deviation from social norms

• what is deviation from social norms

  the standards of acceptable behaviour (rules) that are set by society

  explicit: the law

  implicit: unwritten e.g personal space
• strength - useful in clinical practice

  e.g the defining characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is the failure to conform to culturally acceptable ethical behaviour e.g recklessness, aggression ext.

  these signs of the disorder are deviations from social norms.

  this shows that the deviation from social norms criterion has value in psychiatry and offers a practical way of identifying desirable and undesirable behaviour which may alert others to the need to secure help for the person concerned
• limitation - social norms change over time

  e.g homosexuality was considered unacceptable and a criminal offence in the uk until 1963. This suggests that this definition does not provide a consistent picture of abnormality. if we define abnormality in terms of deviation of social norms, there is a danger of creating definitions based on prevailing attitudes and morals.
• limitation - cultural relativism

  social norms vary from culture to culture. e.g it is considered normal to communicate with he dead in some African cultures, however this would be considered normal in many other cultures. this suggests that the judgements about social deviance are related to culture, which can create problems for people from one culture living with another culture group
• limitation - variability between different situations

  does not make judgements relating to the context of the behaviour. a person on a beach wearing next to nothing is regarded as normal, whereas the same outfit in a classroom would be regarded as abnormal and possibly indicative of a disorder. there is not a clear line between what an abnormal deviation is and what is simply harmless eccentricity. dfsn on its own cannot offer a complete definition of abnormality