Conforming to a social norm, but doing so by showing deviant behavior, is an example of what?

• A. Innovation
• B. Ritualism
• C. Rebellion
• D. Retreatism

Answer: (A)

This is about how people adapt to pressure to achieve culturally valued goals when the usual ways to get there are blocked. In this view, innovation happens when someone accepts the goal (like wealth or success) but uses deviant means to reach it. So conforming to the idea of becoming successful, while the path to get there involves deviant behavior, fits innovation best. An example would be someone who pursues financial success but achieves it through fraud or illegal activity—the goal remains valued, but the method is deviant. The other patterns don’t match because ritualism sticks to the means while dropping the goal, rebellion rejects both the goal and the means for a new system, and retreatism withdraws from both.