Auguste Comte and Other Founders

The term sociology was recoined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in 1838 from the Latin term socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology; he believed sociology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences.

While it is no longer a theory employed in Sociology, Comte argued for an understanding of society he labeled The Law of Three Stages. Comte, not unlike other enlightenment thinkers, believed society developed in stages. The first was the theological stage where people took a religious view of society. The second was the metaphysical stage where people understood society as natural (not supernatural). Comte's final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development. In the scientific stage, society would be governed by reliable knowledge and would be understood in light of the knowledge produced by science, primarily sociology. While vague connections between Comte's Law and human history can be seen, it is generally understood in Sociology today that Comte's approach is a highly simplified and ill-founded approach to understand social development (see instead demographic transition theory and Ecological-Evolutionary Theory).

Other classical theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Emile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. As pioneers in Sociology, most of the early sociological thinkers were trained in other academic disciplines, including history, philosophy, and economics. The diversity of their trainings is reflected in the topics they researched, including religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology. Perhaps with the exception of Marx, their most enduring influence has been on sociology, and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable.

The Development of the Discipline

The first book with the term sociology in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the first Sociology course was taught at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America). The first full fledged university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Emile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. The first sociology departments in the United Kingdom were founded after the Second World War.

International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when Rene Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International Sociologist Association starting in 1949. In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded.

Early Sociological Studies

Early sociological studies considered the field to be similar to the natural sciences, like physics or biology. As a result, many researchers argued that the methodology used in the natural sciences was perfectly suited for use in the social sciences. The effect of employing the scientific method and stressing empiricism was the distinction of sociology from theology, philosophy, and metaphysics. This also resulted in sociology being recognized as an empirical science. This early sociological approach, supported by August Comte, led to positivism, a methodological approach based on sociological naturalism. The goal of positivism, like the natural sciences, is prediction. But in the case of sociology, it is prediction of human behavior, which is a complicated proposition.

The goal of predicting human behavior was quickly realized to be a bit lofty. Scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has culture, unlike the societies of most other animals (e.g., the behavior of ants, wolves, etc. is primarily based on genetic instructions and is not passed from generation to generation through socialization). As a result, an additional goal was proposed for sociology. Max Weber^[7] and Wilhelm Dilthey^[8] introduced the concept of verstehen.^[9] The goal of verstehen is less to predict behavior than it is to understand behavior. Outside observers of a culture relate to an indigenous people on both the observer's and the observeds' own terms in order to comprehend the cultural conditions. While arriving at a verstehen-like understanding of a culture employs systematic methodologies like the positivistic approach of predicting human behavior, it is often a more subjective process.

The inability of sociology and other social sciences to perfectly predict the behavior of humans or to fully comprehend a different culture has led to the social sciences being labeled "soft sciences." While some might consider this label derogatory, in a sense it can be seen as an admission of the remarkable complexity of humans as social animals. Any animal as complex as humans is bound to be difficult to fully comprehend. What's more, humans, human society, and human culture are all constantly changing, which means the social sciences will constantly be works in progress.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Sociology

The contrast between positivist sociology and the verstehen approach has been reformulated in modern sociology as a distinction between quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, respectively. Quantitative sociology is generally a numerical approach to understanding human behavior. Surveys with large numbers of participants are aggregated into data sets and analyzed using statistics, allowing researchers to discern patterns in human behavior. Qualitative sociology generally opts for depth over breadth. The qualitative approach uses in-depth interviews, focus groups, or analysis of content sources (books, magazines, journals, TV shows, etc.) as the data source. These sources are then analyzed systematically to discern patterns and to arrive at a better understanding of human behavior.

Drawing a hard and fast distinction between quantitative and qualitative sociology is a bit misleading. The first step in all sciences is the development of a theory and the generation of testable hypotheses. While there are some individuals who begin analyzing data without a theoretical orientation to guide their analysis,^[10] most begin with a theoretical idea or question and gather data to test that theory. The second step is the collection of data. This is really where the two approaches differ. Quantitative sociology focuses on numerical representations of the research subjects (e.g., Do conservative Christian fathers spend more time in child care than secular fathers, when measured in hours?^[11]). Qualitative sociology focuses on the ideas found within the discourse and rhetoric of the research subjects (e.g., What is the narrative homosexual men use to explain their continued participation in religions that condemn their sexual orientation?^[12]). The goal of both approaches is to answer a question and/or test a theory.

Characterization

A scientific method depends upon a careful characterization of the subject of the investigation. While seeking the pertinent properties of the subject, this careful thought may also entail some definitions and observations; the observation often demands careful measurement and/or counting.

The systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities is often the critical difference between pseudo-sciences, such as alchemy, and a science, such as chemistry. Scientific measurements are usually tabulated, graphed, or mapped, and statistical manipulations, such as correlation and regression, performed on them. The measurements might be made in a controlled setting, such as a laboratory, or made on more or less inaccessible or unmanipulatable objects such as human populations. The measurements often require specialized scientific instruments such as thermometers, spectroscopes, or voltmeters, and the progress of a scientific field is usually intimately tied to their invention and development.

Measurements demand the use of operational definitions of relevant quantities (a.k.a. operationalization). That is, a scientific quantity is described or defined by how it is measured, as opposed to some more vague, inexact or idealized definition. The operational definition of a thing often relies on comparisons with standards: the operational definition of mass ultimately relies on the use of an artifact, such as a certain kilogram of platinum kept in a laboratory in France. In short, to operationalize a variable means creating an operational definition for a concept someone intends to measure. How this is done is very important as it should be done with enough precision that independent researchers should be able to use your description of your measurement and repeat it.

The scientific definition of a term sometimes differs substantially from its natural language usage. For example, sex and gender are often used interchangeably in common discourse, but have distinct meanings in sociology. Scientific quantities are often characterized by their units of measure which can later be described in terms of conventional physical units when communicating the work.

Measurements in scientific work are also usually accompanied by estimates of their uncertainty. The uncertainty is often estimated by making repeated measurements of the desired quantity. Uncertainties may also be calculated by consideration of the uncertainties of the individual underlying quantities that are used. Counts of things, such as the number of people in a nation at a particular time, may also have an uncertainty due to limitations of the method used. Counts may only represent a sample of desired quantities, with an uncertainty that depends upon the sampling method used and the number of samples taken (see the central limit theorem).

Hypothesis

A hypothesis includes a suggested explanation of the subject. It will generally provide a causal explanation or propose some association between two variables. If the hypothesis is a causal explanation, it will involve at least one dependent variable and one independent variable.

Variables are measurable phenomena whose values can change (e.g., class status can range from lower- to upper-class). A dependent variable is a variable whose values are presumed to change as a result of the independent variable. In other words, the value of a dependent variable depends on the value of the independent variable. Of course, this assumes that there is an actual relationship between the two variables. If there is no relationship, then the value of the dependent variable does not depend on the value of the independent variable. An independent variable is a variable whose value is manipulated by the experimenter (or, in the case of non-experimental analysis, changes in the society and is measured). Perhaps an example will help clarify. In a study of the influence of gender on promotion, the independent variable would be gender/sex. Promotion would be the dependent variable. Change in promotion is hypothesized to be dependent on gender.

Scientists use whatever they can — their own creativity, ideas from other fields, induction, systematic guessing, etc. — to imagine possible explanations for a phenomenon under study. There are no definitive guidelines for the production of new hypotheses. The history of science is filled with stories of scientists claiming a flash of inspiration, or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute their idea.

Prediction

A useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by deductive reasoning, that can be experimentally assessed. If results contradict the predictions, then the hypothesis under examination is incorrect or incomplete and requires either revision or abandonment. If results confirm the predictions, then the hypothesis might be correct but is still subject to further testing. Predictions refer to experimental designs with a currently unknown outcome. A prediction (of an unknown) differs from a consequence (which can already be known).

Experiment

Once a prediction is made, an experiment is designed to test it. The experiment may seek either confirmation or falsification of the hypothesis.

Scientists assume an attitude of openness and accountability on the part of those conducting an experiment. Detailed record keeping is essential, to aid in recording and reporting on the experimental results, and providing evidence of the effectiveness and integrity of the procedure. They will also assist in reproducing the experimental results.

The experiment's integrity should be ascertained by the introduction of a control. Two virtually identical experiments are run, in only one of which the factor being tested is varied. This serves to further isolate any causal phenomena. For example in testing a drug it is important to carefully test that the supposed effect of the drug is produced only by the drug. Doctors may do this with a double-blind study: two virtually identical groups of patients are compared, one of which receives the drug and one of which receives a placebo. Neither the patients nor the doctor know who is getting the real drug, isolating its effects. This type of experiment is often referred to as a true experiment because of its design. It is contrasted with alternative forms below.

Once an experiment is complete, a researcher determines whether the results (or data) gathered are what was predicted. If the experimental conclusions fail to match the predictions/hypothesis, then one returns to the failed hypothesis and re-iterates the process - modifying one's theory or developing a new one. If the experiment appears successful - i.e. fits the hypothesis - the experimenter often will attempt to publish the results so that others (in theory) may reproduce the same experimental results, verifying the findings in the process.

An experiment is not an absolute requirement. In observation based fields of science actual experiments must be designed differently than for the classical laboratory based sciences. Due to ethical concerns and the sheer cost of manipulating large segments of society, sociologists often turn to other methods for testing hypotheses. In lieu of holding variables constant in laboratory settings, sociologists employ statistical techniques (e.g., regression) that allow them to control the variables in the analysis rather than in the data collection. For instance, in examining the effects of gender on promotions, sociologists may control for the effects of social class as this variable will likely influence the relationship. Unlike a true experiment where these variables are held constant in a laboratory setting, sociologists use statistical methods to hold constant social class (or, better stated, partial out the variance accounted for by social class) so they can see the relationship between gender and promotions without the interference of social class. Thus, while the true experiment is ideally suited for the performance of science, especially because it is the best method for deriving causal relationships, other methods of hypothesis testing are commonly employed in the social sciences.

Evaluation and Iteration

The scientific process is iterative. At any stage it is possible that some consideration will lead the scientist to repeat an earlier part of the process. For instance, failure of a hypothesis to produce interesting and testable predictions may lead to reconsideration of the hypothesis or of the definition of the subject.

It is also important to note that science is a social enterprise, and scientific work will become accepted by the community only if it can be verified. Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the scientific community. All scientific knowledge is in a state of flux, for at any time new evidence could be presented that contradicts a long-held hypothesis. For this reason, scientific journals use a process of peer review, in which scientists' manuscripts are submitted by editors of scientific journals to (usually one to three) fellow (usually anonymous) scientists familiar with the field for evaluation. The referees may or may not recommend publication, publication with suggested modifications, or, sometimes, publication in another journal. This serves to keep the scientific literature free of unscientific work, helps to cut down on obvious errors, and generally otherwise improves the quality of the scientific literature. Work announced in the popular press before going through this process is generally frowned upon. Sometimes peer review inhibits the circulation of unorthodox work, and at other times may be too permissive. The peer review process is not always successful, but has been very widely adopted by the scientific community.

The reproducibility or replication of scientific observations, while usually described as being very important in a scientific method, is actually seldom reported, and is in reality often not done. Referees and editors often reject papers purporting only to reproduce some observations as being unoriginal and not containing anything new. Occasionally reports of a failure to reproduce results are published - mostly in cases where controversy exists or a suspicion of fraud develops. The threat of failure to replicate by others, however, serves as a very effective deterrent for most scientists, who will usually replicate their own data several times before attempting to publish.

Sometimes useful observations or phenomena themselves cannot be reproduced. They may be rare, or even unique events. Reproducibility of observations and replication of experiments is not a guarantee that they are correct or properly understood. Errors can all too often creep into more than one laboratory.

Hunter-Gatherer

The hunter-gatherer way of life is based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. Consequently, hunter-gatherers are relatively mobile, and groups of hunter-gatherers have fluid boundaries and composition. Typically in hunter-gatherer societies men hunt larger wild animals and women gather fruits, nuts, roots, and other edible plant-based food and hunt smaller animals. Hunter-gatherers use materials available in the wild to construct shelters or rely on naturally occurring shelters like overhangs. Their shelters give them protection from predators and the elements.

The majority of hunter-gatherer societies are nomadic. It is difficult to be settled under such a subsistence system as the resources of one region can quickly become exhausted. Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have very low population densities as a result of their subsistence system. Agricultural subsistence systems can support population densities 60 to 100 times greater than land left uncultivated, resulting in denser populations.

Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have non-hierarchical social structures, though this is not always the case. Because hunter-gatherers tend to be nomadic, they generally do not have the possibility to store surplus food. As a result, full-time leaders, bureaucrats, or artisans are rarely supported by hunter-gatherer societies. The hierarchical egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies tends to extend to gender-based egalitarianism as well. Although disputed, many anthropologists believe gender egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies stems from the lack of control over food production, lack of food surplus (which can be used for control), and an equal gender contribution to kin and cultural survival.

Archeological evidence to date suggests that prior to 13,000BCE, all human beings were hunter-gatherers. While declining in number, there are still some hunter-gatherer groups in existence today. Such groups are found in the Arctic, tropical rainforests, and deserts where other forms of subsistence production are impossible or too costly. In most cases these groups do not have a continuous history of hunting and gathering; in many cases their ancestors were agriculturalists who were pushed into marginal areas as a result of migrations and wars. Examples of hunter-gatherer groups still in existence include:

• Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands (near India)

The line between agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies is not clear cut. Many hunter-gatherers consciously manipulate the landscape through cutting or burning useless (to them) plants to encourage the growth and success of those they consume. Most agricultural people also tend to do some hunting and gathering. Some agricultural groups farm during the temperate months and hunt during the winter.

Pastoralist

A pastoralist society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is domesticated livestock. It is often the case that, like hunter-gatherers, pastoralists are nomadic, moving seasonally in search of fresh pastures and water for their animals. Employment of a pastoralist subsistence system often results in greater population densities and the development of both social hierarchies and divisions in labor as it is more likely there will be a surplus of food.

Pastoralist societies still exist. For instance, in Australia, the vast semi-arid areas in the interior of the country contain pastoral runs called sheep stations. These areas may be thousands of square kilometers in size. The number of livestock allowed in these areas is regulated in order to reliably sustain them, providing enough feed and water for the stock. Other examples of pastoralists societies still in existence include:

• the Maasai of Kenya
• the Borana Oromo of southern Ethiopia
• the Turkana of Kenya
• the Bedouin of Northern Africa

Horticulturalist

Horticulturalist societies are societies in which the primary means of subsistence is the cultivation of crops using hand tools. Like pastoral societies, the cultivation of crops increases population densities and, as a result of food surpluses, allows for a division of labor in society.

Horticulture differs from agriculture in that agriculture employs animals, machinery, or some other non-human means to facilitate the cultivation of crops while horticulture relies solely on humans for crop cultivation.

Industrial

An industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is industry. Industry is a system of production focused on mechanized manufacturing of goods. Like agrarian societies, industrial societies increase food surpluses, resulting in more developed hierarchies and significantly more division of labor.

The division of labor in industrial societies is often one of the most notable elements of the society and can even function to re-organize the development of relationships. Whereas relationships in pre-industrial societies were more likely to develop through contact at one's place of worship or through proximity of housing, industrial society brings people with similar occupations together, often leading to the formation of friendships through one's work.

When capitalised, The Industrial Revolution refers to the first known industrial revolution, which took place in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. What is some times referred to as The Second Industrial Revolution describes later, somewhat less dramatic changes resulting from the widespread availability of electric power and the internal-combustion engine. Many developing nations began industrialisation under the influence of either the United States or the USSR during the Cold War.

Today, industry makes up only a relatively small percentage of highly developed countries' workforce (see the pie chart above), in large part due to advanced mechanization. The use of machines and robots to facilitate manufacturing reduces the number of people required to work in industry by increasing their efficiency. As a result, a single worker can produce substantially more goods in the same amount of time today than they used to be able to produce. This has also resulted in a transition in most highly developed countries into a post-industrial or service-oriented economy.

Post-Industrial

A post-industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is derived from service-oriented work, as opposed to agriculture or industry. It is important to note here that the term post-industrial is still debated in part because it is the current state of society; it is difficult to name a phenomenon while it is occurring.

Post-industrial societies are often marked by:

• an increase in the size of the service sector or jobs that perform services rather than creating goods (industry)
• either the outsourcing of or extensive use of mechanization in manufacturing
• an increase in the amount of information technology, often leading to an Information Age
• information, knowledge, and creativity are seen as the new raw materials of the economy

Most highly developed countries are now post-industrial in that the majority of their workforce works in service-oriented industries, like finance, healthcare, education, or sales, rather than in industry or agriculture. This is the case in the U.S., as depicted in the pie chart above.

Post-industrial society is occasionally used critically by individuals seeking to restore or return to industrial development. Increasingly, however, individuals and communities are viewing abandoned factories as sites for new housing and shopping. Capitalists are also realizing the recreational and commercial development opportunities such locations offer.

The Implications of Societal Development

As noted throughout the discussion of societal development, changes in the social structure of a society - in this case the primary means of subsistence - also affect other aspects of society. For instance, as hunters and gatherers make the transition into pastoralism and horticulture, they also develop a surplus in food stuffs. While it is common for people in the developed world today to have lots of surplus food, we rarely consider just how important that extra food is. To begin with, once a society has surplus food, that means more of their children will survive into adulthood. Additionally, as food yields increase in agricultural societies, smaller percentages of the population are required to produce the food for the rest of the population. This frees up those people not engaged in food production to specialize in other areas, like clothing or housing production. This results in specialists: some people become experts in growing crops or raising livestock while others become experts in clothing production, metal-working, home construction, etc. That specialization leads to rapid increases in technology as people are freed from having to spend the majority of their time finding or growing their food and can then spend their time improving at their speciality. The relationship between surplus and technology may not seem obvious, initially, but surplus is clearly the forerunner of technological development.

This is illustrated in the diagram to the right. The diagram shows societal development along the top and the implications of societal development along the bottom. The arrows running between the two rows illustrate the fact that these relationships are very complex. For instance, specialization not only results from agriculture but also from denser populations and surplus and helps spur industry. The point being, these are interdependent aspects of societal development that co-evolve.

One additional outcome of surplus that is included in the diagram is inequality. Inequality will be discussed in much greater detail later in this book, but it is important to note that as soon as there is surplus, there will be greater surplus for some people. Those with more surplus have an economic advantage relative to those with less surplus as they have greater bargaining power - et voilà, social inequality is born.

Weber and Rationalization

Max Weber was particularly concerned about the rationalization and bureaucratization of society stemming from the Industrial Revolution and how these two changes would affect humanity's agency and happiness. As Weber understood society, particularly during the industrial revolution of the late 19th century in which he lived, society was being driven by the passage of rational ideas into culture which, in turn, transformed society into an increasingly bureaucratic entity. Bureaucracy is a type of organizational or institutional management that is, as Weber understood it, rooted in legal-rational authority. Bureaucracy is a complex means of managing life in social institutions that includes rules and regulations, patterns and procedures that both are designed to simplify the functioning of complex organizations. An example of bureaucracy would be the forms used to pay one's income taxes - they require specific information and procedures to fill them out. Included in that form, however, are countless rules and laws the dictate what can and can't be tied into one's taxes. Thus, bureaucracy simplifies the process of paying one's taxes by putting the process into a formulaic structure, but simultaneously complicates it by adding rules and regulations that govern the procedure. Weber did believe bureaucracy was the most rational form of institutional governance, but because Weber viewed rationalization as the driving force of society, he believed bureaucracy would increase until it ruled society. Society, for Weber, would become almost synonymous with bureaucracy.

As Weber did not see any alternative to bureaucracy, he believed it would ultimately lead to an iron cage: there would be no way to get out of it. Weber viewed this as a bleak outcome that would affect individuals' happiness as they would be forced to function in a highly rational society with rigid rules and norms without the possibility to change it. Because Weber could not envision other forces influencing the ultimate direction of society - the exception being temporary lapses into non-bureaucracy spurred by charismatic leaders - he saw no cure for the iron cage of rationality. Society would become a large bureaucracy that would govern people's lives. Weber was unable to envision a solution to his iron cage of bureaucracy dilemma. Since a completely rational society was inevitable and bureaucracy was the most rational form of societal management, the iron cage, according to Weber, does not have a solution.

Marx and Alienation

Karl Marx took a different perspective on the impact of the Industrial Revolution on society and the individual. In order to understand Marx's perspective, however, it is necessary to understand how Marx perceived happiness. According to Marx, species being (or happiness) is the pinnacle of human nature. Species being is understood to be a type of self-realization or self-actualization brought about by meaningful work. But in addition to engaging in meaningful work, self-actualized individuals must also own the products of their labors and have the option of doing what they will with those products.

In a capitalist society (which was co-evolved with the Industrial Revolution), rather than owning the fruits of their labors, the proletariat or working class owns only their labor power, not the fruits of their labors (i.e., the results of production). The capitalists or bourgeoisie employ the proletariat for a living wage, but then keep the products of the labor. As a result, the proletariat is alienated from the fruits of its labor – they do not own the products they produce, only their labor power. Because Marx believed species being to be the goal and ideal of human nature and that species being could only be realized when individuals owned the results of their labors, Marx saw capitalism as leading toward increasingly unhappy individuals; they would be alienated from the results of their production and therefore would not be self-realized.

But the alienation from the results of their production is just one component of the alienation Marx proposed. In addition to the alienation from the results of production, the proletariat is also alienated from each other under capitalism. Capitalists alienate the proletariat from each other by forcing them to compete for limited job opportunities. Job opportunities are limited under capitalism in order for capitalists to keep wages down; without a pool of extraneous workers, capitalists would have to meet the wage demands of their workers. Because they are forced to compete with other members of the proletariat, workers are alienated from each other, compounding the unhappiness of the proletariat.

While Marx did have a solution to the problem of alienation, he seldom discussed it in detail. Marx's proposed solution was for the proletariat to unite and through protests or revolution (or legislation in democratic nations) overthrow the bourgeoisie and institute a new form of government – communism. This form of government would be based on communally owned and highly developed means of production and self-governance. The means of production would be developed – through capitalism – to the point that everyone in society would have sufficient 'free' time to allow them to participate in whatever governmental decisions needed to be made for the community as a whole. By re-connecting the individual with the fruits of their labor and empowering them toward true self-governance, species being would be realized and happiness would be returned.

Two additional comments are in order here. First, the economic systems that developed in The Soviet Union and China - as well as other parts of the world - was not the communism envisioned by Marx. Rather, they had achieved a form of socialism, what Marx called the stage between capitalism and communism. Second, Marx believed capitalism, while harmful to species being, was necessary to advance the means of production to a stage where communism (as he envisioned it) could be realized. Thus, while Marx was highly critical of capitalism, he also recognized its utility in developing the means of production.

Durkheim and Solidarity

Durkheim's view of society and the changes it was undergoing as a result of industrialization also led him to believe unhappiness was a possible outcome. Durkheim believed that an important component of social life was social solidarity, which is understood as a sense of community. In his classic study, Suicide, Durkheim argued that one of the root causes of suicide was a decrease in social solidarity – termed anomie (French for chaos) by Durkheim. Durkheim also argued that the increasing emphasis on individualism found in Protestant religions – in contrast to Catholicism – contributed to an increase in anomie, which resulted in higher suicide rates among Protestants.

In another work, The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim proposed that pre-industrial societies maintained their social solidarity through a mechanistic sense of community and through their religious affiliations. Most people were generalists in their work – they farmed and created their own tools and clothing. Because they were alike in their generality, they were also more likely to share a sense of community, which Durkheim saw as an important component of happiness. In addition to their similarity in occupations, many individuals belonged to the same religious groups, which also fostered a sense of solidarity.

In industrializing societies, Durkheim recognized the inevitability of specialization. By definition, specialization means that individuals are going to have dissimilar occupations. This specialization would also affect religion. In industrial societies, religion would become just one aspect of lives that were increasingly divided into compartments – home, family, work, recreation, religion, etc.

Durkheim believed there were two components that would alleviate the decreasing social solidarity in industrializing societies: organic solidarity and conscientious attempts to find camaraderie through one's place of employment. Whereas social solidarity was maintained in pre-industrial societies through a mechanistic sense of similarity and dependence along with communal religious affiliations, in industrialized societies, social solidarity would be maintained by the interdependence of specialists on one another. If one individual specialized in treating the injured or ill, they would not have time to raise crops or otherwise produce food. Doctors would become dependent on farmers for their food while farmers would become dependent on doctors for their healthcare. This would force a type of organic solidarity — organic in the sense that the parts were interdependent like the organs of an animal are interdependent for their survival.

In addition to the inevitable interdependence a specialized society would warrant, Durkheim believed that a conscientious effort to develop and foster friendships would transition from a religious brotherhood to friendships developed at one's place of employment. Specialized individuals would have a great deal in common with their co-workers and, like members of the same religious congregations in pre-industrial societies, co-workers would be able to develop strong bonds of social solidarity through their occupations. Thus, for Durkheim, the answer to the decrease in mechanistic solidarity and the increasing anomie was organic solidarity and solidarity pursued within one's speciality occupation.

'High' Culture

Many people today think of culture in the way that it was thought of in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This concept of culture reflected inequalities within European societies and their colonies around the world. This understanding of culture equates culture with civilization and contrasts both with nature or non-civilization. According to this understanding of culture, some countries are more civilized than others, and some people are more cultured than others. Theorists like Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) believed that culture is simply that which is created by "the best that has been thought and said in the world" (p. 6). Anything that doesn't fit into this category is labeled as chaos or anarchy. From this perspective, culture is closely tied to cultivation, which is the progressive refinement of human behavior.

In practice, culture referred to elite goods and activities such as haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and classical music. The word cultured referred to people who knew about and took part in these activities. For example, someone who used culture in this sense might argue that classical music is more refined than music by working-class people, such as jazz or the indigenous music traditions of aboriginal peoples.

People who use culture in this way tend not to use it in the plural. They believe that there are not distinct cultures, each with their own internal logic and values, but rather only a single standard of refinement to which all groups are held accountable. Thus people who differ from those who believe themselves to be cultured in this sense are not usually understood as having a different culture; they are understood as being uncultured.

Level of Abstraction

Another element of culture that is important for a clear understanding of the concept is level of abstraction. Culture ranges from the concrete, cultural object (e.g., the understanding of a work of art) to micro-level interpersonal interactions (e.g., the socialization of a child by his/her parents) to a macro-level influence on entire societies (e.g., the Puritanical roots of the U.S. that can be used to justify the exportation of democracy – a lá the Iraq War). It is important when trying to understand the concept of culture to keep in mind that the concept can have multiple levels of meaning.

The Artificiality of Cultural Categorization

One of the more important points to understand about culture is that it is an artificial categorization of elements of social life. As Griswold puts it,

There is no such thing as culture or society out there in the real world. There are only people who work, joke, raise children, love, think, worship, fight, and behave in a wide variety of ways. To speak of culture as one thing and society as another is to make an analytical distinction between two different aspects of human experience. One way to think of the distinction is that culture designates the expressive aspect of human existence, whereas society designates the relational (and often practical) aspect. (p. 4)

In the above quote, Griswold emphasizes that culture is distinct from society but affirms that this distinction is, like all classifications, artificial. Humans do not experience culture in a separate or distinct way from society. Culture and society are truly two-sides of a coin; a coin that makes up social life. Yet the distinction between the two, while artificial, is useful for a number of reasons. For instance, the distinction between culture and society is of particular use when exploring how norms and values are transmitted from generation to generation and answering the question of cultural conflict between people of different cultural backgrounds (say, the Japanese and Americans).

Goals of Socialization

Arnett, in presenting a new theoretical understanding of socialization (see below), outlined what he believes to be the three goals of socialization:

1. impulse control and the development of a conscience
2. role preparation and performance, including occupational roles, gender roles, and roles in institutions such as marriage and parenthood
3. the cultivation of sources of meaning, or what is important, valued, and to be lived for

In short, socialization is the process that prepares humans to function in social life. It should be re-iterated here that socialization is culturally relative - people in different cultures are socialized differently. This distinction does not and should not inherently force an evaluative judgement. Socialization, because it is the adoption of culture, is going to be different in every culture. Socialization, as both process or an outcome, is not better or worse in any particular culture.

It should also be noted that, while socialization is a key sociological process in the development of individuals who can function in human society, not every aspect of human behavior is learned. For instance, there is evidence that most children have innate empathy for individuals who are wilfully injured and consider it wrong. Thus, some aspects of human behavior that one might believe are learned, like empathy and morals, may, in fact, be biologically determined. To what extent human behavior is biologically determined vs. learned is still an open question in the study of human behavior.

Primary and Secondary Socialization

Socialization is a life process, but is generally divided into two parts: Primary socialization takes place early in life, as a child and adolescent. Secondary socialization refers to the socialization that takes place throughout one's life, both as a child and as one encounters new groups that require additional socialization. While there are scholars who argue that only one or the other of these occurs, most social scientists tend to combine the two, arguing that the basic or core identity of the individual develops during primary socialization, with more specific changes occurring later - secondary socialization - in response to the acquisition of new group memberships and roles and differently structured social situations. The need for later life socialization may stem from the increasing complexity of society with its corresponding increase in varied roles and responsibilities.

Mortimer and Simmons outline three specific ways these two parts of socialization differ:

1. content - Socialization in childhood is thought to be concerned with the regulation of biological drives. In adolescence, socialization is concerned with the development of overarching values and the self-image. In adulthood, socialization involves more overt and specific norms and behaviors, such as those related to the work role as well as more superficial personality features.
2. context - In earlier periods, the socializee (the person being socialized) more clearly assumes the status of learner within the context of the family of orientation, the school, or the peer group. Also, relationships in the earlier period are more likely to be affectively charged, i.e., highly emotional. In adulthood, though the socializee takes the role of student at times, much socialization occurs after the socializee has assumed full incumbency of the adult role. There is also a greater likelihood of more formal relationships due to situational contexts (e.g., work environment), which moderates down the affective component.
3. response - The child and adolescent may be more easily malleable than the adult. Also, much adult socialization is self-initiated and voluntary; adults can leave or terminate the process at any time.

Socialization is, of course, a social process. As such, it involves interactions between people. Socialization, as noted in the distinction between primary and secondary, can take place in multiple contexts and as a result of contact with numerous groups. Some of the more significant contributors to the socialization process are: parents, friends, schools, siblings, and co-workers. Each of these groups include a culture that must be learned and to some degree appropriated by the socializee in order to gain admittance to the group.

Broad and Narrow Socialization

Arnett proposed an interesting though seldom used distinction in types of socialization. Arnett distinguishes between broad and narrow socialization:

• broad socialization is intended to promote independence, individualism, and self-expression; it is dubbed broad because this type of socialization has the potential of resulting in a broad range of outcomes
• narrow socialization is intended to promote obedience and conformity; it is dubbed narrow because there is a narrow range of outcomes

These distinctions correspond to Arnett's definition of socialization, which is:

the whole process by which an individual born with behavioral potentialities of enormously wide range, is led to develop actual behavior which is confined with a much narrower range; the range of what is customary and acceptable for him according to the standards of his group

Arnett explains that his understanding of socialization should not be understood as having just two options, broad or narrow. Instead, the author argues that socialization can be broad or narrow within each of the seven socializing forces he outlines (e.g., family, friends, etc.). Because each force can be either broad or narrow, there is a wide variety of possible broad/narrow socialization combinations. Finally, Arnett notes two examples where his distinction is relevant. First, Arnett argues that there are often differences in socialization by gender. Where these differences exist, argues Arnett, socialization tends to be narrower for women than for men. Arnett also argues that Japanese socialization is narrow as there is more pressure toward conformity in that culture. Arnett argues that this may account for the lower crime rates in Japan.

Total Institutions

Not all socialization is voluntary nor is all socialization successful. There are components of society designed specifically to resocialize individuals who were not successfully socialized to begin with. For instance, prisons and mental health institutions are designed to resocialize people who are deemed to have not been successfully socialized. Depending on the degree of isolation and resocialization that takes place in a given institution, some of these institutions are labeled total institutions. In his classic study of total institutions, Erving Goffman gives the following characteristics of total institutions:

1. all aspects of life are conducted in the same place under the same authority
2. the individual is a member of a large cohort, all treated alike
3. all daily activities (over a 24-hour period) are tightly scheduled
4. there is a sharp split between supervisors and lower participants
5. information about the member's fate is withheld

The most common examples of total institutions include mental hospitals, prisons, and military boot camps, though there are numerous other institutions that could be considered total institutions as well. The goal of total institutions is to facilitate a complete break with one's old life in order for the institution to resocialize the individual into a new life.

Mortimer and Simmons note a difference in socialization methodologies in different types of institutions. When the goal of an institution is socialization (primary or secondary), the institution tends to use normative pressures. When the goal of an institution is resocialization of deviants, coercion is frequently involved.

The Importance of Socialization

One of the most common methods used to illustrate the importance of socialization is to draw upon the few unfortunate cases of children who were, through neglect, misfortune, or wilful abuse, not socialized by adults while they were growing up. Such children are called "feral" or wild. Some feral children have been confined by people (usually their own parents); in some cases this child abandonment was due to the parents' rejection of a child's severe intellectual or physical impairment. Feral children may have experienced severe child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. Others are alleged to have been brought up by animals; some are said to have lived in the wild on their own. When completely brought up by non-human animals, the feral child exhibits behaviors (within physical limits) almost entirely like those of the particular care-animal, such as its fear of or indifference to humans.

Feral children lack the basic social skills which are normally learned in the process of socialization. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language. The impaired ability to learn language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning, and taken as evidence in favor of the Critical Period Hypothesis. It is very difficult to socialize a child who became isolated at a very young age into a relatively normal member of society and such individuals often need close care throughout their lives.

There are, unfortunately, a number of examples of such children that have been well-documented, including:

• Genie
• Traian Căldărar
• Danielle Crockett, who was found in a Plant City, Florida home in 2005.

Socialization as Joining Groups

Socialization has addressed the problem of individual adjustment to society. In all of the approaches outlined above, socialization has, in one way or another, referred to the idea that society shapes its members toward compliance and cooperation with societal requirements. In order to reduce confusion, develop a research methodology for measuring socialization, and potentially lead to the comparability of research findings from different studies, Long and Hadden proposed a revised understanding of socialization. Rather than referring to a vague adoption or learning of culture, Long and Hadden reframed socialization as "the medium for transforming newcomers into bona fide members of a group." Before discussing some of the specifics of this approach, it may be useful to outline some of the critiques Long and Hadden present of earlier approaches to socialization.

According to Long and Hadden, many earlier approaches to socialization extended socialization to every part of human social life. As a result, everyone becomes both a socializing agent (socializer) and a novice (socializee) in all encounters with others. This conceptualization leaves socialization without a social home; it is all around but no place in particular. Another criticism of previous approaches is that they allowed socialization to include anything, and anything which is part of the process at one time may be excluded at another. With this conceptualization, any phenomenon may shift its status in the socialization process without changing its own composition or expression. In other words, socialization includes virtually everything, excludes almost nothing, and shifts with circumstance and outcomes. Additionally, previous approaches to socialization lacked specificity about the nature of socialization activity. Defining socialization by its outcomes made it unnecessary to stipulate the nature of the process conceptually. Socialization could be attributed to this or that but in order to truly understand what is taking place it is necessary to go beyond just pointing to socializing agents and specify what it is about those agents that is doing the socializing. Another serious drawback of earlier approaches is that they disregard the process component of socialization. Doing so limits the socialization concept to employment primarily as a post hoc interpretive category that is used to lend significance to findings defined and developed in other terms.

As a result of these criticisms, Long and Hadden found themselves presented with a two-fold task:

• locate socialization and its social boundaries more precisely
• specify the distinctive properties which distinguish it from related phenomena

To accomplish this, Long and Hadden developed a new understanding of socialization, "socialization is the process of creating and incorporating new members of a group from a pool of newcomers, carried out by members and their allies". Under this understanding, the principal agents of socialization are certified and practicing members of the group to which novices are being socialized. It should be noted that certified here is only a shortened way of saying "a socially approved member of the group." Thus, Long and Hadden's revised understanding of socialization sees it as both the process and outcome of joining groups.

Socialization and Social Class

Ellis, Lee, and Peterson, developing a research agenda begun by Melvin L. Kohn, explored differences in how parents raise their children relative to their social class. Kohn found that lower class parents were more likely to emphasize conformity in their children whereas middle-class parents were more likely to emphasize creativity and self-reliance. Ellis et. al. proposed and found that parents value conformity over self-reliance in children to the extent that conformity superseded self-reliance as a criterion for success in their own endeavors. In other words, Ellis et. al. verified that the reason lower-class parents emphasize conformity in their children is because they experience conformity in their day-to-day activities. For example, factory work is far more about conforming than innovation.

Another study in this same area explored a slightly different component of this relationship. Erlanger was interested in a correlation between social class and physical violence. While he did not find a strong correlation indicating lower class individuals were more likely to employ physical violence in punishing their children, he did present evidence concerning several outdated propositions. Erlanger's findings include:

• physical punishment does not lead to working class authoritarianism
• childhood punishment experiences do not explain the greater probability that working class adults, as opposed to middle class adults, will commit homicide
• general use of corporal punishment is not a precursor to child abuse
• use of corporal punishment is not part of a subcultural positive evaluation of violence

It should be noted that this is an older study and that more recent findings may have shed more light on these issues. It should also be noted that Erlanger readily points out when his findings are strongly supported or weakly supported by his data. It behooves the interested party to read his paper directly rather than rely on the summary above for the specific nuances.

Socialization and Death Preparation

Marshall interviewed a number of retirement home residents to explore how their environment influenced their thinking about death. In essence, Marshall was examining secondary socialization concerning mortality. Marshall found that a combination of relationships, behavioral changes, and retirement home culture contributed to a conception of death that was both accepting and courageous.

Residents of this particular retirement home found themselves with more time on their hands - to think about death - because they no longer had to care for their own homes. Additionally, they found themselves surrounded by people in a situation similar to their own: they were basically moving into the retirement home to prepare for death. The prevalence of elderly people facilitated discussions of death, which also helped socialize the residents into their acceptance of mortality. Finally, the retirement home community encouraged a culture of life and fulfilment in part to counter-act the frequency of death. Some residents calculated there was one death per week in the retirement home. In light of such bad numbers, it was important to the success of the community to maintain a positive culture that embraced life yet accepted death. In summary, Marshall found that numerous factors contributed to the socialization of residents into a positive lifestyle that was also accepting of and preparatory for their impending deaths.

Do College Preparation Classes Make a Difference?

Rosenbaum was interested in the effects of high school tracks on IQ. High school tracks are the different levels or types of courses students can take; for instance, many high schools now include college preparation tracks and general education tracks. Rosenbaum's hypothesis was that students who followed the lower tracks (non college-preparation) would score lower on IQ tests over time than would students who followed the higher tracks (college-preparation). Considering that school is one of the primary contributors to socialization, it makes sense that participation in a given track can also result in the adoption of the norms, values, beliefs, skills, and behaviors that correspond to that track. In other words, tracks can turn into a type of self-fulfilling prophecy: you may start out at the same level as someone in a higher track, but by the time you have completed the lower track you will have become like the other students in your track.

To reduce confounding variables and ensure notable test effects, Rosenbaum selected a homogeneous, white, working class public school with five different, highly stratified classes. Rosenbaum then compared IQ scores for individuals in the different tracks at two time points. As it turns out, tracking does have a significant effect on IQ. People in lower tracks can actually see a decline in IQ compared to a possible increase among those in the upper track. In other words, tracks socialize their students into their corresponding roles.

Categorization

We categorize objects in order to understand them, in a very similar way we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment. We use social categories like black, white, Australian, Christian, Muslim, student, and busdriver because they are useful. If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people. Without an understanding of people's groups and categories, we would have a very difficult time functioning in society. Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to. We define appropriate behaviour by reference to the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group.

Identification

We identify with groups that we perceive ourselves to belong to. Identification carries two meanings. Part of who we are is made up of our group memberships. That is, sometimes we think of ourselves as "us" vs. "them" or "we" vs. "they", and at other times we think of ourselves as "I" vs. "he or she" or "me" vs. "him or her". In other words, sometimes we think of ourselves as group members and at other times we think of ourselves as unique individuals. This varies situationally, so that we can be more or less a group member, depending upon the circumstances. What is crucial for our purposes is that thinking of yourself as a group member and thinking of yourself as a unique individual are both parts of your self-concept. The first is referred to as social identity, the latter is referred to as personal identity. In social identity theory, group membership is not something foreign which is tacked onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person. Our groups make up part of who we are.

The other meaning implied by the concept of identity is the idea that we are, in some sense, the same, or identical to other people. This should not be misinterpreted, when we say that we are the same, we mean that for some purposes we treat members of our groups as being similar to ourselves in some relevant way. To take the most extreme example, in some violent conflict such as a war, the members of the opposite group - the outgroup - are treated as identical and completely different to the those people in your group - the ingroup - which is made up of distinct individuals. Thinking about individuals in one's outgroup in such a fashion allows the individual to believe that the enemy is deserving of death by dehumanizing them (more on this below). Treating people this way allows us to justify otherwise unjustifiable behavior.

Comparison

A positive self-concept is a part of normal psychological functioning. There is pretty good evidence that to deal effectively with the world we need to feel good about ourselves. The idea of social comparison is that in order to evaluate ourselves we compare ourselves with similar others. We often gain self-esteem by comparing ourselves with others in our group, particularly if we can claim membership in a prestigious group. The prestige of a group is also often created through comparisons that positively reflect on the group. In other words, people in groups choose to compare their groups with other groups in ways that reflect positively on themselves. In fact, people are motivated to see their own group as relatively better than similar (but inferior) groups (i.e., positive distinctiveness). Inversely, people in a group may minimize differences between their group and another, slightly more prestigious group so one's own group tends to be seen more favorably (i.e., negative distinctiveness).

Groups choose dimensions for comparison in order to maximize the positivity of their own group. Groups which perceive themselves to be of high status on particular dimensions will choose those as the basis of comparison. Groups of low status will minimize differences on those dimensions or choose new dimensions. For example, people from some Middle Eastern Islamic countries might regard their country as inferior to the West in terms of economic and technological advancement but might regard their way of life as being morally superior.

Intriguingly, the notion that inferior or "underdog" groups are hyper-motivated to succeed against superior groups turns out not to be true, generally. Members of a group or team will actually work harder when they are competing against a lower ranked group than when they are competing against a higher-ranked group. This makes sense when framed as a status issue: the superior group has more to lose if it is defeated by an inferior team while the inferior team, if it loses, has not lost anything but rather has affirmed the existing social order. Thus, members of higher status groups work harder when competing against lower status groups.

Conformity

If you've ever done something in a group that you would not do if you were alone, it's likely that you experienced conformity; your attitudes, beliefs, and/or behaviors were influenced by other people. One of the most well-known illustrations of conformity is Solomon Asch's conformity experiments. The experiment was set up as follows:

Research participants would enter a room and sit at a table with several other people (who were confederates, meaning they were actually helping with the research). The participant and confederates would be shown one card that had a reference line and another card that had three comparison lines. Subjects were required to select the comparison line that corresponded in length to the reference line.

This seems like a relatively straightforward task. However, choosing the correct line becomes much more difficult when the confederates choose the wrong answer. Why? Because of our tendency to conform to those around us. Thus, when Asch has the confederates choose the wrong answer, participants also chose the wrong line 37% of the time. How do you think you would respond in such a situation?

Jason Chein and Laurence Steinberg have illustrated why people in groups are more likely to take risks (one form of conforming) using functional magnetic resonance imaging: the presence of peers heightens the benefits that result from risky decisions. Participants in their research remained aware of the risks, but their brains exhibited heightened sensitivity to the benefits of succeeding. Thus, the presence of peers can facilitate risky behavior as it makes the reward more meaningful.

Social Facilitation

Social facilitation is the tendency for people to be aroused into better performance on simple tasks (or tasks at which they are expert or that have become autonomous) when under the eye of others, rather than while they are alone (i.e., the audience effect), or when competing against another (i.e., the coactor effect). Complex tasks (or tasks at which people are not skilled), however, are often performed in an inferior manner in such situations. This effect has been demonstrated in a variety of species. In humans, it is strongest among those who are most concerned about the opinions of others, and when the individual is being watched by someone he or she does not know, or cannot see well.

Social Loafing

Social loafing refers to the phenomenon that can occur when people in a group make less of an effort to achieve a goal than they would working alone. As a result of social loafing, groups can sometimes generate less total output than the combined performance of their members working as individuals. Social loafing results from a lack of motivation when working in a group because individuals do not believe their specific contribution will be evaluated. As a result, they do not put in as much effort as they otherwise would. Social loafing is pervasive, but it does not occur when group members feel that their task or the group itself is important.

Deindividuation

Deindividuation refers to the phenomenon of relinquishing one's sense of identity, self-awareness, or evaluation apprehension. This can happen as a result of becoming part of a group that fosters obedience to group norms rather than an individual's norms, such as an army or mob. Once this happens, individuals no longer think about themselves before they act and may, in fact, be unaware of their own actions.

Deindividuation can have quite destructive effects, like increasing the odds someone will commit a crime, engaging in violence, or even over-enforce the law, such as police in riot situations.

Group Polarization

Group polarization refers to the finding that after participating in a discussion group, members tend to advocate more extreme positions and/or call for riskier courses of action than individuals who did not participate in any such discussion.

Group polarization results from two primary mechanisms: social comparison and informational influence. Social comparison refers to the drive of individuals to appear socially desirable. Informational social influence occurs when a person is in a situation where he or she is unsure of the correct way to behave. In such situations, that person will often look to others for cues concerning the correct behavior. When "we conform because we believe that other's interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more accurate than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action," it is informational social influence.

Group polarization has been used to explain the decision-making of juries, particularly when considering punitive damages in a civil trial. Studies have shown that after deliberating together, mock jury members often decided on punitive damage awards that were larger or smaller than the amount any individual juror had favored prior to deliberation. The studies indicated that when the jurors favored a relatively low award, discussion would lead to an even more lenient result, while if the jury was inclined to impose a stiff penalty, discussion would make it even harsher.

Diffusion of Responsibility

Diffusion of responsibility (also called the bystander effect) is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. A common example would be observing a minor fender-bender on a busy freeway. Most people, when they observe something like that, do not stop and do not call the police, assuming someone else will do so. This phenomenon rarely ever occurs in small groups. In tests involving groups of three or fewer, everyone in the group took action as opposed to groups of over ten where in almost every test, no one took action.

False Consensus and Illusory Superiority

The false consensus effect is the tendency for people to project their way of thinking onto other people. In other words, people often assume that everyone else thinks the same way they do. This belief is unsubstantiated by statistical data, leading to the perception of a consensus that does not exist. This logical fallacy involves a group or individual assuming that their own opinions, beliefs and predilections are more prevalent amongst the general public than they really are. This bias is commonly present in a group setting where one thinks the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. Since the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way. This is done to justify one's own beliefs.

Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias in which people overestimate the degree to which they possess desirable qualities, relative to others, or underestimate their negative qualities relative to others. Such over- and under-estimations serve to bolster peoples' self-esteem. People who succumb to the illusory superiority bias have inflated views of their own characteristics. Some surveys have found all, or nearly all, the participants rate themselves as above the group average. The strongest effect has been found when people rate themselves on abilities at which they are totally incompetent. These subjects have the greatest disparity between their actual performance (at the low end of the distribution) and their self-rating (placing themselves above average). The effect has been found when people compare themselves to others on many different abilities and personality traits:

• Sorority members perceive those in their sorority as far less likely to be conceited and snobby than those in other sororities
• 53% of Dutch adults rate their marriage or partnership as better than most others; only 1% rate it as worse than most marriages
• 66% of adult Americans grade their oldest child's public school with an A or B, but 64% give the nation's public schools a C or D

Groupthink

Groupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis to describe a process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believe to be the consensus of the group. In a general sense this seems to be a very rationalistic way to approach the situation. However this results in a situation in which the group ultimately agrees upon an action which each member might individually consider to be unwise (the risky shift).

Janis' original definition of the term was "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." The word groupthink was intended to be reminiscent of George Orwell's coinages (such as doublethink and duckspeak) from the fictional language Newspeak, which he portrayed in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Groupthink tends to occur on committees and in large organizations. Janis originally studied the Pearl Harbor bombing, the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Recently, in 2004, the US Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq blamed groupthink for failures to correctly interpret intelligence relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

Janis provides descriptions of groupthink:

One mechanism which management consultants recommend to avoid groupthink is to place responsibility and authority for a decision in the hands of a single person who can turn to others for advice. Others advise that a pre-selected individual take the role of disagreeing with any suggestion presented, thereby making other individuals more likely to present their own ideas and point out flaws in others' — and reducing the stigma associated with being the first to take negative stances (see Devil's Advocate).

Anonymous feedback via suggestion box or online chat has been found to be a useful remedy for groupthink — negative or dissenting views of proposals can be raised without any individual being identifiable by others as having lodged a critique. Thus the social capital of the group is preserved, as all members have plausible deniability that they raised a dissenting point.

Demographic Indicators

Because demography is interested in changes in human populations, demographers focus on specific indicators of change. Two of the most important indicators are birth and death rates, which are also referred to as fertility (see also fecundity) and mortality. Additionally, demographers are interested in migration trends or the movement of people from one location to another. Some of the specific measures used to explore these elements of population change are discussed below.

Fertility and Fecundity

Fertility, in demography, refers to the ability of females to produce healthy offspring in abundance.

Fecundity is the potential reproductive capacity of a female. Some of the more common demographic measures used in relation to fertility and/or fecundity include:

• crude birth rate: the annual number of live births per thousand people
• general fertility rate: the annual number of live births per 1000 women of childbearing age (often taken to be from 15 to 49 years old, but sometimes from 15 to 44).
• age-specific fertility rate: the annual number of live births per 1000 women in particular age groups (usually age 15-19, 20-24 etc.)
• total fertility rate: the number of live births per woman completing her reproductive life if her childbearing at each age reflected current age-specific fertility rates
• gross reproduction rate: the number of daughters who would be born to a woman completing her reproductive life at current age-specific fertility rates
• net reproduction rate: the number of daughters who would be born to a woman according to current age-specific fertility and mortality rates

Another important demographic concept relating to fertility is replacement level. Replacement level fertility refers to the number of children that a woman (or monogamous couple) must have in order to replace the existing population. Sub-replacement fertility is a fertility rate that is not high enough to replace an existing population. Replacement level fertility is generally set at 2.1 children in a woman's lifetime (this number varies by geographic region given different mortality rates). Sub-replacement fertility is below approximately 2.1 children in a woman's life time. The reason the number is set to 2.1 children per woman is because two children are needed to replace the parents and an additional one-tenth of a child is needed to make up for the mortality of children and women who do not reach the end of their reproductive years. Of course, women don't have one-tenth of a child; this results from statistical averaging between women who have more than two children and those who have two or fewer children.

The chart below illustrates trends in childbearing by region of the world. Fertility rates dropped earlier in the more developed regions of the world, followed by Asia and Latin America. Fertility rates are just starting to decline in Africa.

The chart below highlights the varied fertility rates of specific countries as some have very low fertility rates, many have moderate rates, and some have very high rates.

The following chart illustrates the relationship between contraceptive use and the total fertility rate by regions of the world. Increased contraceptive use is associated with lower numbers of children per woman.

One of the strongest predictors of fertility rates is women's educational attainment. Almost universally, higher levels of educational attainment result in lower fertility rates. It is not, however, education itself that causes declines in fertility but rather its association with other factors that reduce fertility: women with higher levels of education delay marriage, have improved labor market opportunities, are more likely to use contraception during intercourse, and are less likely to adopt traditional childbearing roles.

Fertility rates are also closely related to a country's level of development, which influences other factors. For instance, women who have kids in developed countries have increased opportunity costs, meaning they will make less money because of time spent outside the workforce raising kids. This is true in developed countries because women are more likely to be highly skilled and well-paid (relative to women in developing countries). Additionally, delayed childbearing, probability of a child reaching adulthood, norms about ideal family sizes, and pervasiveness of contraceptives will all reduce fertility rates. But one of the biggest factors is the cost of children. In undeveloped and developing countries, children are often an economic asset to parents as they serve as cheap labor on the farm; they don't require pay, just food and shelter. That is not the case in developed countries, where very few people work in agriculture (roughly 2% in the US). Instead, children are an economic liability, meaning they cost money while not generating money for the parents. The cost of raising a child from birth to 17 in a middle-income home in 2005 was $191,000. That cost goes up if parents pay for a child's college education, which averages between $12,000 and $30,000. Thus, the cost of raising children in developed countries reduces fertility rates in those countries.

Mortality

Mortality refers to the finite nature of humanity: people die. Mortality in demography is interested in the number of deaths in a given time or place or the proportion of deaths in relation to a population. Some of the more common demographic measures of mortality include:

• crude death rate: the annual number of deaths per 1000 people
• infant mortality rate: the annual number of deaths of children less than 1 year old per thousand live births
• life expectancy: the number of years which an individual at a given age can expect to live at present mortality rates

Note that the crude death rate as defined above and applied to a whole population can give a misleading impression. For example, the number of deaths per 1000 people can be higher for developed nations than in less-developed countries, despite standards of health being better in developed countries. This is because developed countries have relatively more older people, who are more likely to die in a given year, so that the overall mortality rate can be higher even if the mortality rate at any given age is lower. A more complete picture of mortality is given by a life table which summarizes mortality separately at each age.

This chart depicts infant mortality by region of the world. The less developed regions of the world have higher infant mortality rates than the more developed regions.

This chart depicts life expectancy by region of the world. Similar to infant mortality, life expectancies are higher in more developed regions of the world.

According to recent research, one of the best predictors of longevity (i.e., a long life) is education, even when other factors are controlled: the more educated you are, the longer you can expect to live. A few additional years of schooling can add several additional years to your life and vastly improve your health in old age. The mechanism through which this works is not the schooling itself, but schooling's influence on other health-related behaviors. The more education someone has, the lower his/her likelihood of smoking and engaging in unhealthy and high risk behaviors. Education also increases the probability of people engaging in healthy behaviors, like frequently exercising.

Other factors associated with greater longevity include:

• wealth: money increases access to good healthcare, which improves health and increases longevity
• race: whites live longer than blacks, though this is due to other social disparities, like income and education, and not to race itself
• ability to delay gratification: with the ability to delay gratification people live healthier lives and engage in healthier behaviors (e.g., exercise)
• larger social networks: having a large group of friends and close relationships with relatives increases your social support, which positively influences health
• job satisfaction: people in more powerful and more satisfying jobs tend to be healthier than people in less satisfying jobs

Early Projections of Overpopulation

Early in the 19th century, Thomas Malthus argued in An Essay on the Principle of Population that, if left unrestricted, human populations would continue to grow until they would become too large to be supported by the food grown on available agricultural land. He proposed that, while resources tend to grow arithmetically, population grows exponentially. At that point, the population would be restrained through mass famine and starvation. Malthus argued for population control, through moral restraint, to avoid this happening.

The alternative to moral restraint, according to Malthus, is biological and natural population limitation. As the population exceeds the amount of available resources the population decreases through famine, disease, or war, since the lack of resources causes mortality to increase. This process keeps the population in check and ensures it does not exceed the amount of resources.

Over the two hundred years following Malthus's projections, famine has overtaken numerous individual regions. Proponents of this theory, Neo-Malthusians state that these famines were examples of Malthusian catastrophes. On a global scale, however, food production has grown faster than population. It has often been argued that future pressures on food production, combined with threats to other aspects of the earth's habitat such as global warming, make overpopulation a still more serious threat in the future.

Population as a function of food availability

There are some scholars who argue that human populations predictably grow and shrink according to their available food supply - populations grow when there is an abundance of food and shrink in times of scarcity. This idea is only slightly less problematic than the idea that human population growth is not guided by food production, as it suggestions that that every time food production is intensified to feed a growing population, the population responds by increasing even more. Some human populations throughout history support this theory, as consistent population growth began with the agricultural revolution, when food supplies consistently increased.

Critics of this idea point out that birth rates are voluntarily the lowest in developed nations, which also have the highest access to food. In fact, the population is decreasing in some countries with abundant food supply. Thus, human populations do not always grow to match the available food supply. Critics cite other factors that contribute to declining birth rates in developed nations, including: increased access to contraception, later ages of marriage, the growing desire of many women in such settings to seek careers outside of childrearing and domestic work, and the decreased economic 'utility' of children in industrialized settings. The latter explanation stems from the fact that children perform a great deal of work in small-scale agricultural societies, and work less in industrial ones; this interpretation may seem callous, but it has been cited to explain the drop-off in birthrates worldwide in all industrializing regions.

For some, the concept that human populations behave in the same way as do populations of bears and fish is hard to believe; for others it indicates a feasible solution to population issues. In either case, since populations are tied to the food they consume, discussions of populations should not take place without considering the role played by food supply. There is a substantial body of research that has considered the ability of the planet to provide sufficient food for the world's growing population. This research suggests that the planet can potentially provide sufficient food for the projected peak population of humans of 9 billion people, but only if agriculture is carefully managed. Factors that must be considered include: genetically modified crops, employing agricultural tools in correct, context-specific ways, aquaculture, and simultaneously working to limit harm to the environment.

Effects of overpopulation

In any case, many proponents of population control have averred that famine is far from being the only problem attendant to overpopulation. These critics point out ultimate shortages of energy sources and other natural resources, as well as the importance of serious communicable diseases in dense populations and war over scarce resources such as land area. A shortage of arable land (where food crops will grow) is also a problem.

The world's current agricultural production, if it were distributed evenly, would be sufficient to feed everyone living on the Earth today. However, many critics hold that, in the absence of other measures, simply feeding the world's population well would only make matters worse, natural growth will cause the population to grow to unsustainable levels, and will directly result in famines and deforestation and indirectly in pandemic disease and war.

Some of the other characteristics of overpopulation include:

• Child poverty
• High birth rates
• Lower life expectancies
• Lower levels of literacy
• Higher rates of unemployment, especially in urban
• Insufficient arable land
• Little surplus food
• Poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets)
• Low per capita GDP
• Increasingly unhygienic conditions
• Government is stretched economically
• Increased crime rates resulting from people stealing resources to survive
• Mass extinctions of plants and animals as habitat is used for farming and human settlements

Another point of view on population growth and how it effects the standard of living is that of Virginia Abernethy. In Population Politics she shows evidence that declining fertility following industrialization only holds true in nations where women enjoy a relatively high status. In strongly patriarchal nations, where women enjoy few rights, a higher standard of living tends to result in population growth. Abernathy argues that foreign aid to poor countries must include significant components designed to improve the education, human rights, political rights, political power, and economic status and power of women.

Possible Solutions to Overpopulation

Some approach overpopulation with a survival of the fittest, laissez-faire attitude, arguing that if the Earth's ecosystem becomes overtaxed, it will naturally regulate itself. In this mode of thought, disease or starvation are "natural" means of lessening population. Objections to this argument are:

1. in the meantime, a huge number of plant and animal species become extinct
2. this would result in terrible pollution in some areas that would be difficult to abate
3. it obviously creates certain moral problems, as this approach would result in great suffering in the people who die

Others argue that economic development is the best way to reduce population growth as economic development can spur demographic transitions that seem to naturally lead to reductions in fertility rates.

In either case, it is often held that the most productive approach is to provide a combination of help targeted towards population control and self-sufficiency. One of the most important measures proposed for this effort is the empowerment of women educationally, economically, politically, and in the family. The value of this philosophy has been substantially borne out in cases where great strides have been taken toward this goal. Where women's status has dramatically improved, there has generally been a drastic reduction in the birthrate to more sustainable levels. Other measures include effective family planning programs, local renewable energy systems, sustainable agriculture methods and supplies, reforestation, and measures to protect the local environment.

David Pimentel, a Cornell University professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, sees several possible scenarios for the 22nd century:

1. a planet with 2 billion people thriving in harmony with the environment
2. or, at the other extreme, 12 billion miserable humans suffering a difficult life with limited resources and widespread famine

Spreading awareness of the issues is an important first step in addressing it.

Underpopulation

Once countries pass through the demographic transition, some experience fertility rate decreases so substantial that they fall well below replacement level and their populations begin to shrink (as has Russia's in recent years, though emigration has also played a role in Russia's population decline). A new fear for many governments, particularly those in countries with very low fertility rates, is that a declining population will reduce the GDP and economic growth of the country, as population growth is often a driving force of economic expansion. To combat extremely low fertility rates, some of these governments have introduced pro-family policies, that include things like payments to parents for having children and extensive parental leave for parents. Such policies may reverse the low fertility rates, but they also seem to be shortsighted in light of the concerns associated with overall world population growth.

Movement

As more and more people leave villages and farms to live in cities, urban growth results. The rapid growth of cities like Chicago in the late 19th century and Mumbai a century later can be attributed largely to rural-urban migration and the demographic transition. This kind of growth is especially commonplace in developing countries.

The rapid urbanisation of the world’s population over the twentieth century is described in the 2005 Revision of the UN World Urbanization Prospects report. The global proportion of urban population rose dramatically from 13% (220 million) in 1900, to 29% (732 million) in 1950, to 49% (3.2 billion) in 2005. The same report projected that the figure is likely to rise to 60% (4.9 billion) by 2030. Urbanization rates vary between countries. The United States and United Kingdom have a far higher urbanization level than China, India, Swaziland or Niger, but a far slower annual urbanization rate, since much less of the population is living in a rural area.

Causes

People move into cities to seek economic opportunities. A major contributing factor is known as "rural flight". In rural areas, often on small family farms, it is difficult to improve one's standard of living beyond basic sustenance. Farm living is dependent on unpredictable environmental conditions, and in times of drought, flood or pestilence, survival becomes extremely problematic. In modern times, industrialization of agriculture has negatively affected the economy of small and middle-sized farms and strongly reduced the size of the rural labour market. Cities, in contrast, are known to be places where money, services and wealth are centralized. Cities are where fortunes are made and where social mobility is possible. Businesses, which generate jobs and capital, are usually located in urban areas. Whether the source is trade or tourism, it is also through the cities that foreign money flows into a country. Thus, as with immigration generally, there are factors that push people out of rural areas and pull them into urban areas.

There are also better basic services as well as other specialist services in urban areas that aren't found in rural areas. There are more job opportunities and a greater variety of jobs. Health is another major factor. People, especially the elderly are often forced to move to cities where there are doctors and hospitals that can address their health needs. Other factors include a greater variety of entertainment (e.g., restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, etc.) and better quality of education in the form of universities. Due to their high populations, urban areas can also have much more diverse social communities allowing others to find people like them when they might not be able to in rural areas. These conditions are heightened during times of change from a pre-industrial society to an industrial one.

Economic effects

As cities develop, effects can include a dramatic increase in costs, often pricing the local working class out of the real estate market. For example, Eric Hobsbawm's book The age of the revolution: 1789–1848 (published 1962 and 2005) chapter 11, stated "Urban development in our period [1789–1848] was a gigantic process of class segregation, which pushed the new labouring poor into great morasses of misery outside the centres of government and business and the newly specialised residential areas of the bourgeoisie. The almost universal European division into a 'good' west end and a 'poor' east end of large cities developed in this period." This is likely due the prevailing south-west wind which carries coal smoke and other airborne pollutants downwind, making the western edges of towns preferable to the eastern ones. Similar problems now affect the developing world; rising inequality results from rapid urbanization. The drive for growth and efficiency can lead to less equitable urban development.

Urbanization is often viewed as a negative trend, but can in fact, be perceived simply as a natural occurrence from individual and corporate efforts to reduce expense in commuting and transportation while improving opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation. Living in cities permits individuals and families to take advantage of the opportunities of proximity, diversity, and marketplace competition.

Environmental effects

One environmental concern associated with urbanization is the urban heat island. The urban heat island is formed when industrial and urban areas are developed and heat becomes more abundant. In rural areas, a large part of the incoming solar energy is used to evaporate water from vegetation and soil. In cities, where less vegetation and exposed soil exists, the majority of the sun’s energy is absorbed by urban structures and asphalt. Hence, during warm daylight hours, less evaporative cooling in cities allows surface temperatures to rise higher than in rural areas. Additional city heat is given off by vehicles and factories, as well as by industrial and domestic heating and cooling units. This effect causes the city to become 2 to 10^o F (1 to 6^o C) warmer than surrounding landscapes. Impacts also include reducing soil moisture and intensification of carbon dioxide emissions.

The effects of urbanization may be an overall positive for the environment. Birth rates of new urban dwellers fall immediately to the replacement rate (2.1), and keep falling. This can prevent overpopulation (see discussion below). Additionally, it puts a stop to destructive subsistence farming techniques, like slash and burn agriculture. Finally, it minimizes land use by humans, leaving more for nature.

Changing forms of urbanization

Different forms of urbanization can be classified depending on the style of architecture and planning methods as well as historic growth of areas. In cities of the developed world urbanization traditionally exhibited a concentration of human activities and settlements around the downtown area. Recent developments, such as inner-city redevelopment schemes, mean that new arrivals in cities no longer necessarily settle in the centre. In some developed regions, the reverse effect, originally called counter urbanisation has occurred, with cities losing population to rural areas, and is particularly common for richer families. This has been possible because of improved communications and means of transportation, and has been caused by factors such as the fear of crime and poor urban environments. Later termed "white flight", the effect is not restricted to cities with a high ethnic minority population. When the residential area shifts outward, this is called suburbanization. Some research suggests that suburbanization has gone so far to form new points of concentration outside the downtown both in developed and developing countries such as India.

Urbanization can be planned or organic. Planned urbanization, (e.g., planned communities), is based on an advanced plan, which can be prepared for military, aesthetic, economic or urban design reasons. Organic urbanization is not organized and happens haphazardly. Landscape planners are responsible for landscape infrastructure (e.g., public parks, sustainable urban drainage systems, greenways, etc.) which can be planned before urbanization takes place, or afterward to revitalize an area and create greater livability within a region. Planned urbanization and development is the aim of the American Institute of Planners.

Treatment of the Young

While most people are aware of the mistreatment of the elderly (see below), few people seem to realize that young people are often subjected to discrimination because of their age. Discrimination against young people is primarily in the area of behavioral restrictions, often by parents, but also in public places like malls and stores. Some stores have gone so far as to limit the hours young people can be in their stores.

While the above are clear examples of discrimination, there are other restrictions placed on young people based on the assumption that they are unable to make decisions for themselves. Examples of such restrictions include:

• inability to vote in elections
• inability to legally imbibe alcohol or smoke cigarettes
• inability to legally engage in sexual activity (this varies by region)
• inability to hold public office
• inability to determine whether or not one can marry
• inability to determine whether or not one can get an abortion (varies by region)

All of the above restrictions hinge upon the idea that young people lack the maturity required to make such important decisions. While this is likely true for some young people, there are also some young people who are mature enough to make these decisions. The above restrictions are tied to specific ages for legal reasons, but such restrictions may not always be followed, do vary substantially by region and culture, and may not always make sense. However, it is also the case that young people can lack the maturity to make important decisions. Legally, when young people make poor decisions, the defense of infancy is used in such cases to argue that such individuals are too immature to be held responsible for their decisions.

Another way in which the young are treated differently is in the marketing practices of corporations. Children and teenagers have little money of their own, but of the money they have most of it is available for buying consumer goods (their parents cover their basic living needs). Children can also be heavily influential on how their parents' spend their discretionary income. Manufacturers of consumer goods and providers of services (e.g., Disney) are aware of the buying power of young people and target them specifically. The elderly are also targeted as a consumer demographic, but the approaches are different.

Young people are also stereotyped as being both amusing, but at the same time potentially dangerous and disturbing. It is stereotypes like these that translate into the discrimination toward young people described above.

Treatment of the Elderly

While discrimination toward the young is primarily behavioral restrictions, discrimination toward the elderly ranges from behavioral restrictions to the realm of physical abuse. Elder abuse is a serious problem in the U.S. There are nearly 2 million cases of elder abuse and self-neglect in the U.S. every year. Abuse refers to psychological/emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, caregiver neglect or financial exploitation while self-neglect refers to behaviors that threaten the person's own health and safety.

Elderly individuals who are subjected to abuse have at least two times higher risk of premature death than do other seniors. And elders who suffer from self-neglect have an even higher risk (up to 5 times higher) of premature death than do elders who do not suffer from self-neglect. The higher risk of death associated with elder abuse effects both those who are physically and cognitively impaired and those who are more capable.

Additionally, the elderly are often stereotyped. One stereotype of the elderly is that they are inflexible in their attitudes and that they tend to only become more conservative with time. This is not the case - the elderly are quite adept at changing their views and often they become more tolerant as they age. Another stereotype of the elderly is that they are poorer drivers than younger people. This stereotype is also not backed by evidence, with some caveats. Up to about the age of 75, older drivers are actually safer than drivers of other ages. Beyond age 75 response times and visual acuity do begin to decline, leading to increases in accidents. Thus, many older drivers are actually much safer than the youngest drivers (under 18).

Social-Strain Typology

Robert K. Merton, in his discussion of deviance, proposed a typology of deviant behavior. A typology is a classification scheme designed to facilitate understanding. In this case, Merton was proposing a typology of deviance based upon two criteria: (1) a person's motivations or her adherence to cultural goals; (2) a person's belief in how to attain her goals. These two criteria are shown in the diagram below. According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria:

• conformity involves the acceptance of the cultural goals and means of attaining those goals (e.g., a banker)
• innovation involves the acceptance of the goals of a culture but the rejection of the traditional and/or legitimate means of attaining those goals (e.g., a member of the Mafia values wealth but employs alternative means of attaining her wealth)
• ritualism involves the rejection of cultural goals but the routinized acceptance of the means for achieving the goals (e.g., a disillusioned bureaucrat - like Milton in the movie Office Space, who goes to work everyday because it is what he does, but does not share the goal of the company of making lots of money)
• retreatism involves the rejection of both the cultural goals and the traditional means of achieving those goals (e.g., a homeless person who is homeless more by choice than by force or circumstance)
• rebellion is a special case wherein the individual rejects both the cultural goals and traditional means of achieving them but actively attempts to replace both elements of the society with different goals and means (e.g., a communist revolution)

What makes Merton's typology so fascinating is that people can turn to deviance in the pursuit of widely accepted social values and goals. For instance, individuals in the U.S. who sell illegal drugs have rejected the culturally acceptable means of making money, but still share the widely accepted cultural value in the U.S. of making money. Thus, deviance can be the result of accepting one norm, but breaking another in order to pursue the first.

Structural-Functionalism

The structural-functionalist approach to deviance argues that deviant behavior plays an important role in society for several reasons. First, deviance helps distinguish between what is acceptable behavior, and what is not. In a sense deviance is required in order for people to know what they can and cannot do. It draws lines and demarcates boundaries. This is an important function as it affirms the cultural values and norms of a society for the members of that society.

In addition to clarifying the moral boundaries of society, deviant behavior can also promote social unity, but it does so at the expense of the deviant individuals, who are obviously excluded from the sense of unity derived from differentiating the non-deviant from the deviants.

Finally, and quite out of character for the structural-functionalist approach, deviance is actually seen as one means for society to change over time. Deviant behavior can imbalance societal equilibrium. In the process of returning societal equilibrium, society is often forced to change. Thus, deviant behavior serves several important functions in society.

Conflict Theory

A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes. White-collar crimes are typically committed by individuals in higher social classes. Examples of white-collar crimes include:

• antitrust violations
• computer, credit card, phone, telemarketing, bankruptcy, healthcare, insurance, mail, and government fraud
• tax evasion
• insider trading
• bribery and public corruption
• counterfeiting
• money laundering
• embezzlement
• economic espionage
• trade secret theft

As of 2009, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics do not provide clear statistics on white-collar crime, like they do with other types of crime. Most of the statistics provided are estimates of losses resulting from white-collar crime, which include:

• unclear amount of money lost from corporate crime, but totalling in the billions
• at least $50 billion lost every year in the U.S. from health care fraud
• unclear amount of money lost from financial institution fraud, but totalling in the billions
• unclear amount of money lost from money laundering, but also totalling in the billions
• at least 10% of government funds for domestic programs may be lost to fraud every year, totalling in the billions
• unclear amount of money lost from insurance, telemarketing, and investment fraud every year, but also totalling in the billions

That such crimes are not tracked more clearly suggests that there is less of an emphasis placed on prosecuting white collar crime than there is on prosecuting other types of crime (property and violent crime) in the U.S. It may also be the case that it is difficult to collect such statistics, but that is also likely due to the fact that a system for tracking such crimes has not been put into place because such crimes are not seen as warranting the same amount of attention as exists for other types of crimes.

That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the U.S. tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent. Additionally, men benefit more from white-collar crime than do women, as they are more likely to attempt these crimes when they are in more powerful positions, allowing them to reap greater rewards.

Labeling Theory

Labeling Theory refers to the idea that individuals become deviant when two things occur:

1. a deviant label is applied to them (e.g., loner, punk)
2. they adopt the label by exhibiting the behaviors, actions, and attitudes associated with the label

This approach to deviance recognizes its cultural relativity and is aware that deviance can result from power imbalances. But it takes the idea of deviance further by illustrating how a deviant identity develops through the application and adoption of labels. Labeling theory argues that people become deviant as a result of people forcing that identity upon them and then adopting the identity.

Labels are understood to be the names associated with identities or role-sets in society. Examples of more innocuous labels might include father or lover. Deviant labels refer to identities that are known for falling outside of cultural norms, like loner or punk.

There are two additional ideas related to the labeling theory approach to understanding deviance. First, once a deviant identity is adopted, it is often the case that the past behaviors of the now deviant individual are re-interpreted in light of the new identity. The process of re-casting one's past actions in light of a current identity is referred to as retrospective labeling. A very clear example of retrospective labeling can be seen in how the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were re-cast after the incident took place. Much of their behavior leading up to the school shootings has been re-interpreted in light of the deviant identity with which they were labeled as a result of the shootings.

Another important element of labeling theory involves the idea of stigma. Stigma refers to the situation of the individual who is disqualified from full social acceptance because of some mark of infamy or disgrace or a label that is often difficult to hide or disguise. Stigma extend the idea of labeling theory by illustrating how individual characteristics can be the basis for attaching labels that can be life-altering. A good example of a stigma that is now increasingly difficult to hide is the publishing of convicted sex offender identities and information on websites (see here for an example). The stigma is the past behavior - the sex offense - but this identity is relatively easily hidden as it impossible to pick a sex offender out of a crowd. By pushing the sex offender identity into public purview, sex offenders, regardless of current behavior, are stigmatized; they are stuck with a deviant identity that overwhelms any other identity they may have. In sum, labeling theory argues that the application of labels (role-sets) to individuals is an important element leading to deviant behavior.

Incarceration Rates and Populations

One of the more interesting features of the U.S. is the extensive number of people who are currently in the correctional system. One explanation for this is the increasingly punitive approach of the criminal justice system. According to Western (2007), those who break laws in the U.S. today are twice as likely to be imprisoned as criminals a generation ago. While debated, the percentage of prison inmates who have been wrongly convicted of crimes is estimated to be somewhere between less than 1% all the way up to 9%, which could mean hundreds of thousands of prison inmates are actually innocent. The figure to the right breaks down the correctional system population by the status of individuals in the correctional system, including:

• prison
• probation
• jail
• parole

While the population of the United States is the third largest in the world (behind China and India), the percentage of the population that is in prison is the highest in the world, as illustrated by the map below.

This map illustrates that the U.S. has both a lot of people in prison in sheer numbers but also as a percentage of the population. Comparing incarceration rates by countries goes beyond just reporting incidents of criminal activity (incidents of crime are not much higher in the U.S. than elsewhere) by highlighting differences in the correctional systems of countries. Countries differ in the restrictiveness of their laws and prison sentences. Differences of these types are seen when comparing incarceration rates and populations.

The U.S. has a relatively high recidivism rate (recidivism refers to the frequency of repeat offenses). More than half (some estimate around 67%) of prison inmates will be convicted on another charge within three years of having been released and return to prison. This statistic is revealing of the nature of the prison system in the U.S.: it is more interested in keeping people who commit crimes away from the rest of the population than it is in attempting to reform or resocialize individuals to make them productive members of society. One factor that contributes to the high recidivism rates is the social stigma that accompanies having been convicted of a felony in the US. van Olphen et al. (2009) found that individuals convicted of drug offenses were very likely to be reincarcerated, largely due to punitive punishments that accompanied their "convicted felon" stigma. For instance, they were often denied access to public housing and food stamps, which led many of the participants in the study to sell drugs to survive, leading to future arrests and convictions. The lack of help given to convicts released from prison increases the odds of those convicts returning to prison. Another factor that significantly increases the odds of convicts returning to prison is their return to their former neighborhoods. Convicts who move away from their old neighborhood are substantially less likely to commit another crime; distancing themselves from the social environment that encouraged their criminal activity in the first place reduces their odds of reincarceration. Finally, the stigma associated with spending time in prison leads to substantially worse physical and mental health for ex-cons, including higher rates of chronic illness, disability, psychiatric disorders, major depression, and anxiety.

A relatively recent innovation in criminal justice that has been shown to moderately reduce recidivism rates is "drug courts," or alternative sentencing systems that mandate treatment and therapy rather than jail time for drug offenses. Drug courts appear to reduce recidivism by somewhere between 8 and 10 percent. That drug courts reduce recidivism is not all that surprising consider there is an actual intent to modify behavior rather than simply removing individuals from society.

Another interesting characteristic of the U.S. is the amount of money that is spent on the correctional system. Policing the nations streets is the most expensive component of the correctional system, followed by housing prison inmates. The average annual cost for one federal prisoner exceeds $20,000. The judicial process is the least expensive, but the combined expenses of all three elements total over $200 billion annually (when you combine state, local, and federal expenditures).

Even though billions of dollars are spent on the criminal justice system every year in the U.S., the financial outlays actually account for only part of the cost of mass incarceration. Millions of additional jobs and even lives are lost as a result of the stigma that follows prison inmates when released (which also explains the high recidivism rate). Convicted felons are barred from working in certain industries, have limited access to educational opportunities, and have limited access to welfare and housing benefits from the government. All of these problems combine to concentrate former inmates in poor urban neighborhoods that have limited opportunities to move out of criminal circles. Reducing the consequences of felony convictions and providing occupational and drug counseling would go a long way toward alleviating the high recidivism rates.

Gender

Another way crime statistics can go beyond simply reporting incidents of criminal activity is in highlighting differences between different groups. One difference in criminal activity is seen in the number of violent crimes committed by gender (see chart). While the difference has narrowed in recent years, men are still more likely to commit violent crimes than are women.

Another telling crime statistic that is traditionally seen as highlighting power imbalances is the number of rapes in society. While the focus of this chapter is not on exploring the motivations behind rape, the number of rapes in the U.S. and internationally can be seen to reflect power imbalances between men and women as men are far more likely to rape women than vice versa. The figures below and to the right show that rape rates in the U.S. have declined in recent years and also compare rape rates from select countries around the world.

Race

Regardless of one's views on the War on Drugs in the U.S., one thing is certain, the war disproportionately targets African Americans. Since the inception of the war on drugs in 1980, 31 million drug related arrests have been made. African Americans are no more likely to use drugs than are whites, but between 1980 and 2003, the arrest rates for African Americans for drug offenses has risen at three times the rate as it has for whites, 225% vs. 70%. The reason: drug use and trafficking in the inner-city as opposed to suburbs has been the focus of the war. Additionally, penalties for using drugs that are more often found among minorities have traditionally been harsher than for drugs used by whites. Crack and powder cocaine are very similar in effect, but possession of crack cocaine carries harsher penalties and is more likely to be used by blacks, who account for nearly 80% of crack convictions, than whites. These laws were enacted in 1986 and mandated minimum sentencing - 5 years for possessing five grams of crack; 10 years for 10 grams. But the thresholds for powdered cocaine were 100 times as high - 500 grams of powdered cocaine got you just 5 years. The discriminatory prosecution of African Americans for drug offenses is just one way in which the criminal justice system in the U.S. works against African American equality.

The criminal justice system in the U.S. has a significant impact on the life chances of racial and ethnic minorities, in particular, people of African descent. Serving time in prison has become a normative event for young, lower-class African-American males. The average African-American, male, high-school dropout born in the 1960s in the U.S. had a nearly 60% chance of serving time in prison by the end of the 1990s. (This probability drops precipitously for college-educated African-Americans.) A disproportionate percentage of African-Americans are in prison; African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population but nearly 46% of prison inmates. The long-lasting effects of criminal conviction and imprisonment (convicted felons are barred from many jobs), results in the disenfranchisement of many African-Americans - time spent in prison is time spent away from education and on-the-job training. As a result, many African-Americans end up unskilled and with criminal convictions and felony records.

Some scholars argue that the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans in the U.S. actually countermands the achievements of the civil rights movement. The criminal justice system in the U.S. is arguably a massive machine that results in the production of racial inequality. In fact, the inequality in the prison system is unmatched by that in other elements of society, as the following ratios indicate:

• ratio of African-American unemployment to European-American unemployment - 2 to 1
• ratio of African-Americans born to unwed mothers compared to European-American children born to unwed mothers - 3 to 1
• ratio of African-American infants who die compared to European-American infants who die - 2 to 1
• ratio of African-American to European-American wealth - 1 to 5
• ratio of African-American incarceration rate to European-American incarceration rate - 8 to 1

Another result of the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans in the U.S. is that imprisoned African-Americans are not included in calculations of unemployment rates. African-American are substantially more likely to be unemployed than European-American, but most statistics do not include prison populations.

Another illustration of the disparity in punishment in the US based on race is tied to the death penalty. Only 10% of individuals in the US sentenced to death are ever actually executed, but which ones are executed is intimately tied to race. Individuals convicted of killing a European-American are five times more likely to be executed than individuals who killed a racial or ethnic minority. This suggests that the criminal justice system in the US values white victims above minority victims.

All of these elements combined lead to the conclusion that one of the most racially disparate elements of U.S. society is the criminal justice system.

Homicide

The chart below tracks homicide rates in the U.S. for the past 100 years. There has been an increase over time, though it is not clear whether that increase represents an actual increase in homicides or an increase in confounding factors, such as: stricter law enforcement, an increased willingness to report crimes, or changes in the definition of homicide itself.

The U.S. does not have the highest homicide rates in the world, but the rates in the U.S. are still relatively high compared to other countries (see chart).

Homicide rates also vary the age of the victim, as shown in the chart below. Note the similarity in homicide rates between the 14-17 age group and 18-24 age group.

High Crime Neighborhoods

Traditionally people have thought of crime being the result of negative characteristics of a neighborhood (e.g., low incomes, high residential turnover rates, etc.). However, there is some evidence to suggest that crime and the negative characteristics that were believed to cause high crime reinforce each other. This research finds that higher crime rates actually leads to more concentrated poverty, declining retail presence, and more residential turnover. This findings suggests that it is crime that drives away businesses and residents who have more money to safer areas, which then concentrates poverty and crime in that area.

Video Games and Deviance

Another area of current research that is of great interest to many people is the alleged effects of violent video games on behavior. Karen Sternheimer explains that a lot of the concern around video games is illustrative of the social construction of deviance. According to Sternheimer, "Politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create "folk devils," individuals or groups defined as evil and immoral. Folk devils allow us to channel our blame and fear, offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem. Video games, those who play them, and those who create them have become contemporary folk devils because they seem to pose a threat to children." (p. 13) The assumption is that playing violent video games will lead children to act out violently. However, there is a growing body of literature that is either inconclusive on this issue or that contradicts this assumption: it does not appear as though playing violent video games results in violent behavior.

The reason why the assumption that playing violent video games is not accurate is because it decontextualizes violence. Those who claim violent video games lead to violence fail to realize that violence is context dependent and most players of video games are fully aware of this. Individuals who play video games recognize that violence in the context of the game is okay and that it is not okay to be violent outside of that context. Additionally, many of the studies that have claimed to have found a connection between playing video games and violent behavior have failed to control for other influences on violent individuals, influences that are more likely to translate into violent behavior: neighborhood violence and instability, family violence, and even mental illness. Seldom is a connection made between adult shooting sprees in the workplace (which are far more common than school shooting sprees) and video games. Instead, people look toward contextual influences like those described above (i.e., job loss, family problems, etc.). In other words, violent video games are the folk devils for violent behavior in children, but not for adults.

Finally, the video game explanation is also illustrative of social-conflict and racial discrimination. Seldom is the explanation of a black violent offender's behavior playing violent video games. The assumption is that black culture encourages violence; as a result, violent behavior by young black men is not "shocking," so it does not require a folk devil to explain it. This is, of course, discriminatory. In contrast, it is generally white, middle-class violent offenders whose behavior is explained by alleging a video game connection. The fact that these violent offenders are white and middle class threatens the "innocence and safety of suburban America," (p. 17) which means it requires a folk devil culprit, absolving white, middle-class America of the blame.

Tattoos

One area of current research into deviance that highlights the socially constructed nature of norms is tattoos. In 2003 a survey found that 15% of the U.S. adult population had at least one tattoo; that number jumps to 28% for adults under 25. However, tattoos are a very complicated illustration of the intricacies of deviance. Many of the individuals getting tattoos do not fit the stereotypes of individuals who get tattoos (e.g., soldiers, sailors, bikers, etc.); many of those tattooing their bodies are high-achieving students. Additionally, tattooing is on the rise among women - 15% of women have tattoos while 16% of men do. Intriguingly, men and women get tattoos for different reasons. For men it is to reinforce their masculinity and for women it is to enhance their femininity. This differences illustrates another way in which gender is an action.

Another interesting aspect of tattoos is their changing meanings. While it is probably not the case that the meaning (think symbolic interactionism) of tattoos to those who get them is changing (tattoos have traditionally been used to express one's self or commemorate events), how tattoos are viewed is changing. In the early 1900s tattoos were so stigmatized that they could literally result in prosecution and served as evidence of ill intent and disrepute. Such extreme stigmatization is no longer the cause, probably because 88% of Americans know someone with a tattoo. As a result, tattoos are decreasingly seen as deviant. But tattoos also illustrate that deviance is not determined by the action but by those perceiving the action. While a tattoo may mean one thing to the person with the tattoo, it is still the case that others interpret the tattoo in a multitude of ways, and those don't always align with the intended meanings. Still today, tattoos are often equated with: drug use, troublemakers, and gang affiliation. This is probably why many people who get tattoos get them in locations that can easily be covered in regular business attire - that way they can still pass when not in the company of those who are more understanding of their tattoos. Tattoos, then, illustrate the sociological understanding of deviance quite well.

Biology and Genetics

The social constructionist approach has not completely occluded other perspectives. Some sociologists (and other researchers) still believe that race is a valid and useful measure when understood as fuzzy sets, clusters, or extended families.

Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry (e.g., African, Asian, etc.). Recent research indicates that self-described race is a very good indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They concluded that ancient ancestry/geography, which correlates highly with self-described race and not current place of residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the US population. The implications of such research are significant and can be seen in different health conditions prevalent among racial and ethnic groups (see extended discussion below).

In general, genetic variation within racial groups is greater than genetic variation between them. However, the existence of genetic differences among races is well accepted. In general, genetic clusters exist that correspond tightly to the census definition of race and to self-identified ancestry. Certain genetic conditions are more common among certain races. For example, approximately 1 in 29 individuals of Northern European descent are carriers of a mutation that causes cystic fibrosis, whereas only about 1 in 65 African Americans is a carrier (source). There is a subset of conditions for which individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are at increased risk (see here). Based on this knowledge individuals can be offered genetic testing based on their race, which can determine whether they are at increased risk to have a child with one of these conditions. The association between race and genetics breaks down for groups, such as Hispanics, that exhibit a pattern of geographical stratification of ancestry.

There is an active debate among biomedical researchers about the meaning and importance of race in their research. Proponents of using race in biomedical research argue that ignoring race will be detrimental to the health of minority groups. They argue that disease risk factors differ substantially between racial groups, that relying only on genotypical classes - differences in genes - ignores non-genetic racial factors that impact health (e.g., poverty rates) and that minorities would be poorly represented in clinical trials if race were ignored. However, some fear that the use of racial labels in biomedical research runs the risk of unintentionally exacerbating health disparities, so they suggest alternatives to the use of racial taxonomies.

The primary impetus for considering race in biomedical research is the possibility of improving the prevention and treatment of diseases by predicting hard-to-ascertain factors on the basis of more easily ascertained characteristics. Indeed, the first medication marketed for a specific racial group, BiDil was recently approved by the U.S. FDA. A large study of African American males showed a 43% reduction in deaths and a 39% decrease in hospitalizations compared to a placebo. Interestingly, this drug would never have been approved if the researchers had not taken note of racial groups and realized that although the medication was not effective in previous clinical trials, it appeared to be effective for the small proportion of African-Americans males who were part of the study (source). Despite the controversy, it is clear that race is associated with differential disease susceptibility. Examples of some of these differences are illustrated in the table below.

Combining Approaches

Perhaps the best way to understand race is to recognize that the socially constructed boundaries and biological/genetic elements overlap. There are clearly biological differences between races, though they are small and, as noted above, there is greater variation within races than between races. But the actual criteria used for racial classifications are artificial and socially constructed, as was shown in the cases of the U.S. and Brazil.

By recognizing the overlap between the two, we are presented with a better understanding of race. However, distinctions between racial groups are declining due to intermarriage and have been for years. For instance, self-described African Americans tend to have a mix of West African and European ancestry. Shriver et al. (2003) found that on average African Americans have ~80% African ancestry. Likewise, many white Americans have mixed European and African ancestry; ~30% of whites have less than 90% European ancestry. If intermarrying of races and ethnicities continues, the biological and genetic distinctions will grow increasingly minute and undetectable. If a completely heterogeneous population ultimately develops, any racial classifications in that population would be nothing more than social constructs.

Controversies surrounding the definition of race will likely continue for some time. But there are important considerations that go beyond the definition of race. Race and race-related issues continue to impact society. Racial discrimination in employment and housing still occurs (source). Because race remains a significant factor in social life, sociologists feel compelled to study its effects at multiple levels.

Race and Pollution

Pollution and polluting facilities are not evenly distributed in the U.S. Communities made up predominantly of racial minorities are significantly more likely to be polluted and to house factories and business that pollute extensively. While it might seem that this is inadvertent and not intentionally racist, the evidence suggest otherwise: these communities are systematically targeted as locations for situating polluting businesses.

Interracial Marriage

Not until 1967 were laws outlawing interracial marriage abolished in the United States. Prior to that time, an individual from one race who married an individual from another could be jailed and fined. These laws were referred to as miscegenation laws (miscegenation means "mixing races"). This was the experience of Mildred and Richard Loving, who married in 1958 in Washington D.C., a district in the US that no longer had a law against interracial marriage. Mildred was black; Richard was white. When they moved to Virginia shortly after their wedding, law enforcement decided to prosecute them, breaking into their home in the middle of the night and carrying them off to jail. Both Mildred and Richard were from Virginia, where their extended family still lived. The judge who heard their case, Leon M. Bazile, told the Lovings during their trial for miscegenation that, 'if God had meant for whites and blacks to mix, he would have not placed them on different continents.' He also seemed to take pride in telling the Lovings, "as long as you live you will be known as a felon." The Lovings eventually contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, who took their case to the Supreme Court in 1967, resulting in Loving v. Virginia, which abolished miscegenation laws in the U.S. Even so, as the diagram to the right indicates, attitudes toward interracial marriage did not immediately improve. Still as late as 2002, close to 10% of people in the U.S. favored a law prohibiting interracial marriage.

Sex

Many species of living things are divided into two or more categories called sexes. These refer to complementary groups that combine genetic material in order to reproduce, a process called sexual reproduction. Typically, a species will have two sexes: male and female. The female sex is defined as the one which produces the larger gamete (i.e., reproductive cell) and which bears the offspring. The categories of sex are, therefore, reflective of the reproductive functions that an individual is capable of performing at some point during its life cycle, and not of the mating types, which genetically can be more than two.

In mammals (and many other species) sex is determined by the sex chromosomes, called X and Y. For mammals, males typically have one of each (XY), while females typically have two X chromosomes (XX). All individuals have at least one X chromosome, the Y chromosome is generally shorter than the X chromosome with which it is paired, and is absent in some species. In humans, sex is conventionally perceived as a dichotomous state or identity for most biological purposes, such that a person can only be female or male.

Gender

Gender is the socially constructed component of human sexuality. Gender is an inner feeling that you are male, female, both, neither, or somewhere in between. Perhaps the best way to understand gender is to understand it as a process of social presentation. Because gender roles are delineated by behavioral expectations and norms, once individuals know those expectations and norms, the individual can adopt behaviors that project the gender he/she wishes to portray. One can think of gender like a role in a theatrical play - there are specific behaviors and norms associated with genders just like there are lines and movements associated with each character in a play. Adopting the behaviors and norms of a gender leads to the perception that someone belongs in that gender category. Gender roles are, unlike sex, mutable, meaning they can change. Gender is not, however, as simple as just choosing a role to play but is also influenced by parents, peers, culture, and society.

Some examples may help illustrate the distinction between gender and sex. Parents may socialize a biological boy (XY chromosomes) into what is perceived as a traditionally masculine role, that includes characteristics like: independence, courage, and aggressiveness. Likewise, parents may socialize a biological female (XX chromosomes) into what is perceived as a traditionally feminine role, that includes characteristics like: submissiveness, emotionality, and empathy. Assuming both children feel like their gender roles fit their identities, the masculine boy and feminine girl will behave in ways that reflect their genders. For instance, the boy may play with toy soldiers and join athletic teams. The girl, on the other hand, may play with dolls and bond with other girls in smaller groups.

However, gender is fluid and can change. This can be seen by continuing the above example. It is possible for the boy to decide later in life that he no longer wishes to portray himself as traditionally masculine. The boy may adopt some traditionally feminine characteristics and become androgynous, or may adopt a feminine persona altogether (see the photos of cross-dressing drag queens for an example of this type of gender construction). Either change would involve adopting the behaviors and norms that go along with the intended gender. The same is true for the girl, who may adopt masculine characteristics.

Gender Discourse

A significant proportion of the human population does not correspond exclusively to either female or male genders or sexes. When gender identity and biological sex conflict, the result is sex discordance. Some discordances are purely biological, such as when the sex of the chromosomes (genetic sex) does not match the sex of the external genitalia (anatomic sex). For more extensive discussion of this type of discordance, see this article on intersex.

Discordances between the biological (sex) and psychosocial (gender) components of gender, such as when the gender does not match the anatomic sex, are even more common but less well understood. The vast majority of people who are discordant in some aspect of psyche or behavior do not have any detectable biological intersex condition. Human societies respond to, or accommodate, these behavioral and psychological discordances in many different ways, ranging from suppression and denial of difference to acknowledging various forms of third sex (see the Kothoey pictured above).

Some societies identify youths with atypical behavioral characteristics and, instead of giving them corrective therapy or punishing them, socialize them in such a way that their individual characteristics let them provide a useful function for the society in a recognized and respected role. Some of the roles these individuals may assume include: shaman, medicine man, tong-ki, berdache, hijra, xanith, and transgender.

Gender discordance leads to the understanding that what we traditionally understand to be feminine and masculine characteristics are social (and cultural) constructions. Some people have sought to define their sexuality and sexual identity in non-polar terms in the belief that the simple division of all humans into males and females does not fit their individual conditions. A proponent of this movement away from polar oppositions, Anne Fausto-Sterling, once suggested we recognize five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm and herm. Although quickly rejected as a bizarre flouting of human nature and social reality and inimical to the interests of those whom she was attempting to champion, it expresses the difficulty and imperfection of the current social responses to these variations.