Deviant Act Essays Examples

Introduction

Deviance as a word refers to any behavior regarded as odd or unacceptable. However, from a sociological point of view, deviance refers to any action or behavior that runs contrary to social norms. This includes crimes, which are violations of formally enacted rules, as well as violation of the socially accepted norms. Norms refer to the rules as well as the expectations that guide the conventional behavior of human beings. Thus, deviant acts arise from non-conformance with these norms. Deviance is relative, to both the time and the place. This is because an act that may appear deviant in a particular context may not be deviant in another. For example, fighting at school is a deviant behavior, but fighting in a war is not.
Different societies may also have varying definitions of deviance, and what is deviant in one society may be acceptable in another. This is because of the relativity of cultural norms. One example of a deviant act is cigarette smoking. The majority of people in the society consider Cigarette smoking. This is largely due to the associated effects of smoking, including health problems and air pollution for the secondary or passive smokers. Another reason that explains the view of cigarette smoking as deviance arises from the public perception towards addiction. In many societies, addicts undergo social stigmatization, and find themselves branded as social deviants. Thus, their addictive behaviors automatically become deviant acts. The labeling of smoking as a deviant act has coincided with the reduction in tobacco use. Among the young people especially, it is more likely that smokers will engage in deviant habits than it is for non-smokers.

Objectives

Research Questions
What is your attitude towards smoking?
What is the difference in attitude towards smoking in males and females?
Is smoking a form of deviance?
Literature Review
In the world, the use of tobacco has been around for over three millenniums. Human beings were using tobacco even before the 1818 invention of a machine that produced cigarettes. Cigarette smoking poses harm both to the smokers themselves, and to those who are around them. Thus, this impact reflects on the health sector as well as the economy in general. These negative connotations mean that smoking acquires the label of a deviant act. Smoking is a national as well as worldwide social concern, and is estimated to be the cause of millions of preventable deaths around the world. There are billions of active smokers in the world today, and the global rate of consumption continues to increase. This is regardless of the global efforts on awareness that aim to discourage smoking as a habit.
For a large number of people, smoking represents an everyday habit. With the passage of time however, there is a significant change in the attitudes towards smoking. This attitude change is the result of a variety of factors, some being public awareness and socialization, the anti-smoking campaigns, and medical knowledge about the effects of smoking. Thus, cigarette smoking presents a social concern, since cigarette smokers appear to be polluters. In some places such as hospitals and factories or gas stations, smoking is prohibited. The use of cigarettes is also responsible for deaths, mainly because of cancer, and this situation applies for both active and passive smokers.
Despite the fact that it causes serious harm to users, tobacco is still a legally available product. However, this has not always been the case. Realization of the potential harm occasioned by smoking led to the complete ban on cigarette smoking in 14 states in the USA, between the years 1895 and 1921. In other places such as Michigan, it was a criminal offence, punishable by a jail term, to offer cigarettes to anybody below the age of twenty-one years. Thus, the recognition of smoking as a social deviance has a long history. In the modern day, there are renewed efforts to reinstitute similar regulatory measures on tobacco use. These measures include the imposition of legislation on areas where smoking is possible. In most public places nowadays, smoking is an illegal activity. Another form of regulation is the imposition of taxes on cigarettes. The high taxes aim to make cigarette smoking more expensive and hence discourage it, because it is a deviant behavior.
Whereas smoking is a legally acceptable behavior, it is not a desirable behavior, both in the eyes of society and of religion. Thus, it may seem like a less deviant behavior. The behavior of human beings follows social norms and these norms promote conformity while discouraging any deviance. Violation of these norms leads to punishment, and this may take the form of punishment through shunning by the society. The use of tobacco is a social activity since it involves human interaction. As such, it is governed by the rules and norms of society, and it may have a variety of meanings.
Smoking of cigarettes may be indicative of the mental state of the smoker, and this state may be shared between two smokers. For instance, two people enjoying a happy or sad moment may light a cigarette and share it. Cigarette sharing is also possible during various social gatherings such as weddings or at parties.
Smoking relies on a variety of factors and these include gender, age as well as role identification. In terms of gender, it is evident that more men than women smoke. This arises from the fact that it is considered less socially acceptable for women to smoke than for men. In fact, female smokers are seen as even more socially deviant than male smokers. Hence, a majority of women smoke in private or at least not in the presence of other people. In terms of age, younger people are not allowed to smoke, and it is illegal to sell cigarettes to minors. Consequently, a larger number of adults than young people engage in this activity. In terms of role identification, more men than women are likely to be smokers. This is because traditionally, women spend a greater amount of time in the home setting, and thus are less likely to smoke. Conversely, men are more outgoing, and spend more time with their friends outside the home. Hence, they are more likely to smoke because cigarettes are more often than not shared with others.
Since smoking is considered a deviant act, smokers undergo stigmatization. This stigma results from various factors. One of these factors is the reduced prevalence of smoking. The reduction in the number of people who smoke results in smoking becoming a less normative activity. Thus, the smoker appears to be different from the majority. The result of this is that the smoker is considered a deviant, and hence suffers from stigma. Another factor leading to stigmatization and labeling of smoking as a deviance is negative stereotyping. Smoking is associated with ignorance, absence of self-control and irresponsibility. These are also signs of deviance; hence smoking itself becomes a deviant act.

Methodology

This study took a random sampling method of data collection. The subject of this study were all university students as well as employees in various departments of the university. A sample of 650 people was taken and this was comprised of 400 male respondents, and 250 female respondents. The respondents’ smoking status was as follows: 182 respondents were active or current smokers, 53 respondents smoked from time to time, that is, they were irregular smokers, and 415 respondents had never smoked in their lives at all. Thus, over 35% of the respondents sampled had smoked at one particular point in their lives.
For a research instrument, the study utilized questionnaires. This is because questionnaires are an easy and cheap method of collecting data, and the questionnaires are easy to analyze. The respondents were asked some questions that related to their demographic status such as their current age, as well as the age at which they begun smoking. The questionnaires were distributed to students during their respective classes, and they were then collected at the end of the classes.
The study target the general population and it aimed at establishing whether smoking is considered a deviant act and why this is so. In order to evaluate how valid the instrument was, the study made use of a procedure for judgment validity. This entailed the evaluation of the instrument by seven members of the staff. Any questions that achieved a rating of over 95% of the judges’ agreement were retained. Otherwise, they were deleted. When the Cronbah alpha used for estimation of internal consistency was applied, it returned a 0.94 reliability coefficient, hence showing that the data was reliable.

Analysis

Question 1
What is your attitude towards smoking?
In this question, the majority of respondents appeared to have a negative attitude towards smoking. Out of the 650 respondents, 450 indicated that they did not like smoking. The other 200 respondents indicated that they did not mind smoking since each person had freedom to enjoy their own way. Many of the respondents who were against smoking stated that smoking was harmful to the health of smokers and also to non-smokers who were exposed to the tobacco through inhaling the smoke coming from being around smokers. These people also indicated that they considered smoking to be a rather dirty habit, and associated it with vices hence the hate.

Question 2

What is the difference in attitude towards smoking between males and females?

Female respondents particularly had a negative view about smoking as opposed to male respondents. A significant number, 200, representing 80% of the female respondents, disliked smoking as a habit, viewing it as dirty. The respondents wanted the smoking banned and they disliked people who smoked. The male respondents on the other hand were more flexible on this, with 62.5% of the male respondents opposed to smoking. This was significant since these numbers included even the people who smoke themselves. In fact, several expressed a willingness to stop the habit. Male respondents are thus more likely to be tolerant of smokers than females are.

Question 3

Is smoking a deviant act?

465 of the respondents felt that smoking was an act of deviance. This represented 71.54% of the total number of respondents. These respondents indicated that they associated smoking with deviant behavior. In the opinion of these respondents, the smoking is a health hazard. Thus, they expressed an opinion that it should be stopped. The respondents also majorly believed that there should be a ban on smoking in public places. Some of the places that were particularly mentioned included hotels and hospitals, as well as train stations. These respondents posited that teachers and doctors especially, should not smoke. This is because these groups influence many people. For instance, if a teacher smokes, the children in the class may become tempted to take up the habit, which is deviant in nature.
On the other hand, 185 of the respondents differed with the view that smoking is a deviant act. These respondents indicated that smoking is a socially acceptable practice that cannot be branded as an act of deviance. Respondents who subscribed to this opinion were mainly smokers, and they did not feel that their actions were as bad as other deviant behaviors. These respondents claimed that they had a right to enjoy their cigarettes without being ostracized and branded as outcasts. The respondents also felt that it was unfair for society to punish them for merely enjoying their rights.
However, these respondents agreed that their actions might sometimes affect others. For instance, they agreed that smoking is a health concern since it affects those who are close to them through passive smoking. Hence, to this end, the respondents agreed that smoking in public places should be restricted. They also agreed that this should be the case especially in hospitals and public transport. The respondents also concurred with the idea that because of the health concerns, some regulation might be necessary.
In terms of the gender of the respondents who felt that smoking was a deviant act, females dominated. A greater proportion of the total female respondents (84.8%) opined that smoking was a form of deviance. This was in contrast to just 38 respondents, representing 15.2% of the total who did not regard smoking as a form of deviance.

Question 3

Is smoking a form of deviance?

The male respondents on the other hand felt differently. Whereas a majority of them (63.25%) still felt that smoking was a form of deviance, a significant proportion felt otherwise. The number of these respondents totaled 147, which gave 36.75% of the male population. This population mainly comprised the smoking population, who felt that they should not be branded as deviants.

Conclusion

Discussion
This study shows that there are significant differences in attitudes and perceptions towards smoking. Overall, it is evident that smoking is considered an act of deviance. Most people also hold negative opinions regarding smoking despite the fact that it is a legal activity. The reason for this may lie in the fact that there are many negative campaigns against smoking advocated by various groups. There is increased public awareness about the negative consequences of smoking, which in turn results in smoking being a turn off for most people.
On the other hand, more men than women are smokers. This is because men usually engage more with friends and are often outside their homes more. Since smoking is a social activity, and cigarettes are often shared, men are more likely to be influenced to become smokers. This also relates to the attitudes that men and women have. Men are more accommodative of smoking than women are and are less likely to view smoking as a deviant activity. This is because culturally, smoking may appear to be a “manly” thing to do. Thus in order to feel macho, more men are likely to smoke. In addition, the fact that society views smoking as an act of deviance may lead men to engage in it, in order to show how manly they are. Thus, this explains why more men than women smoke. Since smokers are likely to have a more sympathetic attitude towards smoking than non-smokers are, it also explains why fewer men see smoking as a deviant activity.
The health effects of smoking are numerous, and the recognition of the danger that smoking poses to people is one of the key factors that contributes to smoking being labeled as a deviant activity. Deviant activities are those that go against moral norms. Smoking goes against moral norms since it is associated with poor hygiene. Smokers are generally associated with poor oral hygiene. This is in addition to being a source of pollution from the smoke that they emit. Smoking is also a source of health problems, both for the smoker and for those surrounding. Cigarette smoking is a health hazard to the smoker because it is a leading source of preventable deaths. Some of the properties contained in cigarettes are carcinogenic, being primarily responsible for throat, mouth, and lung cancer. Smokers are also at risk of contracting other lung related diseases such as bronchitis.
These effects also spill over to the people who are near smokers. Hence, through inhalation of this smoke, even non-smokers are at risk of suffering from these diseases. This is known as passive smoking. Thus, these hazardous effects combine to make smoking a despicable habit in the eyes of many. This then causes the behavior to be branded a deviant activity.

Works Cited

Fu, Hwai-Hui. "Elucidating smoking behavior in developed and developing countries." African Journal of Business Management 3.11 (2009): 685-694.
Kane , William M., et al. Understanding Health. New York: Random House School Division, 1987.
Macionis, John and Linda Gerber. Sociology. 7th. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Canada Inc, 2010.
Markle, Gerald E. and Ronald J. Troyer. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Cigarette Smoking as Deviant Behavior." Social Problems 26.5 (1979): 611-625.
Nuehring , Elane and Gerald E. Markle . "Nicotine and norms: The re-emergance of a deviant behavior." Social Problems 21.4 (1974): 513-526.
Stuber, Jennifer , Sandro Galea and Bruce G. Link. "Stigma and Smoking: The Consequences of Our Good Intentions." Social Ser vice Review (2009): 585-609.