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3 results

  • 4 - Anomie and strain

  • Ana Rodas, Western Sydney University, Melanie Simpson, Paddy Rawlinson, Western Sydney University, Ronald Kramer, University of Auckland, Emma Ryan, Deakin University, Victoria, Emmeline Taylor, City University London, Reece Walters, Deakin University, Victoria, Alan Beckley, Western Sydney University, Chris Cunneen, University of Technology, Sydney, Ashlee Gore, Western Sydney University, Amanda Porter, University of Melbourne, Scott Poynting, Western Sydney University, Emma Russell, La Trobe University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Crime, Deviance and Society
    Published online:
    31 October 2020
    Print publication:
    25 August 2020, pp 77-99

  • Summary

    In this chapter on strain theory, the influence of positivism continues to be present; however, the focus changes from the level of the community to the broader influence of society and culture on regulation, socialisation and consequences of behaviour. Strain theory proposes that individuals are not solely responsible for their deviant and criminal behaviours; rather their actions are normal responses or adaptations to pressures generated by society’s structure and culture. This chapter will discuss the trajectory of ‘strain’ theory from Emile Durkheim’s concept of ‘anomie’ through to Robert Merton’s ‘structural strain theory’ and Robert Agnew’s ‘general strain theory’. A number of deviant and criminal behaviours will also be discussed to consider how ‘strain’ theories address the interplay between social structures, cultural context and individual responses. First though, Durkheim’s most significant contribution to the discipline of sociology, ‘social facts,’ will be explored. This represented a new approach to understanding the social world, informing Durkheim’s seminal work on anomie and the collective consciousness and later influencing the development of strain theory.

  • 11 - Work and Unemployment as Stressors

  • from Part II - The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness
  • Edited by Teresa L. Scheid, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Tony N. Brown, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
  • Book:
    A Handbook for the Study of Mental Health
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    16 November 2009, pp 213-225

  • Summary

    The biological or medical approach views mental illness as if it were a disease or physical defect in the brain or body. Within the social approach, there are three dominant theories of mental illness etiology: stress theory, structural strain theory and labeling theory. This chapter describes each theory's basic concepts and assumptions, theoretical limitations and advantages, and implications for treating or preventing mental illness. According to stress theory, when events and strains accumulate in people's lives, they can overwhelm people's psychosocial resources and abilities to cope and then generate symptoms of psychological disorder. Labeling theory picks up at this point and suggests that frequent, severe, or highly visible symptoms or symptoms exhibited by those with little social prestige or power, can launch a victimizing process. Societal reactions to symptoms may result in the person's receiving a formal psychiatric diagnosis, becoming hospitalized, and, ultimately, accepting a mental patient identity.

  • 3 - Social science, psychiatry and psychosis

  • from Part I - Theoretical and conceptual foundations
    • By Craig Morgan, Section of Social and Cultural Psychiatry Health Service and Population Research Department Box 33, Institute of Psychiatry De Crespigny Park, London, UK
  • Edited by Craig Morgan, Kwame McKenzie, University College London, Paul Fearon
  • Book:
    Society and Psychosis
    Published online:
    07 December 2009
    Print publication:
    20 March 2008, pp 25-40

  • Summary

    The relationship between psychiatry and the social sciences has a chequered history, with examples of both fruitful collaboration and periods of extreme animosity, the legacy of which is an ongoing ambivalence of each towards the other. Perhaps the core idea that unified the amorphous perspectives of the 'antipsychiatry' movement was that mental illness was a myth, a social construction designed to silence difference. Research in the social sciences has an important contribution to make to the understanding of how social contexts shape the course and outcome of schizophrenia and other psychoses, and how one can intervene to moderate these contexts and improve long-term outcomes. From the inception of the discipline, sociologists have been interested in the social patterning and determinants of health and illness. This body of work can be considered under two headings: structural strain theory and social stress theory.