Positive Deviance

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Positive Deviants are whose special attitudes or behaviors enable them to function more effectively than others with the same resources and conditions.

American Behavioral Scientist, Gretchen Spreitzer, clinical professor of management and organizations, and Ph.D. student Scott Sonenshein define positive deviance as "intentional behaviors that significantly depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways."

Positive deviance differs from related pro-social types of behaviors, such as organizational citizenship, whistle-blowing, corporate social responsibility and creativity/innovation.

"Positive deviance focuses on those extreme cases of excellence when organizations and their members break free from the constraints of norms to conduct honorable behaviors," Spreitzer says. "It [positive deviance] has profound effects on the individuals and organizations that partake and benefit from such activities."

In defining positive deviance, Spreitzer and Sonenshein argue for a normative approach, which implies the evaluation of conduct (that ought or ought not to occur) by a specific body of people (a referent group) whose expectations determine regular or typical behaviors. The researchers say, positively deviant behavior must be something others would extol or commend, if aware of it, and must focus on actions with honorable intentions, independent of outcomes. -Understanding the Impact of Positive Deviance in Work Organizations - Positive deviance may help scholars understand and promote positive behaviors in the workplace. - DeGroat, Bernie. University of Michigan Business School Newsroom.

Positive deviance: a new paradigm for addressing today's problems today
Sternin, Jerry, The Journal of Corporate Citizenship
This paper examines the new development paradigm of `positive deviance'. In communities throughout the world, there are a few `deviant' individuals whose uncommon behaviours or practices enable them to outperform or find better solutions to pervasive problems than their neighbours with whom they share the same resource base. Identifying these `positive deviants' can reveal hidden resources already present in the environment, from which it is possible to devise solutions that are cost-effective, sustainable and internally `owned and managed'.

Positive deviance among athletes: the implications of overconformity to the sport ethic
Hughes, R., Coakley, J.
Author Affiliation: Sociology Department, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150, USA.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to develop a working definition of positive deviance and use the definition in an analysis of behaviour among athletes. It is argued that much deviance among athletes involves excessive over-conformity to the norms and values embodied in sport itself. When athletes use the 'sport ethic', which emphasizes sacrifice for the game, seeking distinction, taking risks, and challenging limits as an exclusive guide for their behaviour, sport and sport participation become especially vulnerable to corruption. Although the sport ethic emphasizes positive norms, the ethic itself becomes the vehicle for transforming behaviours that conform to these positive norms, into deviant behaviours that are prohibited and negatively sanctioned within society and within sport organizations themselves. Living in conformity to the sport ethic is likely to set one apart as a 'real athlete', but it creates a clear-cut vulnerability to several kinds of deviant behaviour. This presents unique problems of social control within sport. The use of performance enhancing drugs in sport is identified as a case in point, and an approach to controlling this form of positive deviance is discussed.

The Positive Deviance Initiative (PDI) is a network organization which is dedicated to amplifying the use of the Positive Deviance (PD) approach to enable communities worldwide to solve seemingly “intractable” problems which require behavioral and social change.
From: [http://www.positivedeviance.org]
The term “Positive Deviance” initially appeared in nutrition research literature with the publication of a book entitled” Positive Deviance in Nutrition” by Tufts University nutrition professor, Marian Zeitlin, in the 1990s, where she compiled a dozen surveys that documented the existence of “Positive Deviant” children in poor communities who were better nourished than others. In this book, IZeitlin and her colleagues advocated for the use of this concept to address childhood malnutrition issues at the community level by identifying what was going right in the community in order to amplify it, as opposed to focusing on what was going wrong in the community and fixing it.
In the early 1990’s, Jerry Sternin, a visiting scholar at Tufts University, and his wife, Monique, experimented with Zeitlin’s ideas and operationalized the Positive Deviance concept as a tool to promote behavior and social change to organize various Positive Deviance-centered social change interventions around the world .
The Sternins helped to institutionalize Positive Deviance as a social change approach by demonstrating its successful application, first to childhood malnutrition, and then expanded its successful application to a variety of seemingly intractable problems in diverse sectors, such as public health, education, and child protection, among others.

Random Acts of Kindness: A Teaching Tool for Positive Deviance.
Jones, Angela Lewellyn
Teaching Sociology, v26 n3 p179-89 Jul 1998
Abstract: Presents a learning activity designed to illustrate the concept of positive social deviance to introductory sociology students. Describes the background to the lesson, the assignment, student observations during the activity, student reactions to it, and warnings to instructors considering replicating the assignment.

Reactions to positive deviance: Social identity and attribution dimensions
Journal: Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
Fielding, K. S., Hogg, M. A., Annandale, N.
Abstract: This research examines whether evaluations of positive deviates (i.e. high achieving group members) are influenced by the attributions they make for their performance. We argue that ingroup positive deviates who make group attributions help enhance the ingroup's image and thus attract favorable evaluations. In Experiment 1, ingroup positive deviates who made group attributions were generally evaluated more favorably than ingroup positive deviates who made individual attributions. There was also evidence that the positive deviates' attribution style influenced group and self-evaluations. Evaluations of outgroup positive deviates were not influenced by their attribution style. In Experiment 2, an ingroup positive deviate who was successful and attributed that success to the group was upgraded relative to an ingroup positive deviate who made individual attributions. Group evaluations were also higher when the positive deviate made group attributions. This pattern did not emerge when the positive deviate failed. The results are discussed from a social identity perspective.

Applying the Concept of Positive Deviance to Public Health Data: A Tool for Reducing Health Disparities
Walker, Lorraine O.1; Sterling, Bobbie Sue2; Hoke, Mary M.3; Dearden, Kirk A.4
Public Health Nursing, Volume 24, Number 6, November/December 2007 , pp. 571-576(6)
Abstract: The concept of positive deviance (PD), which highlights uncommon practices that reduce risk in low-resource communities, has been effective in community mobilization and programming to improve health outcomes. We present a protocol for extending the concept to analysis of existing public health data. The protocol includes assessing whether PD fits the situation, identifying positive deviants, and identifying behaviors associated with positive deviants' healthy outcomes. Analyzing existing datasets from a PD perspective may aid public health nurses in efforts to reduce health disparities. The effectiveness of our protocol will be clarified in future research.

Toward the Construct Definition of Positive Deviance
Gretchen M. Spreitzer, University of Michigan Business School
Scott Sonenshein, University of Michigan Business School
American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47, No. 6, 828-847 (2004) DOI: 10.1177/0002764203260212
In this article, the authors develop a definition of positive deviance, a foundational construct in positive organizational scholarship. They offer a normative definition of positive deviance: intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways. The authors contrast this normative perspective on deviance with statistical, supra conformity, and reactive perspectives on deviance. They also develop research propositions that differentiate positive deviance from related prosocial types of behaviors, including organizational citizenship, whistle-blowing, corporate social responsibility, and creativity/innovation. Finally, the authors offer some initial ideas on how to operationalize positive deviance.

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