Anomie

 

Merton is also responsible for the modern usage of the term “anomie.” Drawing upon the 19th century work of the great French sociologist, Émile Durkheim, Merton applied the idea of anomie to the disjunction in American society between almost universally shared values and aspirations to be successful and extremely different opportunities for individuals located in different social strata to actually achieve success. He focused on the American dream and examined the responses of individuals to frustrated opportunities to become successful and how structurally induced anomie could lead to deviant behavior. Merton’s theory of deviant behavior as related to anomie was the dominant theory for many decades among American social scientists. Merton expanded the theory of social structure and anomie so that applied to other institutional domains, most notably in his effort to account for deviant behavior in science. There he showed that scientists place a strong emphasis on originality and in peer recognition for their contributions to knowledge. If the means to those ends are frustrated by a lack of opportunities or because of pressure to succeed, legitimate means for achieving success may yield to illegitimate, or deviant means.

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