eval - deviation from social norms

• support

  does distinguish between desirable and undesirable and therefore gives guidance on how to act

  abnormal behaviour damages others - clear guidance on abnormality

  this social dimensions shows that abnormality is not simply medical - e.g. laing (1968) suggested schizophrenia occurs between people (socially wrong so abnormal)
• counter

  deviance is related to context and agree

  for example, wearing a bikini at the beach compared to wearing it at college

  what this means is that social deviance on its own cannot offer a complete definition of abnormality, because it is inevitably related to both context and degree
• alternative

  statistical infrequency - on its own, deviation from social norms is not enough to label someone abnormal but when paired with a statistical rarity, it can be used as a diagnostic tool
• applications

  the subjective nature of the definition means it can be abused and used as a tool to induce conformity

  szasz (1972) said that psychiatrists in the USSR defined people who did not agree with the communist regime as abnormal or mentally ill

  not just USSR - also UK and japan have used ‘mental illness’ as a means of social control
• i&d

  social norms are culturally relative

  a person from one cultural group may label someone from another group as abnormal using their standards, rather than those of the other

  for example, hearing voices is socially acceptable in some cultures but would be seen as a sign of abnormality in the UK

  this creates problems for people from one culture living within another cultural group