some parents ae resulting to ritualism, even more result to retreatism in these communities. They are completely rejecting the accepted ways of achieving goals. Drug addicts and alcoholics are a common scene in the movie, those people fit into this category. Gangs which are the most common theme and factor in the movie is compared to rebellion. These people reject accepted goal and means, while replacing them with new ones. Gang activity in the movie in a sense of family and acceptance by creating their own goals and
As a social process theory, drift and Neutralization sees a crime to be a part of wider social interactions. It views social order as non objective and non consensual and posits that there is not a single fundamental social goal that is held by all social groups; rather there are many different overlapping social values within a society, both conventional and delinquent: legitimate and illegitimate. Drift and Neutralization Theory posits that individuals learn values and delinquent behaviours through their exposure to sub-cultural values. “Deviant or delinquent (or criminal) subcultures do not reject ‘dominant’ values and beliefs. Instead, there is tension between inclinations to adhere to mainstream values and beliefs.” This sees that criminals can drift between deviant and conventional behaviours and how to use various techniques of neutralisation to rationalise their criminal activity. In analysing McVeigh’s motives, his learned sub cultural values can be examined to demonstrate how he was able to rationalise his violations of the law and how he came to drift from non delinquent to delinquent actions. The techniques of neutralisation; denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of
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Robert Johnson I went down to the crossroads fell down on my knees. Robert Johnson went to the crossroads and his life was never the same again. The purpose of this essay is to tell you about the life of Robert Johnson. He is the root of much of the music of today. If he didn't influence the musicians of today directly, he influenced the bands that influenced today's music.
By stressing the overall culturally accepted goals, but not providing equal and equitable means to attain these goals, Merton felt that society had condemned lower class inhabitants to a life of criminal b...
Merton received many criticisms toward his theory, Anomie. The basis of them was, Anomie was too general, it did not explain much. It does not explain why individuals choose to commit certain types of crime. A study was examined between aspirations and expectations; there was no evidence with criminal activity. But for being so general, his theory is still one to be most popular coming down to the most cited theory.
We will delve into possible inadequacies of Merton’s philosophy regarding this
Criminals are mistakenly seen as “people with stunted psychological development or…[a] consequence of moral failure…or people with genetic predispositions for crime.” (Gladwell 156) That is not true. They are simply byproducts of the environment around them. Change the environment; change the behavior. Gladwell explains how context and environmental cues affects behavior, but it goes further. Powerful forces that change environments change what those inside them experience. Sometimes those changes are purposeful, with the intention to reduce crime, sell drugs, or recruit students. It is self evident that cultural expectations are dependent on the experiences individuals have together. Gladwell, combined with Watter and Ho’s analysis, explicitly shows that the environment changes those
The social disorganization theory directly links social deviance (criminal activity) to neighborhood ecological characteristics. Thus, an individual's residential location can shape whether he or she grows up in engaging and participating in illegal activities. In The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, W.I. Thomas defined social disorganization as a “decrease of the influence of existing social rule of behavior upon individual members of the group” (Thomas DR: 4). The likelihood of an individual on the lower end of the economic ladder living in a crime ridden neighborhood is high. Therefore, the likelihood that individual will be involved in illegal activity when he ages is substantially higher because he grew up in that environment and sees crime just a way of life. In addition, individuals poor neighborhoods might engage in social deviance as a desire for security. The individual may be motivated by fear to avoid death by finding any means necessary to procure items for survival (W
A highly debated topic concerns whether criminals commit crimes because of a social pressure or an individual urge. The strain theory supports crime as a social pressure because, as Frank Schmalleger suggests in Criminology Today 222, crime is an adaptive behavior that coincides with problems caused by frustration or unpleasant social surroundings. Also, culture conflict theory states the cause of delinquent behavior is because different social classes conflicting morals of what is appropriate or proper behavior, (Schmalleger 228). Other people believe blaming crime on the economy or where they grew up is making an excuse for criminals instead of making them take responsibility for their actions, as stated by CQ writer Peter Katel. These different views started with statistics taken on crime in the early 1800s. Andre Michel Guerry of France was one of the first examiners of “the moral health of nations” in the early 19th century, (Schmalleger 35). Another early crime statistician was Adolphe Quetelet of Belgium . Quetelet evaluated the crime rates between weather, sex, and age. His findings that climate contributes to high or low crime rate is a main factor in today’s fight against crime. It is doubtful this issue will ever be settled since there are too many pros and cons to each side. However, while specialists’ dispute this, crime is not stopping. There needs to be a way, or possibly several ways, to reduce criminal activity. It is doubtful criminal activity will ever be put to an end. The same is to be said about why people commit crime, but knowing if it is done socially or individually can help with the fight against it. In the end, individuals should take responsibility for their actions, but...
Conclusion: Merton’s Tool Box Thomas Merton lead a unique life and his diversity in his writings reflects this as well. It can be difficult to boil down his many writings to find just one, two, or even five comprehensive lessons. Rather than trying to represent all of Merton’s teachings in a few aphorisms, I will be exploring five insights which changed my perspective and that I can continue to utilize in my life to continually broaden my perspective after the end of this class.
Featherstone, R., & Deflem, M. (2003). Anomie and strain: Context and consequences of Merton’s two theories. Sociological Inquiry, 73(4), 471-489.
The causes of crime seem to be indefinite and ever changing. In the 19th century, slum poverty was blamed; in the 20th century, a childhood without love was blamed (Adams 152). In the era going into the new millennium, most experts and theorists have given up all hope in trying to pinpoint one single aspect that causes crime. Many experts believe some people are natural born criminals who are born with criminal mindsets, and this is unchangeable. However, criminals are not a product of heredity. They are a product of their environment and how they react to it. This may seem like a bogus assumption, but is undoubtedly true.