Conformity is the tendency for individuals to alter their behavior to align with a group, a phenomenon often driven by the power of a social situation. People may conform even when the group's information is inaccurate, motivated by a desire to fit in or a belief that the group is knowledgeable.

Conformity

People in this category accept societies' goals but use socially unapproved or unconventional means to strive for them.

Innovation

Do not believe the goals of society are legitimate or real but the opportunity to do them are

Ritualism

Reject society's goals and means
Ex. Drug abusers

Retreatism

Replace societies means and goals
Ex. Revolutionairies

Rebellion

5 different terms created by Merton to describe how people view the means to achieve agoal and how they feel about a goal

Ohio State University, Columbus

- Goals created by society are not achievable because of a lack of opportunities 5 different responses some of which lead to crime
- Robert K. Merton created this theory

Strain Theory

Schmalleger, F. (2014). Criminology (The Justice Series). Criminology (2nd ed.). Pearson. https://archive.org/details/criminology0000schm. 

Criminology (The Justice Series)

Goals and Means Disjuncture

- Steven F. Messner and Richard Rosenfield
- American Dream is the cause of a lot of crime since rich and poor people compare themselves to one another but the poor cannot achieve it 

Relative Deprivation

- Robert Agnew
- Negative social relations are created by socioemotional problems create crime as a result
- Stain occurs because
   - Negative stimuli (insults)
   - Loss of positive stimuli (Death)
   - Stopping people form achieving positvely valued goasl

Learn Before

Related

Learn After