The Deviance Spiral

Abstract

The fourth stage in my deviant career model is the deviance spiral. It is a continuation and further degeneration of the third stage: originating in a dilemma caused by the substantial consumer’s inability to neutralize societal norms. The problematic consumers in my study did not have a norm system significantly different from the rest of society. When I penetrated behind the façade they show to the straight world, I discovered that they believe that what they are doing is wrong, and it is they who need to change, not society. Most of them hold rather conservative values and long to be like everyone else. Yet day after day they break norms they accept. Consequently their behaviour not only provokes negative reactions from others but from them themselves as well. It is therefore difficult for them to maintain their self-images at the current (low) level. They are in constant danger of having to redefine their self-image in a negative direction, leading to a vicious spiral where the escalation of secondary deviance is taken as proof by everyone (including the substantial consumer himself) of his worthlessness. The self-image is ‘devaluated’ still further, leading to increasingly serious secondary deviance. He has entered into the vicious spiral described in Figure 6.3.