Deck 13: Interactionist Theories

Question 1

Which of the following is the best example of a primary deviant?

A)a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang
B)a person who lives off the avails of others (e.g. ,a pimp)
C)a person who occasionally smokes marijuana supplied by someone else
D)an adult who has been working as a prostitute since the age of 12

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Criminal careers are "composed of adjustments to,and interpretations of,the contingencies and turning points encountered" at each stage of this career.Which of the following schools of thought on criminality does this statement best represent?

A)critical criminology
B)consensus theories
C)psychological theories
D)interactionist

Answer 2

D

Question 3

According to Matza,which of the following best describes young American male offenders who smoke,drink,and are tough and who pursue the hedonistic pleasures of "real" men?

A)They are attracted to subterranean traditions.
B)They are reacting against middle-class values.
C)They are following secondary deviance values.
D)They are a product of father-absent families.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following statements contradicts symbolic interactionist theory?

A)Meanings emerge from interactions among people.
B)Meanings are applied and occasionally modified.
C)Meanings are derived from empirical research into social situations,patterns,and statuses.
D)People act toward objects on the basis of meanings that objects have for them.

Question 5

Interactionists have observed that some groups or individuals have enough power to force criminal identities on less powerful groups or individuals.What term has been applied to describe this phenomenon?

A)identification
B)labelling
C)deviant career
D)primary deviation

Question 6

Which of the following statements best describes the drift towards delinquency?

A)All individuals and groups experience a deviant drift at some point.
B)It always involves an entire subculture.
C)It is always a highly individualized process.
D)An individual or an entire group of youths may drift toward deviance.

Question 7

An individual commits delinquent acts but does not adopt a self-identity as a deviant.Which of the following is this an example of?

A)secondary deviation
B)primary deviation
C)drift
D)adolescent-limited deviance

Question 8

Within the context of primary deviation,which of the following statements best describes young offenders,according to Schwendinger and Schwendinger?

A)Early offenders tend not to employ any moral rhetoric;older offenders tend to use the rhetoric of egoism and/or the rhetoric of instrumentalism.
B)Early offenders tend to employ the moral rhetoric of instrumentalism;later offenders tend to use the moral rhetoric of egoism.
C)Early offenders tend to employ the moral rhetoric of egoism;later offenders tend to use the moral rhetoric of instrumentalism.
D)Early offenders tend to use the rhetoric of egoism and/or the rhetoric of instrumentalism;older offenders tend not to employ any moral rhetoric.

Question 9

What term has been applied to refer to a psychological state of weak normative attachment to either deviant or conventional ways?

A)tertiary deviance
B)moral purgatory
C)drift
D)moral rhetoric

Question 10

What is the term used to denote a rationalization whereby offenders stress the cunning and power they bring to bear against people who are otherwise more powerful and uncontrollable?

A)moral rhetoric
B)instrumental rhetoric
C)symbolic power relations rhetoric
D)secondary deviance rhetoric

Question 11

Which of the following best characterizes the use of moral rhetoric by young offenders,according to Schwendinger and Schwendinger?

A)It is used to justify one's deviant behaviour.
B)It is used to place pressure on peers to also become involved in deviance.
C)It is a technique to defraud senior citizens.
D)It is used as a cognitive behavioural technique to reduce recidivism.

Question 12

Which of the following is among the most important concepts for interactionist theories of crime?

A)power relationships
B)the level of inequity
C)cultural goals
D)the deviant career

Question 13

Which of these criminological theories centres on the interchanges people have with one another and on the meanings of these interchanges in the past,present,and future?

A)strain
B)interactionist
C)conflict
D)critical theory

Question 14

Which of the following examples best represent the main difference between primary and secondary deviance,as conceptualized by Lemert?

A)the head of an outlaw motorcycle gang versus a lower-ranking member
B)the single mother who occasionally shoplifts versus a drug addict who once robbed a bank with a gun
C)the university student who occasionally smokes pot versus the head of a Mexican drug cartel
D)the serial killer who suffers from schizophrenia versus the serial killer who suffers from psychopathy

Question 15

Which of the following is one of the reasons that labelling is not fair?

A)Everyone engaged in criminal activity,no matter how serious the crime,has the deviant label applied to them.
B)Some have not involved in deviant behaviour,but are labelled as such.
C)The label lasts forever.
D)It is only applied to those engaged in "street-level" crime.

Question 16

Which of the following best represents a main foundation of symbolic interactionist approach to understanding criminality?

A)introspection
B)individuality
C)interactions
D)intelligence

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT a focus of the interactionist approach to criminality?

A)the establishment of moral rules
B)the application of moral rules through labelling
C)how the mode of production in a society produces moral entrepreneurs
D)the long-term consequences of moral rules and labelling for deviants and for society

Question 18

Short notes that careers in youth crime are likely to be prolonged after certain turning points have been reached.Which of the following is NOT one of the turning points discussed by Short in the textbook?

A)early interest in delinquent activities
B)the type of crime carried out by the offender
C)an early interest in drugs
D)the inability to find legitimate employment

Question 19

A sense of continuity,a perception of increasing opportunities,and an increased sophistication and possibly recognition by peers are all characteristics of which of the following?

A)deviant career
B)symbolic interactionism
C)secondary deviation
D)drift

Question 20

According to the Schwendingers,justifying theft as a response to store owners' greed is an example of which of the following?

A)instrumental rhetoric
B)the rhetoric of denial
C)lower-class rhetoric
D)the rhetoric of egoism

Question 21

What is Lemert's term for someone whose life and identity revolve around deviance?

A)tertiary deviant
B)secondary deviant
C)full deviant
D)primary deviant

Question 22

All of the following,except one,promotes the shift from primary to secondary deviance.Which is the exception?

A)an official label,along with and sanctioning that forces the deviant to change his or her lifestyle drastically
B)a strong desire to deviate,or a feeling of extreme guilt,that fosters a redefinition of one's own deviant activities
C)sociopathology or being insensitive to the comments and opinions of others
D)recognition by the deviant that the behaviour in question has strongly modified his or her way of life

Question 23

Which of the following is the best example of what Goffman meant by the term "stigma"?

A)being an ex-inmate
B)being a too young to drink alcohol
C)being a member of the mafia
D)being a member of a visible minority

Question 24

What is the term used to describe an offender's awareness of the impossibility of choosing a noncriminal identity because of penalties (societal reactions)in making the switch?

A)career contingency
B)continuance commitment
C)self-enhancing commitment
D)self-degrading commitment

Question 25

Which of the following best describes Sutherland's differential association theory?

A)It helped bring a psychological perspective to the forefront of criminology.
B)It points to the importance of learning criminal behaviour.
C)It has received no convincing empirical support.
D)It no longer is relevant to contemporary theories or research into causes of crime.

Question 26

In which category of deviant behaviour does Lemert place alcoholism and drug addiction?

A)self-defeating and self-perpetuating deviance
B)self-enhancing and self-perpetuating deviance
C)adjusted pathological deviance
D)unadjusted pathological deviance

Question 27

Which of the following is an agent of social control?

A)police
B)parents
C)offenders
D)victims

Question 28

Which of the following is a critique of interactionist theory offered by empiricists?

A)It fails to relate crime and other forms of deviance to the larger society.
B)It fails to indicate how people make sense of their social world.
C)It fails to account for historical and contemporary political and economic interests.
D)It examines only labelled deviants (those officially identified as having deviated).

Question 29

What is the term used when society considers someone's criminality as their defining characteristic?

A)primary deviation
B)secondary deviation
C)master status
D)career contingency

Question 30

Which of the following is a key principle of differential association theory?

A)Criminal behaviour is learned in isolation from one's family.
B)Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with others.
C)Learning includes the techniques but not the motives for committing crime.
D)Learning criminal behaviour stems from unique individual needs and values.

Question 31

According to Lemert,suicide is a response for which of the following individuals?

A)those with a desire to escape self-degrading commitment to deviance
B)those with a desire to escape high self-enhancing commitment to deviance
C)those with a high self-degrading commitment to deviance
D)those with a high self-enhancing commitment to deviance

Question 32

What two areas of interactionist theories can be seen in the context of socialization into crime?

A)the process of differential association and acquisition of a criminal identity
B)the process of differential association and acquisition of a social control identity
C)the process of differential association and psycho-analytical theories of crime
D)the acquisition of a social control identity and group conflict theory

Question 33

Which of the following best represents the role of police,judges,prison personnel,and probation and parole officers?

A)agents of social control
B)first line public defenders
C)agents of social work
D)legal administrators

Question 34

Who developed the original theory of differential association?

A)Sutherland
B)Cohen
C)Lemert
D)Cressey

Question 35

In the early part of this century,William Lyon Mackenzie King,the future prime minister of Canada,lobbied the government to outlaw heroin,due to the significant social and personal toil inflicted by the drug.Which of the following terms can best be applied to King?

A)agent of social control
B)moral entrepreneur
C)moral capitalist
D)agent of moral dissemination

Question 36

What term denotes a social category into which deviants are placed by others and which they may place themselves?

A)criminal identity
B)career contingency
C)continuance commitment
D)unadjusted pathological deviance

Question 37

"A characteristic of an individual that is negatively evaluated by others,thereby distorting and discrediting that person's public identity." Which of the following terms does this definition apply to?

A)stigma
B)primary deviance
C)drift
D)moral rhetoric

Question 38

What term does Erving Goffman use to describe a characteristic of an individual that is given a negative evaluation by others and thus distorts and discredits the public identity of the person?

A)moral rhetoric
B)stigma
C)master status
D)primary deviance

Question 39

According to symbolic interactionist Becker,which of the following best characterizes deviance?

A)a quality of an action
B)behaviour that people label as such
C)juvenile delinquency
D)variation from a recognized norm in a given society

Question 40

What is the term used for an unintended event,process,or situation that that can affect the movement of an individual along a deviant career?

A)primary deviation
B)career contingency
C)continuance commitment
D)master contingency

Question 41

The term moral rhetorics is used to refer to claims and assertions used to justify one's deviant behaviour.

Question 42

Primary deviation becomes secondary when deviants see that their behaviour substantially modifies their ways of living.

Question 43

Secondary deviation occurs with little change in the individual's everyday routine or lifestyle.

Question 44

Interactionist theories group the root causes of criminal behaviour into a category called "primary deviation."

Question 45

According to Matza,one precondition to deviance is an affinity for the intended act.

Question 46

Which of the following is the principal ethnomethodological critique of interactionist theory?

A)It fails to consider the historic,political,and economic context of crime.
B)It fails to indicate how people make sense of their social world.
C)It ignores how the conventional world identifies and classifies deviants and deviant acts.
D)There is insufficient proof that labelling causes deviance.

Question 47

Career contingency refers to a criminal offender's awareness of the impossibility of choosing a noncriminal identity because of penalties in making the switch.

Question 48

One of the basic premises of symbolic interactionism is that people act according to objects in their lives and to the meanings those objects have for them.

Question 49

Young people have little commitment to deviance;therefore,they drift between conventional and deviant behaviour.

Question 50

Conceptually,the stages of personal involvement in criminal activity are nothing like the like stages in a legitimate occupational career.

Question 51

Interactionist approaches to understanding crime centre chiefly on what happens to criminals once their deviant activities commence.

Question 52

A major factor leading to secondary deviation is the tendency of society to treat someone's criminality as a master status.

Question 53

A person motivated by self-degrading commitment has the objective alternative of redefining the values and penalties associated with the committed identity in such a way that he or she becomes attached to them.

Question 54

Interactionist theories of deviance focus overwhelmingly on how the techniques of how crimes are committed in a particular time and place.

Question 55

American studies on the drift toward deviance among youth are generally not applicable to Canada.

Question 56

Which of the following is NOT an implication stemming from interactionist theories of crime?

A)It highlights the damaging effects of the deviant label.
B)It exposes the moral enterprise involved in determining what constitutes deviance.
C)It highlights how the capitalist mode of production eventually leads to the application of deviance only to those involved in street-level crime.
D)It calls attention to the deviant career as a process that helps explain deviance beyond its initial causes.

Question 57

Continuance commitment refers to an unintended event or situation that can affect the movement of an individual along a deviant career.

Question 58

A central concept in interactionist theories of crime is the deviant career.

Question 59

Interactionist theories of crime help explain how the capitalist mode of production perpetuates moral rules and their application through labelling of offenders from the working class.

Question 60

Someone who advocates for the criminalization of marijuana can be called a moral entrepreneur.

Question 61

Define primary and secondary deviation and explain how primary deviation transforms into secondary deviation.

Question 62

Explain how moral entrepreneurs help create criminal laws.Provide a recent or historical example of a moral crusade that resulted in the criminalization of a vice in Canada.

Question 63

A neo-Marxist critique of interactionist theories of crime is that they fail to relate crime and other forms of deviance to the larger society

Question 64

Define the concept of a criminal career and describe some of the typical characteristics of a deviant career.

Question 65

Describe the concept of drift in relation to juvenile delinquents and provide some hypothetical illustrative examples.

Question 66

List and explain at least for of the nine propositions that comprise Sutherland's differential association theory.

Question 67

Describe the implications of a master status for secondary deviation.

Question 68

Define career contingency and continuance commitment.Explain how these concepts relate to secondary deviation.

Question 69

According to Sutherland,learning criminal behaviour through differential association is much different compared to learning other forms of pro-social behaviour.

Question 70

Summarize the main tenets of the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism and how it has influenced criminology.

Question 71

Discuss the concept of "criminal identities" and how it relates to interactionist theories and labelling in particular.

Question 72

Define and describe the concept of labelling within the context of interactionist theories.What are the consequences of labelling for the lives of young people who may be involved in delinquent activities?

Question 73

What are some of the implications for addressing juvenile delinquency and offending based on what you have learned from interactionist theories.

Question 74

One contribution that interactionist theories have made to criminology is to help explain deviance beyond its initial causes.

Question 75

What is meant by the term "socialization into crime"? Summarize one theory that relates to this term.Apply this term and theory to a hypothetical example of a young man who becomes involved in a violent gang.

Question 76

Cite and discuss both the strengths and limitations of differential association theory.

Question 77

Define master status and provide a hypothetical example of the application of "master status."

Question 78

Cite and discuss the three major critiques of interactionist theory in explaining crime.

Question 79

Discuss the various contingencies that criminals encounter in their deviant careers.