Assessing the Linkage of Norms, Environments, and Deviance

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Panel data from a study of adolescent drinking practices are used to study the relationship of norms, deviance, and social environments. Using these data, a test is made of contrasting perspectives which differentially emphasize the extent of individual activity in the construction and maintenance of social order. The normative paradigm emphasizes the impact on individual behavior of normative structures and the groups with which individuals have affiliated themselves. The interpretive paradigm emphasizes the extent to which norms and group affiliations can be changed to support behavior which the individual has found rewarding. The results indicate that elements of both perspectives are applicable in the case of drinking among first-year college students. Norms influence both one's own drinking behavior and through a process of selection that of one's five best friends; and whether one drinks influences both one's drinking-related norms and the drinking habits of those we select as friends. It is a common observation that there are fairly strong associations among what we do, what we believe we ought to do, and what our friends do. And from these patterns of association we have typically inferred the existence of order in the lives of individuals. But how is this order to be explained? Accounts for this apparent order differ as to how constraining and susceptible to change normative structures are and how active man is in the face of social influence. The normative paradigm, for example, emphasizes the impact of norms and significant others on deviance, and attributes the order in the relationships among persons and within the social words in which people live to the power of norms and significant others. The interpretive paradigm, by contrast, begins with the assumption that norms cannot be taken as givens, and that significant others do not appear full blown on the scene. Thus, order cannot be taken for granted; it is, rather, problematic and must be negotiated. Consequently the order *This project was supported in part by NIMH Grant no. M-4302 and NIAAA Grant no. lRol AA00972-01. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Angela O'Rand, Charles Tittle, David Seidman, and Gerald Wright for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.