When we think of social deviance, what example do you come up with? The typical one is like nose picking, outlandish or inappropriate modes of dress, heroism (saving the life of another person while putting your own life in great danger).

Friend of mine, who lives in England, did some experiment for the deviance matter. The content of the experiment is that you have to walk backwards in the college campus all day long. He said that he got over 300 dirty looks on campus especially when he was walking with friends, because people notice groups more than they notice individuals.

Another experiment was that he went to the bank with £40 and exchanges them into a penny. And then go to a store and attempt to purchase some products amount for £40 with a penny. Of course, no way it was refused to purchase with only a penny.

These example of experiments clearly show what the social deviance is, isn’t it? However, some sociologist argue that the concept of deviance is not the act itself like picking nose or walking backwards. The act seen as the deviance is the reaction of others. Of course, extreme example like killing someone is not in this term, but the simple act like I mentioned above, I think the act of reaction is the deviance. This does not say that we should not behave like surprised even though we face such a scene though. The act of deviant sometime put the label on innocent people and some deviant act is not regarded as abnormal thing in other nations. We cannot see the people with the same standard of deviant. If there is next chance, I would like to scrutinize the example of various deviance for each country.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0006444.html

http://tutor2u.net/sociology/deviance-and-crime.html

by Shoya Tai