Social sanction

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Social sanctions describe social action with which the actions of others are answered in an evaluative manner. They can be presented verbally (in words) or expressed in appropriate gestures (evaluating). While " sanctions " in everyday language are mainly understood as attempts to influence the actions of others (for example in upbringing ), in sociology the strengthening of the validity of norms and the maintenance of boundaries in social groups were also discussed as benefits of the sanction.

In sociology, a distinction is made between positive and negative sanctions, but also specific and unspecific sanctions. Negative sanctions are punishments , positive ones are rewards or confirmations of action . Specific sanctions are open, non-specific sanctions that are pronounced as such and can be diffuse and subtle and allow the person sanctioning to withdraw in the event of a conflict by stating that one has not sanctioned at all.

Sociological themes

a)

The individualistic form of sanctioning focuses on the actions of individuals. “Reactions to deviations from regular behavior, which demonstrate that deviant behavior is not accepted.” This remains in a view that is close to the economic rational choice perspective and is not very sociological in its individual focus.

b)

Sanctions strengthen the validity of the norm . “Sanction means [...] a negative reaction that confirms what has been deviated from. The affirmation arises from the disapproval of the deviation . So we are only allowed to define negative reactions as sanctions, in which a targeted disapproval of the deviation is expressed. ”However, Popitz maintains that not every deviation can be punished: The number of possible offenses is so high that logistically not everything can be responded to. Even more, a constant reaction would endanger the defense of the norm again: “The punishment can only maintain its social effectiveness as long as the majority does not get what it deserves”, otherwise the exceptional character of the deviation would be endangered. If it became aware that everyone is constantly deviating, the distinctive character of the sanction would no longer be preserved.

c)

Sanctions can be a means to groups over other groups delineate . Sanctioning then means excluding in order to preserve the boundaries of one's own group. This does not have to be based on the exclusion of an entire person: Sanctions exclude behavior, characteristics, etc. from one's own group. The expected “insight” of the sanctioned person would then be to be understood sociologically as a swing to the definition of the situation of the sanctioned person: Both of them jointly disapprove of an act that one of the two has committed. By also disapproving of the “perpetrator”, he “separates” into two parts. The one who committed the act and the “newcomer” who is ashamed of it and wants to continue to be included in the group that disapproves of the act.

Legitimation of the sanction

The sanction is regarded as an exceptional reaction which, if it were not a sanction, would itself be a breach of the norm and must therefore follow a “ reaction norm ”: Prison sentences would be deprivation of liberty if they were not justified as a sanction. In everyday life, too, attacks on others are legitimized by calling on a broken norm ("I do that because you did something wrong"). In sociology, it has often been noted that it remains quite unclear who ultimately decides whether an action as a reaction is justified or not. This was based on the intentions of the sender, on the interpretation of the recipient, on “group public” or “third parties”. Against these attempts it was argued that they ultimately represented a search for a firm anchorage and that as a sociological researcher of society one cannot and cannot find such a firm anchorage. Ultimately, sociology remains to investigate who can justify an action and how in a social process. H. Anyone who successfully defines a norm as broken and can have this definition recognized in a relevant social space, which then leads to an action based on it first having to be defined as a sanction in a social process.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: retaliation  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Ralf Dahrendorf , Homo Sociologicus . An attempt at the history, meaning and criticism of the category of the social role , [1965], 16th ed. 2006, VS Verlag Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-531-31122-7 .
  2. ↑ See Heinrich Popitz , The normative construction of society , Tübingen 1980.
  3. ↑ Gerd Spittler (1967): Norm and Sanction. Olten, p. 20.
  4. ↑ Popitz (1980), p. 28.
  5. ↑ Heinrich Popitz (1968): About the preventive effect of not knowing . Tübingen, p. 20.
  6. ^ Kai T. Erikson (1966): Wayward Puritans. A Study in the Sociology of Deviance. New York.
  7. ^ Erving Goffman (1972): Relations in Public. New York.
  8. ↑ Jack P. Gibbs (1966): Sanctions. Social Problems 14: 147 ff., P. 154.
  9. ↑ Gibbs 1966
  10. ↑ Spittler 1967.
  11. ^ Talcott Parsons (1964): The Social System. Glencoe.
  12. ↑ Popitz 1980.
  13. ↑ Michael Dellwing (2008): Pending sanctions. Sanctions as floating signifiers and a sociology of sanctions without norms. Austrian Journal for Sociology 33: 3ff.
  14. ↑ cf. Helge Peters (2009): Deviance and social control. Weinheim; Wolfgang Keckeisen (1974): The social definition of deviant behavior. Perspectives and limits of the labeling approach. Munich.
  15. ↑ Michael Dellwing (2009): A circle with five sanctions. Austrian Journal for Sociology 34: 43ff.