Deviation from social norms

• Behaviour that does not fit the accepted standard of a society / group
• Groups of people choose to define behaviour as abnormal on the basis that it offends their sense of what is acceptable
• Social norms are different for each generation and culture
• For example, homosexuality is still seen as abnormal in some cultures
• In April 2019, Brunei introduced laws to make sex between men punishable by death
• Antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) has characteristics of aggression, impulsiveness and irresponsibility

  another symptom is ‘absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behaviour’

  the social judgement that psychopathy i abnormal because it doesnt conform to our moral standards
• Strengths

  • Application to antisocial personality disorder
• Weaknesses

  • Purely subjective as its based on group views of whats acceptable
  • always changing so its hard to have a reliable measure of what’s acceptable
  • Unreliable as dictated by the majority within a culture