Strain Theory
Merton's framework of deviance arising from gap between cultural goals and legitimate means.
Robert K. Merton's Strain Theory was articulated in his 1938 American Sociological Review paper 'Social Structure and Anomie' and elaborated in Social Theory and Social Structure (1949). Merton extended Émile Durkheim's concept of anomie (normative breakdown) to analyze deviance in American society as arising from a structural disjunction between culturally-prescribed goals (success, wealth, status) and the institutional means available to achieve them — when culture intensely emphasizes goals while structures restrict legitimate access to means, individuals experience strain that produces five characteristic adaptations: Conformity (accept goals, accept means — modal); Innovation (accept goals, reject legitimate means — much crime, fraud); Ritualism (reject goals, retain means — bureaucratic compliance without ambition); Retreatism (reject both — addiction, vagabondage); Rebellion (substitute new goals and means). Strain theory was substantially influential in mid-20th-century criminology and sociology of deviance, providing a structural account of criminality alternative to individual-pathology framings. Robert Agnew's General Strain Theory (1992) substantially extended Merton's framework by adding additional sources of strain (loss of valued stimuli, presentation of negative stimuli) beyond goal-blockage, and by attending to emotional mediation between strain and deviance. Strain theory remains a major framework in criminology, though much subsequent work has challenged or refined its specific predictions.
Core components
- Structural disjunction between culturally-prescribed goals and institutional means
- Five adaptations: Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism, Rebellion
- Connection to Durkheim's anomie
- Strain theory of deviance and crime
- Agnew's General Strain Theory extension (additional sources of strain beyond goal-blockage
- emotional mediation)
- Distinction from individual-pathology accounts of crime
- Application to American Dream and social-mobility concerns
- Influence on criminology and sociology of deviance
Primary use case
Criminology and sociology of deviance; analysis of crime and delinquency; foundation for substantial work on crime causation; reference framework in criminology education; basis for some criminological policy discussions about opportunity and social mobility; integration with other criminological frameworks (control theory, learning theory); influence on social-policy thinking about crime prevention through opportunity expansion.
Common criticisms
- Original framework better predicts property crime than violent crime
- assumes uniform cultural goals across society, when sub-cultural variation in goal-emphasis is substantial
- Agnew's General Strain Theory addressed many critiques but added complexity that reduces parsimony
- cross-cultural variation in strain-deviance relationships is substantial
- class biases in original framing — focus on lower-class crime to the exclusion of white-collar crime that may have similar structural roots
- competing criminological frameworks (control theory, learning theory, labeling theory, life-course theory) capture aspects strain theory misses
- quantitative tests of strain theory have produced mixed empirical results
- risk of structural-determinist readings that under-emphasize agency and choice in deviance.
Lineage
- Siblings
- Labeling Theory