CRIM 406 Midterm

What are the political connections to the moral foundations?

Liberals: tend to care more for autonomy (Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Oppression). Conservatives: tend to care more for community, but overall incorporate all six foundations.

What are the two key considerations on how people become deviant?

The deviant characteristic and a societal label or self concept.

What is the ancient Greek definition of stigma?

A sign, cut, or bruise into the body to signify that person as a slave, criminal, or traitow. It was a symbol of status.

What is a moral panic?

A situation in which public fears and state interventions greatly exceed the objective threat posed to society by a particular individual or group who is/are claimed to be responsible for creating the threat in the first place.

What are the main requirements for a good moral panic?

A suitable enemy, a suitable victim, and a general consensus. The media is also a necessary ingredient in a moral panic.

What is the fourth step of a moral panic?

Amplification: moral crusaders or people with credibility begin to talk about the issue on a higher platform. Often sought out by the media for comments. This leads people to accept the concerns of the witch hunt as factual in nature -- the deviants must really be a threat.

What is today's definition of stigma?

Any attribute that leads us to discount a person as bad, dangerous, or weak.

What is deviance?

Behaviors, beliefs, physical characteristics, and feelings that violate a social rule (or norm) AND are likely to elicit negative, condemnatory reactions ("judgements") from others.

Under Blemish of Character, what are deviant beliefs?

Beliefs that fall outside of the social norm. This would include conspiracy theorist or people who believe the earth is flat.

What are the two approaches to the study of deviance?

Essentialism and Constructivism

What is the final step of a moral panic?

Government Action: though not all moral panics lead to government panic, there are some in which the government comes in and utilizes the panic to their advantage.

What are breaking the rules?

It is engaging in the non-normative behavior.

What are the responses to breaking the rules?

It is society's response to a non-normative behavior being enacted.

What are the three considerations of deviance?

Making rules, breaking rules, and response to breaking rules.

What is the fifth step of a moral panic?

Panic: now the general public is concerned with the deviant.

What is the second step of a moral panic?

Sensitification: The public becomes sensitive to the particular issue.

.What is the first step of a moral panic?

The Event: something that draws the public's attention.

What are the four steps of a stigma?

The cues, stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminations.

What is the Shameful Gap?

The difference between our actual and virtual identity.

What is the Correctional Approach in studying deviance?

The goal here is to eliminate, punish, or judge the deviant behavior.

What is the Naturalistic Approach in studying deviance?

The goal is to only truly observe deviance and try to understand it for what it is: this is through avoiding judgement, emotions, and just view it for what it is.

What is the Advocacy Approach in studying deviance?

The goal is to promote, defend, or excuse the deviant behavior.

What are the two categories of moral entrepreneurs?

The moral crusaders (rule makers) and the rule enforcers

What is Relativism?

The relevance of the context in order to understand the situation because what is deviant in one situation may not be in another.

What are the four ingredients of deviance?

The rule or norm, a violation, an audience, and a measurable likelihood of negative reaction.

What is Discrimination?

These are actions of some sort, acting upon prejudices.

What is Voluntary Disclosure?

These are acts of "removing the band-aid" or just letting people know about the stigma.

What are Prejudices?

These are attitudes. This happens when a person endorses a stereotype from an emotional sense.

Under Blemish of Character, what are deviant behaviors?

These are behaviors people o that fall outside of the norm and have a high likelihood of drawing a negative social reaction.

Under Abomination of Body, what are Physical Disabilities?

These are being physically dependent on others or instruments and being judged negatively from a reaction sense.

What are Status Traits?

These are characteristics that demonstrate some status, whether normative or non-normative.

What is a Master Status trait?

These are characteristics that, once known, evoke automatic assumptions about a person. They lead us to fill in the gaps.

What are Cues?

These are how we come to know (or believe) someone is mentally ill or have a stigma.

What are Required Identity Standards?

These are standards that people place on others, which can be formal or expectations.

What are Desired Identity Standards?

These are standards that people want (like being taller or a girlfriend).

What is Passing?

These are steps taken by the discreditable to control information (to not become discredited in the first place).

What is Covering?

These are steps taken by the discredited to direct attention from the stigma symbol (ie, Stevie Wonder wearing sunglasses)

What is Insulating?

These are steps taken to avoid the stigma by carefully limiting interactions or affiliations with others (limiting time outside of house).

What is dominant ideology?

This is the argument that the dominant group's beliefs tend to be what is acceptable b the society in question.

What are stigma symbols?

These are symbols that symbolize some stigmatized trait; something we see that let us in on the stigmatized trait of others (what someone is wearing or what they are listening to).

What are Auxiliary Status traits?

These are the automatic assumptions that are evoked by the "x" status trait. If someone drives a beat up car, we immediately assume they are poor (thinking they are poor is the auxiliary status trait).

Who are the Rule Enforcers?

These are the people who enforce the rules made by the crusaders. An example of this is a police officer.

What is Collusion?

These are the steps taken by the "normal" to help the deviant manage their stigma (providing excuses for the person). (Helping with stigma management).

What are Latent Functions?

These are the unstated moral focus of policies. They are inherently unspoken.

What are Identity Standards?

These are the ways we expect people to appear, to feel, and to behave based on a social position or rule people occupy.

What are Disidentifiers?

These are things that a person can use to consciously indicate to others that they are not deviant. (There is a link between homophobia and sexual arousal toward homosexual acts).

What are status symbols?

These are things that show status (a nice car, expensive jewelry)

Who are the discreditable?

These are those whose stigma is hidden from at least some people.

Who are the discredited?

These are those whose stigma is visible, known about, and can draw attention when there is an audience.

What are Stereotypes?

These are thoughts about a given topic based mostly on what others think.

Under Abomination of Body, what are Violations of Aesthetic Norms?

These are violations of generally accepted standards for appearance. This can include height, weight, skin, and lack of blemishes. So, for example, being shorter than average can count as a violation.

Who are the Moral Crusaders?

They are the people who make the rules by convincing society that there is a social problem that needs to be combated. Lawmakers can pass laws, but they also get the media attention.

What are making rules?

They may be certain ways someone is supposed to act or say in specific situations.

What are norms?

Things that are "normal" or "respected". Typically informal guidelines, though can be legal as well.

Under Blemish of Character, what is Mental Illness?

This can include both deviant behaviors and deviant beliefs. What separates this from the previously mentioned two, though, is the cause of the beliefs and behaviors, which is thought to be organic.

What is Authenticity?

This describes a situation when there is no gap between one's virtual identity and their actual identity.

What is the moral foundation of liberty/oppression?

This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor.

What is the moral foundation of loyalty/betrayal?

This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."

What is the moral foundation of fairness/cheating?

This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.

What is the moral foundation of authority/subversion?

This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.

What is the moral foundation of sanctity/degradation?

This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

What is Embracement?

This is a person accepting the stigmatized trait as part of who the person is.

What is Normalization?

This is a technique that occurs when the stigmatized individual attempts to minimize differences by focusing on perceived or actual similarities they have with "normal".

What is Militant Chauvinism?

This is a technique where the stigmatized group intentionally maximizes differences in order to demonstrate some level of superiority (they feel like it makes them better than the normal).

What is Minstrelization?

This is a technique where the stigmatized individual over-conforms to the dominant groups' stereotypes of them.

What are Tribal Affiliation?

This is being stigmatized because of a group someone belongs to. Being a Penn State student is tribal affiliation, similar to being a member of a gang.

What is Primary Deviance?

This is deviance that is known by others in society. People move on after recognizing the deviance but there are no lasting labels or consequences.

What is Secondary Deviance?

This is deviance with lasting consequences or a future behavior that results from being labeled a deviant (being a registered sex-offender or being arrested for being a serial killer).

What is Informal Control?

This is enforcement not from an official source, which can be overt (being picked on) as well as subtle (cutting off a conversation with someone who is disabled quicker than you would with someone else).

What is Formal Control?

This is enforcement that comes from formal institutions of social control, like the police and the court system.

What are Personal Stigma?

This is simply the internalization of the stigma by the person with the deviant trait.

What is Constructivism?

This is the belief focuses on why things are perceived as deviant or not. This emphasizes why the line was drawn where it was. In reference to the four ingredients, this is more concerned with reactions to breaking the rules and creating the rules/norms.

What is Essentialism?

This is the belief that deviance is concrete and specific. Either things are deviant or they aren't. This emphasizes where the line is drawn. Couched in the area of positivism, this argues to only study things that we can directly observe and relies on quantitative methods. In reference to the four ingredients, this is more concerned with the rule/norm and a violation.

What are the Moral Order?

This is the beliefs, practices, and objects for which we have "venerable respect"; this means a great deal of respect (religious beliefs, following certain laws, and not harming others).

What is Hidden Deviance?

This is the deviance that no one or only certain people know about.

What is Denial of Victims?

This is the justification that anyone who was hurt by the deviant deserved it.

What are Denial of Responsibility?

This is the justification that the deviant is merely a victim of circumstance; anyone would have acted the way the deviant did under the same situation.

What is Denial of Injury?

This is the justification that the deviant's behavior did not hurt anyone, so it is not immoral. ("I'm not hurting anyone!")

What are Manifest Functions?

This is the outwardly spoken, on the surface of a justification for a given law or policy. The major focuses of a country.

What is Condemning the Condemners?

This is the technique of neutralization that justifies wrong actions by saying that the moral crusaders or rule enforcers also engage in wrong actions.

What is Courtesy Stigma?

This is the tendency for the stigma to spread from the stigmatized individual to their close connections.

What is the Labeling Theory?

This is the theory that behaviors, beliefs, or physical appearances are deviant because society labels them as such.

What is Public Stigma?

This is what the public does toward a stigmatized group when they endorse that stereotype (Calls to keep the "mentally ill" from owning guns).

What is Appeal to Higher Loyalties?

This is when a person does something they know is wrong, but they justify it by saying they did it for someone else. (someone who is poor steals medication for a sick spouse).

What is Social Distancing?

This is when the normal distances themselves from the deviant to avoid courtesy stigma.

What is our Virtual Identity?

This is who we are known to be by others; our public identity, what others know us as.

What is our Actual Identity?

This is who we know ourselves to be. This is what we know ourselves to think, feel, believe, and do in the privacy of your home.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

This occurs when people hold conflicting beliefs or ideas or values. When a person's thoughts and behaviors do not match.

What is Emotive Dissonance?

This occurs when someone feels a certain way but chooses to pretend to feel a different way.

What is Stigma Management?

This occurs when we alter our appearance and behavior to avoid being stigmatized.

What is the moral foundation of care/harm?

This underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance. It goes alongside with our long evolution as mammals with attachments systems and an ability to feel and dislike the pain of others.

What is Reification?

To treat social constructions of the reality as reality itself (If you see an attractive model before you get blindfolded for a lip-balm test, you would believe you were kissing the model and not a monkey).

What is mutual deviation?

When two groups believe the other's beliefs are deviant and that theirs are the correct ones (people who believe in science vs. people who believe in religion)

What are the two questions we ask ourselves when making rules?

Where is the line drawn and why is it drawn there.

What is the third step of a moral panic?

Witch Hunt: Deviants are blamed for the event.