Merton identified five modes of adaptation that people adopt in response to societal pressure. Select two to discuss and explain.
What will be an ideal response?
1. Conformity is the most common mode of adaptation because most people have at their disposal the means to legally attain cultural goals. Conformists accept the success goals of American society and the prescribed means of attaining them (hard work, education, persistence, and dedication).
2. Ritualism is the adaptation of the nine-to-five slugger who has given up on ever achieving material success but who, nevertheless, continues to work within legitimate boundaries because he or she accepts the legitimacy of the opportunity structure.
3. Innovation is the adaptation of the criminal who accepts the cultural goals of monetary success but rejects legitimate means of attaining them. Innovation is the mode of adaptation most associated with crime. For Merton, crime is an innovative avenue to success—a method by which deprived people (the not-so-deprived also) get what they have been taught by their culture to want.
4. Retreatism is adopted by those who reject both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means of attaining them. Retreatists drop out of society and often take refuge in drugs, alcohol, and transience and are frequently in trouble with the law.
5. Rebellion is the adaptation of those who reject both the goals and the means of American society but wish to substitute alternative legitimate goals and alternative legitimate means. Rebels may be committed to some form of sociopolitical ideal, such as socialism.
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