“The “normal” person, when he discovers a deviant impulse in himself, is able to check that impulse by thinking of the manifold consequences acting on it would produce for him. He has staked too much on continuing to be normal to allow himself to be swayed by unconventional impulses.”

Source: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963), pp. 27-28.

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Howard S. Becker photo
Howard S. Becker 35
American sociologist 1928

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