Every Group Needs a Deviant


   
     For many years now sociologists have been arguing that every group of at least five or more persons needs a deviant, and that
members will be constantly on the alert for whatever criterion they can find which might permit them to recruit a particular one of their
fellows for the deviant status. Seeing the deviant (noncomformist) get punished or ostracized for his behavior tends to enhance the
awareness of all group members of the prevailing norms. And it tends to make each group member become more and more mindlessly and
uncritically accepting of the “righteousness” of the prevailing norms.
     This is certainly true for norms regarding what for male children represents inadequately “masculine” behavior. For example, some
thirty years ago social psychologist Muzafer Sherif conducted what has become a classic study of 10-year old boys at a summer camp.
Sherif’s study dealt with a number of important group processes. And for it he recruited about 100 boys, all of whom were the “cream of the
crop” back in their respective communities and elementary schools. Each boy accepted as a research subject was given a free five-week
stay in a Connecticut summer camp. Boys were accepted into the study from all over the state of Connecticut. However, in order to be
accepted for the study all had to be leaders, and at the “top of the pecking order” in the respective fifth grade classrooms from which they
had just graduated. In essence, all of the boys were highly sociable, “normal”, and uninhibited as far as their regular behavior back home
had been concerned.
     Shortly after their arrival at the camp the boys were divided up into twelve-person groups. The boys had all arrived at the camp as
strangers. None of them had known any of their fellow campers before their summer camp experience had begun. Yet within just three days
of the time the various groups were formed, each group of boys had begun to develop a “pecking order”. For the first time in their lives
some of the boys were being bullied, teased, and ostracized. One group singled out a boy for the disparaged (deviant) role because of the
shape of his head--and they called him “lemon head”. Another group singled out a boy because he was not considered fast enough--even
though back home that boy had been faster than any of his classmates.
     In short, even when all the members of a particular group are considered “ultra-normal”, inside of a comparatively short time span
some criterion will be found for creating a pecking order. Especially regarding male children in our highly competitive society, it would
appear that not everybody can be “at the top”. Many of the boys who had been “at the top” in both popularity and respect back in their
heterogeneous fifth grade classrooms now found themselves at the middle or low end of the totum pole.
Sherif’s findings have a bearing upon the “wishbone effect”. If a deviant can be recruited within three days by a group of boys all of whom
had been initially well adjusted and used to being well-respected leaders, it becomes all the easier for us to understand how extremely easy
it can be for a group of many different kinds of school boys to recruit an inhibited, isolated classmate for the disparaged, deviant role. In
short, boys along the “C” line (figure 2; page 41) tend to be highly conspicuous right from the very beginning. And they become ever more
conspicuous as time passes--as they are increasingly ignored, bullied, and deprived of a chance to develop interpersonal skills and a
socially confident self-image. The more conspicuous they are, the more intractably crystalized their disparaged, deviant role becomes.
     Young boys tend to be more insecure than adult men. And in a highly competitive society the more insecure a boys is, the more he
will revel in ostracizing and bullying his shy, inhibited classmate. The bully is thus reminded a good deal more often of what the norms are
than the better adjusted, more secure boys. The bully is frequently reminded of the norms because he is almost constantly teasing, hazing
and bullying the inhibited “deviant” for violating them. The tragedy, of course, is that the inhibited, isolated boy cannot help violating the
masculine behavior norms. The inhibited, shy boy is only being true to his native, inborn temperament--and he is being punished for thus
being himself.