Deviance All social groups teach their members skills and attitudes that encoura
ID: 3487976 • Letter: D
Question
Deviance
All social groups teach their members skills and attitudes that encourage certain behavior. In recent years, discussion on college campuses has focused on the dangers of binge drinking, a behavior that results in several dozen deaths each year among young people in the United States. How much of a problem is binge drinking on your campus? What can be done about it? If you are not on campus, do you see a lot of binge drinking among the people around you? How might this differ from the college experience?
Explanation / Answer
COLLEGE STUDENT HEAVY DRINKING and alcohol-related consequences are major social problems in the United States (Perkins, 2002; Wechsler, Dowdall, Maenner, Gledhill-Hoyt, & Lee, 1998). Twenty years of research has revealed that the highest proportion of heavy drinkers and individuals with diagnosable alcohol-use disorders and multiple substance dependencies are in the age range encompassing over 90% of all enrolled college students, the majority of these individuals being between the ages of 18 and 21 (Grant, 1997; O'Malley & Johnston, 2002). Alcohol drinkers are more likely to have been insulted by others; been confronted with unwanted sexual advances; been a victim of date rape or sexual assault; been in a serious argument or quarrel; been pushed, hit, or assaulted; had their property damaged; been in a situation where they had unplanned sexual activity; put themselves in situations where they were more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV; been injured or had life-threatening experiences; driven while intoxicated, or ridden in a car with an intoxicated driver (Abbey, 2002; Cooper, 2002; Hingson, Heeren, Zakocs, Kopstein, & Wechsler, 2002). Reports such as the following are not uncommon (Turrisi, Jaccard, Taki, Dunnam, & Grimes, 2001):
“My friend had a drinking contest with her boyfriend. They each had five shots of Wild Turkey, two beers, and then started a ‘power hour’ or ‘century’––one shot of beer per minute for 60 minutes. My friend began falling down and looked ill. She laid down to go to sleep and began throwing up for two hours straight. She rolled over and almost choked in her vomit” (anonymous college freshman).
Heavy drinkers are not the only ones who have experienced adverse consequences. Nondrinking college students have their own stories to tell about how others' drinking has affected them:
“My roommate came home very drunk. I didn't want to deal with it. I had three tests the next day and had planned to study instead of playing ‘mom.’ I was really scared though. She was throwing things everywhere and crying. She really stunk and was disgusting. I especially didn't want her to puke in my room. I flunked one test and skipped another; I was so drained. I didn't speak to her at all the next day” (anonymous freshman college student).
Although these anecdotal reports of experiences may be enlightening and motivating to administrators, teachers, public health officials, and anyone else close to students, the epidemiological data reveal just how widespread and damaging the consequences of college student drinking can be. For example, Hingson and colleagues (2002) estimated that approximately 42%, or over 3 million of the 8 million students attending colleges in the U.S. have consumed five or more drinks during a single drinking occasion within the past 30 days. Alcohol is cited as being responsible each year for 1,400 student deaths; 500,000 unintentional injuries; 600,000 student assaults; 112,000 arrests; and 2.1 million cases (approximately 1 in 4) of driving under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al.).
Recent data on college age drinking from NIH, specifically the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)--its first update since an initial review in 1976-- has brought to light the significant consequences of binge drinking among college students. While the incidence of regular drinking has remained stable, the incidence of binge drinking has sharply increased. With it, the many adverse effects of overconsumption of alcohol can be life shattering not only among individuals and friends, but families. This report serves as a reminder of the serious effects of alcohol that may begin in youth and extend into young adulthood.
This report importantly draws attention to the many serious consequences of binge drinking including blackouts, alcohol overdoses, motor vehicle accidents, poor academic performance, falls resulting in serious injuries, as well as the many lasting effects of sexual assaults (unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases), and even death.
For example, numerous studies reveal that as binge drinking increases, a college student’s risk of experiencing adverse effects of alcohol use significantly increases. As an example, a recent study from Harvard revealed that students who binge one or two times during a 2-week period are nearly three times as likely as non–binge drinkers to experience a blackout, have unprotected or unplanned sex, destroy property, suffer an injury, do poorly in school, have a run-in with the police or drive after consuming alcohol.
The bottom line is that the report provided a much needed update about the drinking behavior of college students as well as the negative consequences which are the end result. Contrary to popular beliefs, drinking levels have actually remained relatively unchanged at the same level on college campuses during the past 30 years or so. Two out of five male and female students take part in binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as having more than 5 or more drinks in one sitting for men and four for women.
What is clear from the report is that estimates of the rates of alcohol use and accompanying consequences are far from ideal. Missing data related to drink sizes along with the effects of alcohol on memory highlight the problematic collection of precise data from traditional self-report surveys.
In addition, sexual assaults are often underreported leading to a lack of accuracy in estimating the true scope of the problem. Further, mortality records may often leave out college specific information and because alcohol levels are not checked as commonly in non–traffic-related deaths leaves gaps of knowledge regarding the true number of college students who die from alcohol-related causes on an annual basis. Adding to this, college specific information is generally not contained in most hospital records or crime scene reports.
There are two active national data surveys which evaluate drinking behavior of college students in the US. Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a yearly nationwide survey of alcohol and other drug use with examining 50,000 students in 8th, l0th, and 12th grades pooled from 420 public and private schools. Roughly 2,400 graduating seniors undergo repeat surveys in following years, to examine evolution of trends in aspects of college drinking.
The second tool is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a yearly survey underwritten by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). It involves on one on one interviews with over 67,000 children and teens above the age of 12 examining alcohol and other patterns of drug use.
According to a meta-analysis by Carey and colleagues in 2012, campus initiatives to reduce as well as prevent binge drinking have had a significant impact based on research data. Additional data from MTF suggests that levels of binge drinking are declining among 12th graders, especially males.
As researchers employ more effective measurement tools coupled with improvements in prevention, a reduction in high school drinking will hopefully translate into a downward trend of alcohol use among college students and the negative consequences which can be the end result.
The Social Foundations of Deviance :
Although we tend to view deviance as the free choice or personal failings of individuals, all behavior—deviance as well as conformity—is shaped by society. Three social foundations of deviance identified here will be detailed later in this chapter:
No thought or action is inherently deviant; it becomes deviant only in relation to particular norms. State law permits prostitution in rural areas of Nevada, although the practice is outlawed in the rest of the United States. Twelve states have gambling casinos, twentynine have casinos on Indian reservations, and four other states have casinos at racetracks. In all other states, casino gambling is illegal. Text-messaging while driving is legal in thirty-three states but against the law in seventeen others (six other states forbid the practice for young drivers). Further, most cities and towns have at least one unique law. For example, Mobile, Alabama, outlaws the wearing of stiletto-heeled shoes; Pine Lawn, Missouri, bans saggy, “lowrider” pants; South Padre Island, Texas, bans the wearing of neckties; Mount Prospect, Illinois, has a law against keeping pigeons or bees; Topeka, Kansas, bans snowball fights; Hoover, South Dakota, does not allow fishing with a kerosene lantern; and Beverly Hills, California, regulates the number of tennis balls allowed on the court at one time (R. Steele, 2000; Wittenauer, 2007). Around the world, deviance is even more diverse. Albania outlaws any public display of religious faith, such as “crossing” oneself; Cuba bans citizens from owning personal computers; Vietnam can prosecute citizens for meeting with foreigners; Malaysia does not allow tight-fitting jeans for women; Saudi Arabia bans the sale of red flowers on Valentine’s Day; Iran does not allow women to wear makeup and forbids the playing of rap music (Chopra, 2008).
Everyone violates cultural norms at one time or another. For example, have you ever walked around talking to yourself or “borrowed” a pen from your workplace? Whether such behavior defines us as mentally ill or criminal depends on how others perceive, define, and respond to it.
The law, claimed Karl Marx, is the means by which powerful people protect their interests. A homeless person who stands on a street corner speaking out against the government risks arrest for disturbing the peace; a mayoral candidate during an election campaign doing exactly the same thing gets police protection. In short, norms and how we apply them reflect social inequality.
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