Free Deviance and Social Control MCQs with Answers

98 Deviance and Social Control MCQs from Sociology, each with the correct answer and a written explanation of why it is correct. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.

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  • A. age-specific support
  • B. formal social control
  • C. internalization of norms
  • D. informal social control
  • E. positivism

Explanation: Peer approval operates through informal social control because friends and peers reward or disapprove of behaviour without using official…

Correct answer: informal social control
  • A. Without a deal of grate variation
  • B. Completely irrelevant
  • C. totally in keeping with tradition
  • D. Without a corresponding judgment
  • E. inherently deviant

Explanation: Sociologists generally hold that no behaviour is inherently deviant; deviance depends on social rules and the reactions of others.

Correct answer: inherently deviant
  • A. it is a committed on a larger, often global, scale, and is well organized
  • B. all of the above
  • C. it can have far-reaching effects upon international relations
  • D. it is associated with political conflict between states and their citizens

Explanation: Terrorism is typically organised across a broad, sometimes global scale and is tied to political conflict, with possible effects on…

Correct answer: all of the above
  • A. White collar crime
  • B. none-criminal deviance
  • C. organized crime
  • D. global terrorism

Explanation: The Mafia is a structured criminal organisation involved in continuing illegal activities through coordination, hierarchy, and sometimes…

Correct answer: organized crime
  • A. biological failings drove some people into crime
  • B. no act is intrinsically deviant
  • C. criminals were socialized into an underworld of crime
  • D. women were less likely to be arrested than menSearch Public Records

Explanation: Lombroso’s positivist theory linked criminal behaviour to inherited biological traits or atavistic features, rather than seeing crime as…

Correct answer: biological failings drove some people into crime
  • A. rehabilitation
  • B. recidivism
  • C. reform
  • D. deterrence

Explanation: Recidivism means returning to crime after a previous conviction or period of imprisonment.

Correct answer: recidivism
  • A. burglar alrams
  • B. Steering locks
  • C. anti-social behavior orders
  • D. CCTVTry Prep Courses

Explanation: Target hardening makes crime more difficult by strengthening or protecting a potential target, as with steering locks, burglar alarms and…

Correct answer: anti-social behavior orders
  • A. New Left Realism
  • B. Right Realism
  • C. interactionism
  • D. new criminology

Explanation: New criminology, influenced by Marxism, interpreted crime and deviance in relation to class power and the interests of the ruling class.

Correct answer: new criminology
  • A. Conformists
  • B. innovators
  • C. ritualists
  • D. retrealists

Explanation: Innovators accept dominant cultural goals, such as wealth, but use illegitimate or unapproved means when legitimate opportunities are…

Correct answer: innovators
  • A. criminality
  • B. recidivism
  • C. deviance
  • D. degeneracy

Explanation: Deviance is non-conformity to norms accepted by a significant part of a community or society.

Correct answer: deviance
  • A. victims may not realise that a crime has been committed
  • B. it is more difficult to apportion blame to corporate criminals
  • C. legal systems are founded on individual not collective responsibility
  • D. corporate offences cause less harm than crimes against an individualTrace Family History

Explanation: Corporate offences can cause extensive financial, social and physical harm, so it is incorrect to say they are less harmful than crimes…

Correct answer: corporate offences cause less harm than crimes against an individualTrace Family History
  • A. individual pathology
  • B. social exclusion
  • C. political marginalization
  • D. relative deprivation

Explanation: Left Realists explain crime through social exclusion, political marginalisation and relative deprivation.

Correct answer: individual pathology
  • A. Normlessness
  • B. social strain
  • C. meaninglessness
  • D. social adaptationRun Background Checks

Explanation: For Merton, anomie is the strain produced when society strongly promotes cultural goals but restricts access to legitimate means of…

Correct answer: social strain
  • A. commitment
  • B. stigma
  • C. aspiration
  • D. motivation
  • E. acceptance

Explanation: Labelling theory focuses on how society defines and attaches a stigma to people as deviant, which can shape their identity and future…

Correct answer: stigma
  • A. involvement
  • B. commitment
  • C. religiosity
  • D. belief
  • E. attachment

Explanation: Hirschi identified attachment, commitment, involvement and belief as the four social bonds that restrain deviance.

Correct answer: religiosity
  • A. due to poor parenting
  • B. biological
  • C. psychotic
  • D. learned
  • E. the result of being labelledAccess Government Careers

Explanation: Sutherland argued that criminal behaviour is learned through interaction with others, especially through definitions favourable to law…

Correct answer: learned
  • A. Sexual assault
  • B. drug abuse
  • C. counterfeiting
  • D. terrorism
  • E. robbery

Explanation: Merton’s retreatists reject both culturally approved goals and the legitimate means of achieving them, often withdrawing into drug abuse.

Correct answer: drug abuse
  • A. Weber
  • B. Cohen
  • C. Merton
  • D. Marx
  • E. Chambliss

Explanation: Robert K. Merton adapted Durkheim’s idea of anomie into modern strain theory, explaining deviance as a response to the gap between…

Correct answer: Merton
  • A. juvenile
  • B. Violent
  • C. drug-related
  • D. white collarTry Prep Courses

Explanation: Early biological positivists such as Cesare Lombroso concentrated on serious and violent offenders, whom they regarded as showing…

Correct answer: Violent
  • A. Warning
  • B. Boundary setting
  • C. Unification
  • D. Authoritarian
  • E. Solidarity

Explanation: Durkheim’s view of deviance includes the promotion of social solidarity, because a shared threat can unite people around common values.

Correct answer: Solidarity