Albert Cohen\'s Status Frustration Theory PDF

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Albert Cohen's Status Frustration Theory...

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Albert Cohen’s Status Frustration Theory  Delinquent boy adaptation- explains gang behavior and nonutilitarian activity  -a sub/counter culture  Flout middle class norms  Act in the exact opposite way dictated by mc values  Ridicule smart and working-class kids and college boy kids  Don’t see themselves as inferior  Don’t measure themselves with mc measuring rods***  Compared with rebels of Merton theory  Rejected normal goals, means and values and substituted new goals, means, and values  Choose to pursue means that will help them achieve counter culture goals  Achieve delinquency through this exact opposition  Do this to cope w guilt, self-hatred  The old mc standards are still there and continue to press for recognition threatening to bring back feelings of self-hatred  Still important for them  Unconscious level  Hence, they engage in reaction formation to feelings of repressed self-hatred  A reaction formation is an overreaction and an abnormally intense response

 Because they are overreacting, they commit their nonutilitarian crimes w such malice, hostility, and zest  Unconscious level- things you want to repress, want to keep hidden, you’re ashamed about  At the conscious level you have to come up with a psychological defense  One way to repress this is to act in the exact opposite fashion  Has to act in the opposite way all the time

 Cohen says on the conscious level they’ve formed a counter culture that flouts and deliberately violates mc standards  But on the unconscious level they still measure themselves by middle-class measuring rods- they still feel like failures  Because these feelings persist, they have to constantly act in the opposite fashion to prove they don’t care  Do this all the time in order to repress what’s really going on  Abnormally intense response- you can tell something strange is going on- they are so abnormally intense about violating middle-class culture  Explains why they commit non-utilitarian crimes with such malice, zest, and hostility- because of the reaction formation  Explains what motivates delinquent boy adaptation  Examples of specific crimes where people are deliberately flouting middle class culture  Vandalism, arson, stealing for fun, fighting  All non-utilitarian  Property is a badge of social status- mc has high regards for property rights- mc you are measured by what you own- nice cars nice clothes

 Gang boys deliberately violate those standards by destroying property- vandalism- spray painting, keying, scratching expensive cars-nice cars, arson  Attacks middle class ego and sense of status  Convince themselves in part they don’t care about standards and how they didn’t achieve this

 Mc places a lot of emphasis on working hard to get things- delinquent boys will steal for fun- just throw it away  Steal cars, drag racing, joy riding, crashing-clearly not interested in the car itself or making money off of it  Delinquency is the delinquent boy’s way of expressing contempt towards middle-class values and prestige  Delinquent boys turning middle-class values on their head

 Also solves some problems w Merton’s strain theory and cultural deviance theory  Solves Merton’s by explaining non-utilitarian crime  Also solves problem of being too atomistic- his delinquent boys have formed a counter culture and defined delinquency as prestigious  Doesn’t have cultural deviance problems of ignoring social constraints- because they’re not as likely to be smart in school  Crime is going to be higher in lc not in terms of values but in terms of constraints- identifies origins of delinquent boy adaptations  Counter culture comes from the coping mechanism that these boys have failed in school  Unlike cultural deviance values that lead to crime don’t come from parents-parents want kids to do well in school and are upset that they’re not doing well

 Cohen aslo explains strains with adolescence- why crime is high in teen years 17-22 then aging out- has been a problem for a number of other theories- they assume that failure to achieve cultural goals power wealth and prestige is what leads to crime- doesn’t explain why crime is lower in adulthood  Kids are frustrated not because they can’t achieve power, wealth, and prestige. They’re experiencing strain from not doing well in school  Cohens strain comes from not doing well in school-they’re failing at school not failing at achieving cultural goals- power wealth prestige  accounts for why crime is so high in teen years  Cohens Critique  1 problem with middle class bias  With all the strain theorists  Cohen assumes lc people really wanna be really mc  Failing to achieve mc measuring rods  Do lower class people really want to be middle class- do well in school have mc family name, work hard?  Millers cultural deviance will say from the very beginning they have different values

 2 ignores white collar and corporate crimes as well as delinquency from mc/uc  Does not explain utilitarian crimes  People who have achieved success in mc/uc measuring rods still commit crime  Cannot explain drug use and vandalism and truancy in mc and uc kids- they do have the family reputation, money, and good grades

 3 cannot explain maturing out of crime  He explains increase in crime from 17-22  The strain on adolescents- school grades reputation- identifies source of frustration/strain  Doesn’t explain why they would mature out of crime  If we bought into his notion completely, we would say that even as adults they are still not achieving mc standards and measuring rods  Yet they stop doing malicious and petty crimes  If failing at mc measuring rods is what motivates them to do crime, why do they stop?

 4 cannot explain why lc delinquents do not attack mc against whom they are rebelling  Most victims of lc dealing are lc delinquents  Gang fighting and bullying in school are also lc  Cars and houses they spray paint or vandalize are lc  For Merton rebellion means you reject goals and means  Reject both goals and means to achieve them- substitute new goals and new means  Classic example of rebels is the hippies and counter culture of the 1960s  Mc kids on the way to achieving goals not interested in power wealth and prestige  Rejected these goals  Substituted new goals- peace non utilitarian lifestyle  New means- making a commune living off the land

 People would argue Cohen is also using rebellion similar to Mertonrejecting middle-class measuring rods- working hard at school doing well  Substituted new goals- violating middle class standards- engaging in crime  Some criminologists say Cohens delinquency looks like Merton’s rebellion

 VERY IMPORTTANT  Critiques say why are so many of the victim’s lower class  Shouldn’t they be rebelling against mc and upper-class  That’s the problem with Cohens delinquency as a form of Merton’s rebellion...