User:An anonymous entity/Strain theory (sociology)

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Strain theory is a theoretical perspective in Sociology and Criminology '''that aims to explain the relationship between social structure, social values or goals, and crime. Strain theory was originally introduced by Robert King Merton (1938), and argues that society's dominant cultural values and social structure causes strain, which may encourage''' citizens to commit crimes. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim 's theory of anomie, strain theory has been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Neil Smelser (1963), Robert Agnew (1992), Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld (1994) and Jie Zhang (2012).

Merton's theory
Robert King Merton was an American sociologist who argued that the social structure of a society can encourage deviance to a large degree. Merton's theory borrows from Èmile Durkheim's theory of anomie, which argues that industrialization would fundamentally alter the function of society; ultimately, causing a breakdown of social ties, norms, and order. Merton believed that society's emphasis on certain socially accepted goals put pressure on people to conform in order to achieve success. His theory was developed largely due to the social and economic circumstances occurring in the United States during the early 1900s. Robert Merton's Strain Theory stems from a fundamental question that he posed as to why the rates of deviance were so different among different societies. Merton's theories of social structure and anomie sought to explain how a society's specific social structures can pressure certain members of society toward nonconformist or deviant behavior. He thought that there could be deviance in societies where the cultural definition of success and the proper means to achieve said goals are incongruent. He found that the United States is a prime example of a society where increased levels of deviance relate to the high social value of achieving success, usually monetary, but there are contradictions to the means for acquiring such success. Success is often valued more for its outcome than the means for achieving it, leading to a preference for convenient methods over traditional, ethical methods. Merton developed strain theory to explore how an extreme emphasis on the cultural goal of success and restricted access to opportunities to institutionalized means for achieving success leads to deviance.

'''Merton outlined five ways that individuals may respond to the strain between their cultural goals and the opportunities available to them. These are commonly referred to as Merton's typology of individual adaptation. Each type of individual adaptation is defined by its acceptance or rejection of the cultural goals (monetary success), and acceptance or rejection of the socially acceptable means to achieve the goal (e.g. high socioeconomic status, education, high-income job opportunities).'''


 * 1) Conformity: conformity is the most common response to cultural goals and institutional means.
 * 2) individuals who conform accept and value the cultural goals, as well as the approved means. They pursue cultural goals through the socially approved means, and do not experience strain.
 * 3) Innovation: individuals who accept and value the society's goals, but reject the accepted means to achieve the goal. These people accept the goals, but create their own unapproved means for achieving them, usually because they do not have access to the institutional means.
 * 4) Merton referred to this response as the most related to deviance because of innovators' "illegitimate adaptation" to strain. Innovators often resort to illegitimate means, to obtain the culturally approved goals (e.g. wealth).               Example: organized crime, stealing, or selling drugs to achieve financial security.
 * 5) Ritualism: individuals adopt the accepted means so severely that it becomes ritualistic, meaning that they no longer value the cultural goal (wealth), yet they still blindly conform to the means as an end in and of themselves.
 * 6) Retreatism: is the least common response to strain.
 * 7) Retreatists are people who had previously accepted cultural goals and the institutional means eventually abandon both the goals and the means. Retreatists still feel a moral obligation to use the institutional means, but their acceptance of the cultural goal pressures them to pursue the goal illegitimately. These conflicting values lead the individual to reject both the goal and the means, and instead find a way to escape the requirements of society.
 * 8) Example: substance abuse, social isolation
 * 9) Rebellion: Usually due to frustration, oppression, or marginalization, these individuals reject the cultural goals and the accepted means to achieve the goals. Instead, they attempt to introduce new cultural goals and new institutionalized means, ultimately aimed at producing a new social order.
 * 10) Example: social movements, leftist movements, and any social change aimed at creating a society with more modest and equally accessible goals, as well as equal opportunity means.

In addition, Merton saw how minority groups had a harder time acquiring a good education, and if they could, they had a harder time acquiring a respectable living; yet the same high standard for success is enforced on everyone despite the fact that some people do not have the means to satisfy such high standards. '''Merton notes that crime and deviance are a “normal” response in a social structure that has adopted the high value goal of monetary success, but where opportunities for conventional or legitimate means of attaining success are blocked. For example, when wages are low, people may turn to illicit activities, such as prostitution, drug dealing, or gambling to achieve financial success.'''

British Sociologist and Criminologist Jock Young drew on Merton's theory in his book The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity in 1999. Analysing crime from both a cultural and structural point of view, he argued in the structural sense that the dismantling of the welfare state in conjunction with the widening disparities between the rich and poor has served to further exclude disadvantaged groups. Because contemporary consumer capitalism places a greater than ever emphasis on conspicuous consumption and material success, this intensified feelings of deprivation experienced by the less successful.

General Strain theory
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Institutional Anomie theory
Institutional anomie theory (IAT) is a macro-level criminological theory developed in 1994 by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld.

Messner and Rosenfeld agree with Merton's view that American culture overemphasizes financial success, and expand on his view by arguing that the economy's supremacy over other social institutions and the cultural values of the American Dream create high crime rates.

Messner and Rosenfeld argue that in American culture economic success is valued above everything else, which socializes Americans to value:


 * 1) achievement orientation: gaining success through hard work and determination
 * 2) individualism: focus on monetary success rather than who you are as a person and gaining success through your own hard work, 'no free handouts'
 * 3) universalism: the idea that all members of a society are socialized to value monetary success, and all members have equal opportunity to attain success as long as they work hard
 * 4) the ‘fetishism of money’” (Messner and Rosenfeld 2001:68): a specific strain of materialism, US obsession with wealth as the primary marker of success or worth  

'''These values are also necessary to perpetuate the cultural importance and value of economic gain. This imbalance between economy and all other social institutions affects society in a few important ways: First, with economic gain as the most important goal, economic pressure becomes more obvious and promotes action. Second, the diminished value of social institutions, such as family and education, which would usually help to reduce crime rates and provide legitimate opportunities become far less effective.'''

IAT also helps to explain the motivation for white-collar crime, while Merton does not. As the already wealthy and powerful would not experience legitimate opportunity strain, IAT posits that success is open-ended. Even members who are already monetarily successful are driven by the constant pressure to acquire evermore money.

Derived from Merton's Strain Theory, IAT expands on the macro levels of the theory. IAT's focus centers on the cultural goal of wealth as a determinant of crime.

Robert Agnew
In the year 1992, Robert Agnew asserted that strain theory could be central in explaining crime and deviance, but that it needed revision so that it was not tied to social class or cultural variables, but re-focused on norms. To this end, Agnew proposed a general strain theory that is neither structural nor interpersonal but rather individual and emotional, paying special attention to an individual's immediate social environment and relationships. He argued that a person experiences strain when others: prevent, or threaten, a their ability to achieve a positively valued goal; revoke, or threaten to revoke, a their positively valued stimuli; or present, or threaten, negatively valued stimuli.

Anger and frustration confirm negative relationships. The resulting behavior patterns will often be characterized by more than their share of unilateral action because an individual will have a natural desire to avoid unpleasant rejections, and these unilateral actions (especially when antisocial) will further contribute to an individual's alienation from society. If particular rejections are generalized into feelings that the environment is unsupportive, more strongly negative emotions may motivate the individual to engage in crime. This is most likely to be true for younger individuals, and Agnew suggested that research focus on the magnitude, recency, duration, and clustering of such strain-related events to determine whether a person copes with strain in a criminal or conforming manner. Temperament, intelligence, interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, the presence of conventional social support, and the absence of association with antisocial (e.g., criminally inclined) age and status peers are chief among the factors Agnew identified as beneficial.