“With suitable examples, explain how conformity and deviance coexist in a society as propounded by R. K. Merton.” (2021)
For Robert K. Merton, conformity and deviance do not come from two different kinds of people. They are two outcomes of one social structure. In “Social Structure and Anomie” (1938), expanded in Social Theory and Social Structure (1949; 1957), he showed that the values which win most people’s conformity also push some people into deviance.
One set of goals, many responses
- Every society holds out cultural goals (in the United States, monetary success) and institutionalised means (schooling, hard work). When the goal is stressed far more than the means, and legitimate means are unevenly spread across classes, the result is strain.
- Conformity is the most common response and keeps society stable. Other adaptations accept part of the shared culture and reject part. Deviance is thus a normal response of normal people to their structural position.
Deviance built out of conformity
- Innovation keeps the goal and drops the means. In November 2024 the CBSE withdrew the affiliation of 21 schools in Delhi and Rajasthan (including Kota and Sikar) for “dummy”, non-attending admissions. Families accepted the goal of a medical or engineering seat and bent school rules to reach it. Crime in India 2024 (released May 2026) shows the same pattern: 73,987 of 1,01,928 cybercrime cases were frauds, money sought by illegitimate means inside a legitimate digital economy.
- Ritualism drops the goal but clings to the rules. The rule-bound clerk looks respectable, so deviance hides inside apparent conformity.
- Rebellion replaces both goals and means; its deviance can become tomorrow’s conformity.
Why the two need each other
- Nonconformity versus aberrant behaviour: in “Social Problems and Sociological Theory” (1961), Merton separated the nonconformist, who dissents openly and appeals to a higher morality, from the aberrant, who breaks norms in secret for gain. M. K. Gandhi’s breach of the salt law in 1930 was deviant under colonial law and later became part of the new nation’s moral order.
- Reference groups: conforming to a non-membership group (anticipatory socialisation) means deviating from one’s own group.
- Deviance can have latent functions: Merton’s political machine met needs that legitimate institutions neglected.
Limits
Albert K. Cohen (Delinquent Boys, 1955) found much deviance collective and non-utilitarian. Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young (The New Criminology, 1973) argued that Merton assumes a value consensus and ignores who makes the rules.
Conclusion
Merton’s lasting point is that conformity and deviance grow from the same cultural root. The more a society praises success while rationing the routes to it, the more its most committed members will also be tempted to break its rules. The remedy lies in widening legitimate opportunity, not only policing.