Social Groups And Deviance

For the beginning of the week, I worked with my assistant manager on Monday, and focused on my sales goal in comparison with the store. My sales volume is high and I am trending above my sales goal for the month, and my focus is on how many units per transaction I am selling. I helped a woman pick out a wallet for her husband as an anniversary gift and added her to my books and will email

This week was not too bad in regards to any of the work I actually needed to do. There are definitely some concepts that I think I need to improve my understanding but I think that I did take away what was available from the texts we were provided.

Good discussion forum, everyone providing excellent tips and information which adds a lot more value to our learning, especially this week that I was not sure what answers were expected for the discussion.

5. Please outline in your own words, one other new thing you learned this week in the course. How does it apply to your life?

These are two different cases of murder. One is supposedly out of self-defense, and the other could have been murder with intent, or accidental. It is unknown. Facts about the cases show that George Zimmerman’s murder trial could have been pressured by the public, assumedly because he killed a black man, Trayvon Martin. Witnesses’ accounts and evidence from 911 calls support Zimmerman’s claim that he shot Trayvon out of self-defense. Autopsy reports also indicated that Trayvon was shot at a very close range. Witness accounts report that Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman, beating him up. It was later reported that he had a broken nose and cuts on the back of his head (CNN Library (b), 2016). These are evidence that aligns with Zimmerman’s story of self-defense.

This week was I was relaxed and nervous. I was relaxed because I am done with my individual assignment, and nervous because we have presentation. I think group member before us as set the presentation standards high, and we as a group need to at least try to match the level. Other than reading and working on the presentation I had two case studies, 9 discussions board posting to finish. I am poor public speaker, I get extra nervous to talk in front of the class. Hope I can manage to talk for two minutes, and explained what I read and research on my topic.

In a culture with such diverse commonalities, the differentials that set precedent come from social norms. These norms set the template for what acceptable behaviors are and are not. Social norms have the potential to change and evolve over time however. Take slavery for instance; in early American history slavery was very commonplace and socially acceptable for its time. Later, slavery was abolished and then in the 1950s and 1960s the Civil Rights Movement worked to gain equality for African American citizens. The evolution of our social norms is often precipitated by the actions of Social Groups that exist within our society. Other times, changes in our society are instigated by the actions of social deviants. Revisiting the example of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was in fact a social deviant; being a black woman in her time, her refusal to move to the back of the bus was socially unacceptable. Her actions prompted the unity of multiple Social Groups, thus provoking a civil movement that altered the perception of social normality. It can be said that societal change in itself is a social norm in which Social Groups, deviants are both necessary functions to bring about the growth that makes us who we are as a society.

This textbook example would be extremely deviant to the American culture. American laws would not be accepting of such a criminal act to be performed as punishment for adultery. In America it is not illegal to commit adultery, but it is illegal to tie up and beat someone. Americans do feel by majority that the adultery act is deviant, but punishment that the Pokot women carried out are not accepted as a valid punishment in America.

Statistical deviance looks are rare or infrequent instances and if someone falls outside the norm they could have a disorder. On the outside it seems using common sense would be a good idea. If someone is acting different from the majority of the population there might be something wrong with them. This criteria is also very objective and measurements are easier to take. All one has to do is see how if someone acts outside the norm and how much. However, there are many problems with this criteria. Who’s to say how far is too far from the norm. Normal behavior would be set on a bell curve, any behavior on either ends would be considered abnormal, even if it’s just a high IQ that people are often praised for and not labeled as having a disorder. Not every unusual behavior is a disorder, as being left handed is unusual and not a disorder, and not ever disorder is rare, such as alcoholism.

crime as individual choice. They focus on the factors of the role of parents and one’s

There are many things that can be taken away from our discussions in class. Personally what has stuck with me is the topic of imposter syndrome. To me imposter syndrome is pretending or trying your hardest to be something you are not, for the approval of your peers. Being someone who is involved in a lot of things on campus, I feel like I have to excel at everything I do. Attempting to excel at everything can become very draining and tiring. So I have taken on the attitude that I will do the best I can do and that is all I can do.

As we all have observed, throughout history each culture or society has unique norms that are acceptable to that group of people. Therefore, to establish and come to the acceptance of these basic norms, each society must develop its’ own strategies and techniques to encourage the fundamentals of behavior, which is clear in our modern society. Most do assume that everyone in a society will follow and respect such norms. However, some tend to deviate from the adequate norms and demonstrate deviant behavior. Nevertheless, we are inclined to ask ourselves, why do people decide to violate such important standards of living?

The group discussion has just passed, and it was really a hard work and challenging. There were many precious lessons I got, and, hopefully, so did with my friends. Our group was consisting of four students. As a quantity, reasonably, we had had enough power to do a better work and gained a satisfying result. As I flashed back to the group discussion, it was enriching my memories. Some were in high spirit, remarkable and enjoyable. Opposite to it, few were disappointing.

In the United States of America, societal deviance changes nearly on a daily basis. Depending on the current culture, deviance is modified to make societal heroes like celebrities, political figures, and sport players look less deviant and more like role models for the public. The change in what is considered “normal” is customarily a result of society in general. By using a reference group of people, individuals tend to identify with those who are in the lime light. Then when that role model does something appalling, the public becomes desensitized to this behavior and its abnormality and becomes less distinct thus adding to the change in social deviances.

This week we learned about Erickson and his theory on development. Erikson studied under the Freud method, but unlike Freud, Erikson actually did research on infants and children as they were developing. I really enjoyed learning about Erikson considering I have a 5-month-old at home growing away. It was interesting to compare these videos to where my baby was in development. Another interesting thing about this module was the James Marcia Identity Status which consists of 4 parts foreclosure, achievement, diffusion, and moratorium.