Deviation from Social Norm

• What is Deviation from Social Norm?

  These are behaviours that goes against unwritten rules and expectations in society or culture.
• What does every society do?

  Make collective judgements about what counts as normal, unusual or typical behaviours.
• What behaviours are seen as abnormal?

  Those that do not conform to expected standards
• Do norms vary from culture to culture?

  Yes abnormalities stand out.
• What is example of DSN?

  Hoarding
• Research Support - Malinowski

  Malinowski 1929 - Found that the sons of a deceased father are expected to clean his bones and distribute them to relatives to wear as ornaments.

  • A widow who did not wear dead husband's jawbone around her neck was failing to behave in accordance with her cultures expectations.
• Research Support - Rosenhan

  Rosenhan 1973 - Being sane in insane places

  Rosenhan conducted an experiment to investigate the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis.

  He sent eight pseudopatients (including himself) with no history of mental illness to 12 different psychiatric hospitals. They all feigned symptoms of auditory hallucinations to gain admission but behaved normally once inside.
• What were Rosenhan's findings?

  Findings:

  1. All pseudopatients were admitted to psychiatric hospitals, despite having no mental illness.
  2. They were diagnosed with schizophrenia or other disorders.
  3. Hospital staff failed to detect the pseudopatients, though some fellow patients correctly identified them as impostors.
  4. Once admitted, the pseudopatients behaved normally, but their behaviors were interpreted as symptoms of mental illness.
• What were Rosenhan's Conclusions?

  The study showed that psychiatric diagnoses were not always reliable and that normal behavior could be misinterpreted as deviant when it deviated from hospital norms. This supported the idea that deviation from social norms in a psychiatric context can lead to misdiagnosis and the labelling of mentally healthy individuals as mentally ill.
• Rosenhan second study

  He sent no patients

  Hospital did 43% misdiagnosis
• Evaluation

  Subjective

  • Inconsistent