Conflict Theories

1
Conflict Theories

• 1. Conflict
• 2. Marxist theories
• 3. Feminist Theories
• 4. Quiz 5

2
(No Transcript)
3
Social Policy

• Childbearing and Pregnancy Prevention
• Child Support and Low-Income Fathers
• Workforce Development and Transitional Jobs
• Prisoner Re-Entry
• Couples and Marriage Policy

4
Understanding Conflict

• Conflict is a natural disagreement resulting from
  individuals or groups that differ in attitudes,
  beliefs, values or needs
• It can also originate from past rivalries and
  personality differences
• Examples of conflicting
• values individualism vs
• teamwork, family life vs career,

5
What is conflict?
6
Conformity

• Conformity is the degree to which members of a
  group will change their views and attitudes to
  fit the views of the group
• The group can influence members via unconscious
  processes or via overt social pressure on
  individuals

7
Solomon Aschs experiment (1951)

• Examined the extent to which pressure from other
  people could affect one's perceptions
• He told the subjects he was studying visual
  perception
• The task was to decide which of the bars on the
  right was the same length as the one on the left

8
Solomon Aschs experiment (1951)
9
Solomon Aschs experiment (1951)

• Asch asked the students to give their answers
  aloud
• He repeated the procedure with 18 sets of bars
• Only one student in each group was a real subject
• All the others have been instructed to give
  incorrect answers on 12 of the 18 trials
• Asch arranged for the real subject to be the
  next-to-the-last person in each group to announce
  his answer so that he would hear most of the
  confederates incorrect responses before giving
  his own
• Would he go along with the crowd?

10
Findings

• 37 of the 50 subjects conformed to the majority
  at least once
• 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the 12
  trials
• The mean subject conformed on 4 of the 12 trials
• Asch was disturbed by these results "The
  tendency to conformity in our society is so
  strong that reasonably intelligent and
  well-meaning young people are willing to call
  white black. It raises questions about our ways
  of education and about the values that guide our
  conduct."

11
Why did the subjects conform so readily?

• Interviewed after the experiment
• Most of them said that they did not really
  believe their conforming answers, but had gone
  along with the group for fear of being ridiculed
  or thought "peculiar."
• A few of them said that they really did believe
  the group's answers were correct.

12
Revision

• Asch conducted a revised version of his
  experiment
• Subjects were permitted to write down their
  answers after hearing the answers of others
• Their level of conformity declined to about one
  third what it had been in the original experiment

13
Conclusions

• People conform for two main reasons
• Because they want to be liked by the group
• Because they believe the group is better informed
  than they are
• The group pressure implied by the expressed
  opinion of other people can lead to modification
  and distortion effectively making you see almost
  anything

14
Conformity

• Herbert Kelman identified three subtypes of
  conformity compliance- conforming only
  publicly, but keeping one's own views in private
  identification- conforming while a group member,
  publicly and privately, but not after leaving the
  group internalization- conforming publicly and
  privately, during and after group membership

15
The ingredients of conflict

• Needs - Needs are things that are essential to
  our well-being. Conflicts arise when we ignore
  others' needs, our own needs or the group's needs
  
• Perceptions - People interpret reality
  differently. They perceive differences in the
  severity, causes and consequences of problems

16
The ingredients of conflict

• Power - How people define and use power is an
  important influence on the number and types of
  conflicts that occur. This also influences how
  conflict is managed
• Values - Values are beliefs or principles we
  consider to be very important. Serious conflicts
  arise when people hold incompatible values or
  when values are not clear

17
The ingredients of conflict

• Feelings and emotions - Many people let their
  feelings and emotions become a major influence
  over how they deal with conflict
• Conflicts can also occur because people ignore
  their own or others' feelings and emotions

18
Types of conflict

• Intrapersonal
• Interpersonal
• Intergroup conflicts
• Intragroup conflict
• International conflicts

19
Conflict Theory

• Opposite to the consensus theory (common
  acceptance of basic values such as virtue, honor,
  right, and wrong)
• There is little agreement on basic values
• Society is made up of many competing groups, each
  with different interests
• Law is a weapon that the powerful use to enforce
  their private interests, often at the expense of
  the public interest

20
Conflict Theory

• Crime is a function of the conflict that exists
  in society
• Class conflict
• Different social classes can be distinguished by
  inequalities in such areas as power, authority,
  wealth, working and living conditions,
  life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and
  culture.

21
Capitalism
22
Demoralization of the English Working Class
(Engels)

• The worker is poor, he is deprived of virtually
  all pleasures
• Life has nothing to offer him
• Consequently, he does not fear the penalties of
  law
• Distress due to poverty gives the worker only the
  choice of starving or taking what he needs
  (stealing)

23
Demoralization of the English Working Class
(Engels)

• Capitalistic society breeds hostility between the
  individuals man and everyone else
• If demoralization passes beyond a certain point
  then worker will turn into a criminal
• Acts of violence committed by working class
  against bourgeoisie are frank and undisguised
  retaliation for the thefts perpetrated by the
  middle class against he workers

24
Marxism

• Was interested in the crime rate across types of
  societies
• Was not interested in differences in individuals
  or group behavior within the same society
• Preferred to compare existing capitalist society
  with ideal, future socialistic systems

25
Marxism

• Bourgeoisie and proletariat have different
  interests
• The political and economic philosophy of the
  dominant class influences all the aspect of life
• Consciously or unconsciously artists, writers,
  teachers, and philosophers work to the whims of
  the capitalistic system
• Law system is also influenced by capitaism

26
Marxism on crime

• Crime diverts the lower classes attention from
  the exploitation they experience towards other
  members of their own class, rather than towards
  the capitalist economic system
• Crime enables the ruling class to create false
  consciousness among the ruled by making them
  think that their own interests and those of the
  ruling class are identical
• Members of the ruling class will be able to
  violate the laws with impunity while members of
  the subject classes will be punished

27
Richard Quinney Class, State, and Crime (1980)

• Crime is an inevitable response to the material
  conditions of capitalism
• Crimes of working class crimes of
  accommodation or crimes of resistance
• Crimes of accommodation are predatory crimes,
  such as burglary and robbery (reproduce the
  capitalistic system) and violent crimes, such as
  murder, assault, and rape committed by those who
  are brutalized by capitalism

28
Richard Quinney Class, State, and Crime (1980)

• Crimes of resistance include both
  non-revolutionary, unconscious reactions against
  exploitation and crimes deliberately committed by
  proletariat as acts of rebellion against
  capitalism
• Alcoholism, destroying property, fighting, etc.

29
Quinney on the ruling class

• Crimes committed by the ruling class are the
  result of the capitalistic system as well
• Crimes of domination and repression committed
  by capitalists to protect their interests
• Examples corporate crimes (price fixing, bid
  rigging, security violation)
• Crimes of control are committed by criminal
  justice personnel are the ruling classs effort
  to ensure its continued domination

30
Policy Recommendation

• There can be no solution to crime under
  capitalistic society
• All classes are affected by the egoism and greed
  produced by capitalism
• Change the society (socialism as a different mode
  of economic organization)
• Socialist societies should have much lower rates
  of crime because the less intense class struggle
  should reduce the forces leading to and the
  functions of crime.

31
Feminist Theories

• Criminology has been dominated by males (theory
  is flawed by the masculine perspective)
• Two main issues for Feminist theories of crime
  Do the theories of men crime apply to women?
  and Can the theory explain the well known gender
  difference in crime?

32
Liberal feminism

• Liberation perspective
• Greater equality in education, politics, economy,
  and military
• An unintended consequence of this availability to
  women of a wider range of social roles is their
  greater involvement in crime (arena dominated by
  men)

33
Power- Control Theory of gender and Delinquency
(John Hagan, 1987)

• Explain difference between male and female rates
  of delinquency
• Two types of family structures (Patriarchal
  families vs egalitarian families)
• Socialization within each family structure is
  different the delinquency rate is different
• Parents tend to reproduce themselves
• As mothers gain power relative to husbands,
  daughters gain freedom relative to sons

34
Assessing power-control theory

• The theory is unclear about how delinquency is
  affected by the parenting practices of single
  mothers/or single fathers

35
Quiz 5

• If Karl Marx were alive today, what would he
  think about the prosperity enjoyed by the working
  class in industrial societies? Might he alter his
  vision of the capitalistic system?