Race, Commitment to Deviance, and Spoiled Identity

Abstract

Data generated by 234 young black and white inmates in 1971 challenge the assumption, widely held within the labeling perspective, that spoiled is a necessary, socially invariant outcome of deviant commitment and self-definition. The findings reveal that while for whites self-typing is significantly related to the spoiling of identity, as operationalized by a series of measures of psychological well-being; for blacks the relationship between such typing and identity spoliation is not significant. Even stronger cross-race interaction is observed on a related aspect of identity: while for whites instrumental commitment to criminal choice is also associated with heightened identity spoliation, for blacks higher levels of criminal commitment are associated with lessened spoliation (i.e., higher levels of psychological well-being). An argument is developed which attempts to interpret these findings in the more general theoretical context of caste, social membership, and ascribed versus attained status. It is noted that the findings and their interpretation suggest a line of research of potentially broad significance, not only in terms of labeling theory and its refinement, but in the more general terms of deviance, stratification and mobility.