Cigarette Smoking Becomes Deviant?
Some people feel that our society is moving toward regarding cigarette smoking as deviant. Before determining whether it is true or not, there is a need to define what is deviant. According to the Oxford dictionary (2008), deviant means “different from what most people consider to be normal and acceptable” (p. 547). What does it mean? To tell what is deviant and how to determine if an act is deviant, different scholars would use different approaches, for example: biological, psychological, and sociological. In this paper, I would like to focus on the sociological theories.
Sociological theories
In the view of sociologists, deviant is relativistic. Deviant behaviours are behaviours that violate the accepted norms of the culture or subculture which they take place or exist. In regard to deviant, sociologists generated a few theories to explain it, for instance, anomie or strain theory, differential association theory, labelling theory, etc. But here, only labelling theory would be discussed.
Labelling Theory
Labelling theory is focus on neither deviant behaviour nor deviant person but the process of a behaviour or person was defined as deviant.
In the labelling theory, deviant behaviour is a product of group definitions. Whether or not an act is deviant, is not the behaviour itself, but how a particular group sees it and how people react to that behaviour and someone who enacts it.
Labelling theory makes a distinction between primary and secondary deviance (Lemert, 1951). Primary deviance is people first violate social norms by chance or for unexplained reasons. If that behaviour does not negatively respond, it is not defined as deviant and the actors are not being labelled. But if that behaviour is defined as deviant, stigma would be attached to the actor. The labelled and stigmatized person may come to accept the label and change the self-image accordingly. Secondary deviance would therefore be resulted as a form of self-fulfilling
Sociological theories
In the view of sociologists, deviant is relativistic. Deviant behaviours are behaviours that violate the accepted norms of the culture or subculture which they take place or exist. In regard to deviant, sociologists generated a few theories to explain it, for instance, anomie or strain theory, differential association theory, labelling theory, etc. But here, only labelling theory would be discussed.
Labelling Theory
Labelling theory is focus on neither deviant behaviour nor deviant person but the process of a behaviour or person was defined as deviant.
In the labelling theory, deviant behaviour is a product of group definitions. Whether or not an act is deviant, is not the behaviour itself, but how a particular group sees it and how people react to that behaviour and someone who enacts it.
Labelling theory makes a distinction between primary and secondary deviance (Lemert, 1951). Primary deviance is people first violate social norms by chance or for unexplained reasons. If that behaviour does not negatively respond, it is not defined as deviant and the actors are not being labelled. But if that behaviour is defined as deviant, stigma would be attached to the actor. The labelled and stigmatized person may come to accept the label and change the self-image accordingly. Secondary deviance would therefore be resulted as a form of self-fulfilling