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• Molly faces a difficult dilemma when she decides whether to conform to the expectations of her friends, or violate university rules. What do you think about the relative importance of conforming to peer expectations, and following university rules? Have you ever had to choose between them?
• College is often seen as a time when young people, away from their home communities for the first time, can begin to break all of the social norms that constrained them at home. However, as Molly's decision about the fountain run illustrates, when we violate family or university norms, we may be doing so precisely in order to conform to the expectations of some other social group. Are there any truly nonconforming acts that a college student can commit? Or is there always some social group who would consider those acts to be conformist?

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• Imagine a fellow college student who never deviates from the norms established by the university. For example, this student is always well-prepared for class, always responds to questions from the professor, and always does well on exams. How do you feel toward this person? Do you like him or her? Why or why not? What does this tell you about deviance in our society?
• According to functionalists, deviance can be functional for society. Obviously, however, there are some negative consequences of deviance as well. Describe these negative consequences. Overall, is our society better off with a lot of deviance, or with no deviance at all?

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• Name some real-life examples of deviance among your friends and family. Based on what you know about the motivation for that deviance, which form of adaptation (from Merton's anomie theory of deviance) does each example best match?
• When someone is sanctioned for deviating from a norm, this can reinforce the importance of that norm for other people. For example, when someone is fined for cheating the IRS, his or her friends may be jolted into being more careful about what they claim in their tax returns. Can you think of other such examples? How do you feel when someone you know "gets away" with violating a norm? Does it ever make you feel like you have a right to violate that norm as well?

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• Discuss the degree of disobedience in your life, relative to that among other people you know. From a sociological perspective, discuss the reasons why you are more or less disobedient than other people.
• Discuss the following question: When we meet the expectations of an authority figure, does this always imply obedience? Or are there some contexts in which this might be considered conformity? Discuss these contexts, if any.