The theory of control balance explains deviance as a product of the ten-
sion between motivation and constraint when individuals try to rectify
imbalances of control. Deviant behavior occurs when several variables
come together in a favorable alliance. First, provocative features of a situ-
ation activate predispositions toward deviant motivation, generating a
perception that deviance will enable the individual to alter a control im-
balance; second, an opportunity to deviate exists; and third, the probabil-
ity that deviance will activate controlling responses is propitious. The
chances of deviance, in general, are a product of the magnitude of moti-
vation and opportunity, but the probability of particular kinds of de-
viance is the result of a complex interplay between motivation, opportu-
nity, and constraint.

The most important concepts in the theory are control, deviant motiva-
tion, constraint, and opportunity, but they are meaningful only in refer-
ence to a number of additional concepts. Control is defined broadly to in-
corporate the idea of total ability to limit the behavioral options of others
and resist such limitations on one's own behavioral options. Behavior is
portrayed as an expression, though modulated and deflected by various
circumstances, of an individual's control ratio, or amount of control that
can be exercised relative to the control that is experienced. The control ra-
tio, a complicated mix of elements bearing on the interplay of control exer-
cised or experienced, along with a fundamental desire for autonomy and
some basic human needs, is described as intersecting in various ways to
structure a person's predisposition for deviant motivation. Transfor-
mation of those predispositions into actual deviant motivations by provo-
cations (acts or conditions that generate a perception that deviant behavior
may alter a control imbalance) represents one condition for the occurrence
of deviant behavior, and the presence of opportunity (circumstances mak-
ing deviance possible) is another. The type of deviance likely to be com-
mitted, however, depends on the potential for countercontrol, which is a
reflection of the control ratio, the seriousness of the deviance, and risk (the
chances of the deviance being discovered by those for whom it is serious).

Even though the underlying ideas of control balance theory have been
interwoven into this discussion of concepts on which it is built, the exact
causal mechanisms of the theory remain vague at this point. In the fol-
lowing chapter I will explicate those causal mechanisms. In the process I
will try to answer the questions how and why deviance occurs, attempting
to do so in such a way that researchers can generate predictions from the
premises of the theory.

-170-