How People Become Deviants: Labeling Deviant Actors

Critical Analysis

A critical part in becoming deviant is to be labeled as such: language is assignment by others, or by oneself, that determines that one is outside of a group. Continual labeling becomes somewhat self-fulfilling, as people begin to see themselves in a new way, and adopt the behavior that “unpacks” from the new label and group assignment.

Citing Lemert, the author identifies two forms of deviance. Primary deviance indicates an occasional behavior that carries stigma. Someone may do something associated with outsider activity, but not be considered an outsider. Secondary deviance emerges when someone becomes labeled by others, and when they integrate that label into their identity. The “labeling” may be explicit through the assignment of a specific term, but it is also implied through being included or excluded in certain activities, and having people in positions of authority act in ways that reinforce a particular group assignment. This “causes fundamental changes in the person’s social roles, self-identity, and personality, resulting in additional deviant acts” (117; citing Matsueda, 2001, pp225).

The process then repeats, and when we begin to change our behavior according to the new label, “we are also changing who we are—or at least who we are seen to be” (119). People carry a master status or a primary narrative of self, and that may begin to be synonymous with the new label and group assignment. Secondary deviance takes hold when an actor accepts the label, and “whether their definitions have a significant effect depends… on how sure a person is of their own identity” (122).

When a new label has been introduced and is being “tried on”, it forces a retrospective exploration into previous behavior; one, and one’s audience, begins to interpret what happened in the past to see if was an instance of the new stereotyped behavior. This is where a label gains traction, because past behavior that has been reinterpreted, in combination with current labeling efforts, lead to one-sided anticipation of future behavior. An audience “begins to anticipate behaviors, ignoring those that are not designated by the stereotype and underscoring those that reaffirm it” (127). The past becomes selective evidence for a prediction of the future.

One of the most lasting forms of labeling is self-labeling, based on one’s perception of and emulation of others who already have been labeled as part of a group. A person who previously was “deviant in secret” becomes public about their new behavior, and then acts to classify themselves “in conversations with themselves” (127). They then act as a labeler and a labeled.

The author introduces the “theory of office,” where people in a working context establish a logic on how to engage with others by actively assigning labels. Public activities are ritualistic labeling and transformation moments, and citing Garfinkel, the author explains that in these public rituals, a “person’s old identity is removed and a new one is conferred as the individual undergoes a ‘status passage’ or transition to their new identity” (130). The context may be a “total institution,” (per Goffman) where all aspects of someone’s previous identity are no longer allowed or deemed relevant, and a convergence of public and private understanding of a deviant label becomes evident. This “convergence of public and private deviant designations is the most powerful of audience statements about a person’s moral identity” (130).