Status, Deviance, Sanctions, and Group Discussion

Abstract

Experimental studies of responses to high status deviance have tended to make two assumptions which are inappropriate if we are to generalize our findings beyond the laboratory to natural groups. The first assumption is that we can understand a group's response to deviance by asking individual members who are isolated from one another for their responses. The second assumption is that there is some necessary connection between the group members' covert evaluations of the behavior and the overt sanctions imposed upon the deviant. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSESThe first, more significant, assumption is implicit in the paradigm used in virtually all of our laboratory studies of status and deviance. Subjects are first given information at

Previous Conformity, Status, and the Rejection of the Deviant

“…Further, if the high-status deviant has power over the low-status deviant there may be more reluctance for the low-status deviant to reject the high-status deviant. Wahrman (1977), in a recent reevaluation of his early study, offers an explanation for why a high-status deviant was not subjected to severe sanctions. He suggests that the high-status deviant is severely sanctioned only if the deviant is a serious threat to the survival of the group.…”