Group Work - Coursework Example

Group work Group May 21, Group work Deviance involves contrary behaviors of attitudes to social norms. Positive deviance, whilecontrary to norms, has beneficial effects. Altruism is an example of positive deviance and illustrates Self-Control theory. It defines the belief or action that is selfless to the actor and aims at benefiting another person. Even though social norms expect loyalty among people, this is achieved after considering individual’s fundamental interest. A party that is loyal to another considers interest of the other party and tries to correct selfless initiative for mutual benefits.

Under altruism, however, a person deviates from this norm and risks personal interest in order to benefit another. A risky rescue mission illustrates this and is positive because despite the involved risk, the result is preserved life. Cooperation is another example of positive deviance and is contrary to the norm of participation. Under participation, every party is expected to execute individual responsibility that can then be accumulated to group responsibility. Cooperation, especially understood in the concept of helping people or responding to people’s requests, explains a deviation from the expected individual responsibility in group-work to a team work set up.

A cooperative person may therefore sacrifice and assume additional responsibilities for overall success of a group (Spencer, 2014).Only instantaneous and progressive cultural, economic, and political issues should be taken into consideration because positive deviance operates against norms. Some past or existing cultural, economic, and social issues may therefore be contrary to a positive deviance. Poverty, as an economic need, and political crisis are examples of the issues that can be considered into positive deviance.

ReferenceSpencer, J. (2014). Contexts of deviance: Statuses, institutions, and interactions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.