Following on the work of Émile Durkheim's theory of anomie, strain theory has been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Neil Smelser (1963), Robert Agnew (1992), Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld (1994) and Jie Zhang (2012).
[1] The theory states that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve socially accepted goals (such as the American Dream), even though they lack the means to do so.
[1] Strain could be: Robert King Merton was an American sociologist who argued that the social structure of a society can encourage deviance to a large degree.
Merton believed that society's emphasis on certain socially accepted goals put pressure on people to conform in order to achieve success.
[1] His theory was developed largely due to the social and economic circumstances occurring in the United States during the early 1900s.
For example, when wages are low, people may turn to illicit activities, such as prostitution, drug dealing, or gambling to achieve financial success.
Agnew believed that Merton's theory was too vague in nature and did not account for criminal activity which did not involve financial gain.
[6] The theory was developed to conceptualize the full range of sources in society where strain possibly comes from, rather than Merton's focus on monetary goals and proper means.
Examples of General Strain Theory are people who use illegal drugs to make themselves feel better, or a student assaulting his peers to end the harassment they caused.
Second, the diminished value of social institutions, such as family and education, which would usually help to reduce crime rates and provide legitimate opportunities become far less effective.
In order for the society to continue existing, these obligations must be fulfilled at the volition of the individuals in it, which the theory states is what most people are inclined to do.
[14] In the year 1992, Robert Agnew asserted that strain theory could be central in explaining crime and deviance, but that it needed revision so that it was not tied to social class or cultural variables, but re-focused on norms.
If particular rejections are generalized into feelings that the environment is unsupportive, more strongly negative emotions may motivate the individual to engage in crime.
This is most likely to be true for younger individuals, and Agnew suggested that research focus on the magnitude, recency, duration, and clustering of such strain-related events to determine whether a person copes with strain in a criminal or conforming manner.
Temperament, intelligence, interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, the presence of conventional social support, and the absence of association with antisocial (e.g., criminally inclined) age and status peers are chief among the factors Agnew identified as beneficial.
[16] In recent years, Zhang and colleagues have argued that socio-psychological strain factors were more indicative than mental disorders in suicide ideation and risk.
An example Zhang gives is a second-generation immigrant in the US who must abide by the ethnic rules of their family while also adapting to American culture at school and with peers.
An example would be a young adult moving to a large city, expecting to become successful and live an affluent lifestyle, only to find that the means to achieve this might not be equally available due to their social status.
This type of strain is more common in economically polarized societies where the rich and poor live geographically close to one another, although social media has also done much to create a sense of relative deprivation, especially amongst the youth.
He analyzes a large body of data on delinquency collected in Western Contra Costa County, California that contrast with strain theory.