deviation from social norms

• P: what is socially acceptable now may not have been socially acceptable 50 years ago

  E: today homosexuality is acceptable in most countries, but in the past it was included under sexual and gender identity disorders in the DSM.

  L: therefore, if we define abnormality in terms of deviation from social norms, there is a real danger of creating definitions based on prevailing social morals and attitudes
• P: another limitation is that judgements on deviance are often related to the context of a behaviour

  E: a person on a beach wearing next to nothing is regarded as normal, whereas the same outfit in the classroom would be regarded as abnormal and an indication of a mental disorder.

  L: this means that social deviance on its own cannot offer a complete definition of abnormality, because it is related to context.
• P: this definition does distinguish between desirable and undesirable behaviour, a feature that was absent from the statistical infrequency model

  E: social deviancy model also takes into account the effect that behaviour has on others. deviance is defined in terms of transgression of social rules and social rules are established in order to help people live together. according to this definition, abnormal behaviour is behaviour that damages others

  L: this definition offers a practical and useful way of identifying undesirable and damaging behaviour