Robert Merton's Strain Theory Essay

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Robert Merton played a very important role during the 1900’s. Merton lived from July 4,1910 to February 23, 2003, and stated that society is set up to encourage much deviance in young adults. Merton believed that societal norms placed too much pressure on the average american, which made them place themselves in a category that did deviant actions to achieve the goals of an upper class american. Merton later named this concept the strain theory. Merton was mainly concerned that societies like the United States did not provide the means to reach cultural goals. Merton had five types of adaption, conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. Two to three of which will be gone over. Conformity occurs when individuals accept the culturally defined goals and the socially legitimate means of achieving them. An example of this would be the want of a nice …show more content…
Rebellion occurs when an individual rejects both culturally defined goals and means and substitutes new goals and means. For example, rebels may use social or political activism to replace the goal of personal wealth with the goal of social justice and equality. This person wants nothing to do with the general standards set for the average human being. They go their own way to live their own lifestyle. Most of the time, they have little to no contact with the outside world and everything that surrounds them daily. In sociology, the strain theory states that social structures within society pressure citizens to commit crime. A good, broad example of this is when young adults can not make the social expectations of society, so they get in a gang and commit crimes every day such as sell drugs, vandalize, or even harm innocent people. Does society place too much pressure on people who do not have easy access to means of a wealthy lifestyle? Do they expect too much out of them? Merton was one who may have just understood how much pressure was put on an
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