Intro to Sociology

Review the section on Asch’s Research from your textbook. Describe why the individuals in the Asch experiment usually gave the same answer when they probably knew that it was wrong. How do social control and social bonding explain conformity?

During Arch’s research there were seven people that were involved in a visual test. Six people knew about the test and one had no clue that he was the actual subject. When they were conducting the visual experiment on the first and second tests, all of the people where on an agreement. On the last experiment the actual subject was in a disagreement with the others but agreed with to others to avoid ridicule or ostracism (Kendall, 2012 p. 167). People will just agree in a group just to fit in and go with the flow. While the pressure to conform is intense, people continue to deviate. Using either Merton’s Strain Theory or Becker’s Labeling Theory, explain why some people choose to become deviant. Labeling theory is based on the idea that behaviors are deviant only when society labels them as deviant. As such, conforming members of society, who interpret certain behaviors as deviant and then attach this label to individuals, determine the distinction between deviance and non-deviance.

Finally, major crimes occur in our society. Pick a current event (local or national) and describe the crime. Analyze the crime in terms of Durkheim’s four major functions of deviance.

There were three men that were arrested in Las Cruces, NM because they are involved in house burglars in El Paso, TX, Ruidoso, NM, and NMSU campus. The three men went into houses and stole jewelry, cash, guns, and vehicles. They would then take these items to pawn shops and sell them. They had left so much evidence that the police had traced them all the way to Las Cruces and arrested them. When it comes to the Durkheim’s four major functions of deviance, innovation in this case is when they had acquired money and jewelry by breaking into these homes and stealing them.

Reference:

Kendall, D. (2014). Sociology in Our Times, 10e, 10th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/books/9781305450387/id/P1-185