Discussion
brings the current and previous lesson into conversation with each other and
asks: Is it better to avoid or embrace deviant identities? While answering this
main question, it may help to address some of the following questions:
• Can you think of a specific example that
might change your general answer?
• Does your answer change for discreditable
vs. discredited individuals?
• Does the type of deviance
(characteristic, belief, behavior) matter?
• Does the specific deviant
identity (e.g., immigrant, furry,
ex-con) matter?
• What stigma management
technique do you think is most effective?
• How might stigma management
change depending on social context?
• What role do individual labels and existing
deviant subcultures play in determining whether to avoid or embrace a deviant
identity?
•For someone who grows up in a deviant
subculture, to what extent is their identification (by others, by themselves)
with that subculture voluntary vs. mandatory?
• What are potential costs and
benefits of avoiding/embracing deviant identities? • Do you or anyone you know
have personal experience avoiding/embracing a deviant identity?
• What strategy or strategies were employed,
and was the result positive, negative, or what?
• Post should conclude with a
question. (1) source = https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/200809/the-path-unconditional-self-acceptance ***(2)
source can be any journal article, and not peer reviewed. **Please use opinion
base, I will end up using my opinion based on your opinion. lessons go on about
differentiation, secondary deviance, deviant subcultures, deviant careers.
Summary below. In spite of the accompanying stigma, many people choose to
embrace their deviant identities. Through differentiation, this can take the
form of framing the stigma as an obstacle or as a part of a person’s authentic
self. The effect of stigma on embracing a deviant identity is clear as labeled
individuals may choose to accept those labels and engage in secondary deviance.
Rather than accept a deviant label and identity, an individual immersed in a
deviant subculture with its own norms may not recognize themselves as deviant.
Interestingly, though, it seems that most deviance reduces as people age, so it
is unclear to what extent people with deviant identities embrace those
identities for the long term. Readings for this lesson offer examples of the
various ways people embrace deviant identities.
Discussion draws on the current and previous lesson by asking whether it is better to avoid or embrace deviant identities.
One's perspective and
interpretation of oneself as abnormal or behaving outside the bounds of
acceptable behavior is correlated to deviant identities. A person who has
internalized stigmatization from others as part of their identity is said to
have a deviant identity. People start to perceive themselves as outsiders, a
person to whom they don't belong or act in a way that is considered improper by
established societal standards. As such, those that engage in these behaviors
may have a propensity for anti-social conduct, which is frequently connected to
criminal activity, both instancing a relation of their psychological and
physiological relation to their behavior. While both physical and mental
perspectives have merit, they are both constrained in how they explain
deviation since they only see it as an issue of abnormality and fail to address
the impacts and whether embracing or rejecting deviant identities is
preferable.