Midcentury Causal Theories Summary

Origins of Social Causation

Émile Durkheim Treat social facts as things Explain social facts with social facts Regulation and integration and suicide

INTEGRATION REGULATION TOO STRONG ALTRUISTIC jumping on grenade FATALISTIC* e.g., honorific suicide TOO WEAK EGOISTIC "excessive individualism" ANOMIC Sudden loss of regulation, lottery

Subcultural Theories Deviant behavior learned. Cohen gang behavior Status Frustration reaction formation "gang" rejection of middle class culture and replacement with a coherent set of values and practices.

Sutherland Differential Association One becomes delinquent if the balance of what one is exposed to is in that direction

Strain Theories Society puts people in a bind — you should want X but you can't have X. Merton’s Theory of Anomie - cultural goals, institutionalized means - conformity / innovation / ritualism / retreatism / rebellion. Agnew’s new Strain Theory situation/environment might be intolerable and what we see is attempt to escape.

Cloward and Ohlin’s Differential Opportunity Theory (c. 1960) - (cf means/motive/opportunity) need access to a criminal means - just automatically there. criminal subculture conflict subculture retreatist subculture*

Matza’s Delinquency and Drift. Delinquents not "committed" to delinquent life style or (2) forced into it by structural forces - process of decisions and choices

Sykes and Matza Techniques of neutralization. Values are there, but can be "overcome" (1) denial of responsibility (2) denial of injury (3) denial of victim (4) condemnation of the condemners (5) appeal to higher loyalties