Sociology Essay: Social Control - Grade: B+ PDF

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Sociology Essay about social control, types of social control, and how it affects societal behavior...

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Malak Khaled Mohamed Rabie ID: 2018/00123

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Outline 1. What is Social Control? - Definition - Types of Social Control 2. How Social Control is enforced - Examples of Formal and Informal Social Control - Formal Social Control and deviance 3. How Fear affects Social Control - How societies have used fear to control society 4. Social Control: Education - How education teaches us Social Control 5. Conclusion - How Social Control affects people - The Importance of Formal and Informal social control

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According to the Open Education Sociology Dictionary Social Control is a way to regulate, enforce, and encourage conformity to norms not formally and informally, particularly by one’s peers. It is how a society controls individuals in order to follow certain rules and regulations which results in a smooth functioning of society. The idea behind Social Control is providing security to a society’s members. Social Control influences members of a society to follow certain rules and norms and deems some behaviors as inappropriate and unacceptable. Most of these influences are universally agreed upon. There are two types of Social Control; Formal and Informal. Formal Social Control is a way of conforming to society through rules and laws. They are enforced on people by police officers, court officials, and authority figures in a society. According to Conley (in You may Ask Yourself: an Introduction to thinking like a sociologist, 2011), it is Social Control “by which rules and laws prohibit deviant criminal behavior”. Informal Social Control, on the other hand, are rules and norms that are widely known by a society. They are unspoken rules that every person knows and follows. In other words, Informal Social Control could be the pressure that societies puts on its members to be perfect and to follow their norms. Informal social control is not enforced by law, but Is enforced by human behavior such as criticism, disgust, ridicule, etc. Social Control is basically the question of “how does a society make sure that its members are conforming to its culture?”. Formal and Informal Control often deals with deviant behavior from society, which are actions and behavior that do now follow the norms and rules of a society. But when it comes to informal social control, deviant behavior does not have to be a bad thing. Although deviance means a violation of norms and social rules (Informal), it does not mean it’s not acceptable or that it is negative. Informal deviance is different from one culture to another. For example, in some cultures it might be acceptable to kiss and hug people in public while some cultures value personal space and would consider this as a violation of their norms. Formal deviance, however, is completely different. Formal deviance are criminal offenses like robbery, murder, theft, rape, and assault. These deviations from rules will result in fines, jail times, imprisonment, etc. Institutions like the police, security services, the court system and judicial system make sure that members of society do not deviate from the rules, and that if they do they are punished accordingly. For example, if someone committed a robbery,

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these institutions will put the suspect in jail. If someone committed a murder they will either be in Prison for the rest of their life or face the death penalty. These consequences are there to make sure people maintain the rules of Law. That is why Social Control is enforced through three elements; Negative Sanctions, Positive Sanctions, and Surveillance. Although people may want to deviate from rules and norms, most of them are afraid of how society will see them and the consequences of their actions. Informal deviance will result in people looking at them in a bad way or gossiping. The worst type of consequence for formal deviance would me imprisonment and because people would like to avoid these dreadful consequences they will most likely refrain from deviance all together. The opposite of deviance and negative sanctions would be positive sanctions. Society often rewards people for abiding by their rules and for following their norms and culture. For example, schools reward their students for good grades and good behavior. Also, businesses and organizations reward their employees with things like “employee of the month” awards or pay raises when they do their jobs correctly. Finally, Surveillance is basically how society is always watching your behavior. Whether it is through neighbors or CCTV’s on the streets, what you do daily is almost always watched by someone. This lack of privacy forces people to follow social control and decreases the chance for people to deviate - in case someone is watching. Just like the idea of Surveillance, Fear is a factor that societies use to make sure members abide by their rules. Fear, in this case, is used to manipulate people by those who are in higher positions and positions of power. By threatening chaos and nonconformity in society if people do not follow rules, people tend to blindly accept rules. An important example of invoking fear into the population is oppressive governments all around the world. For example, although there are many problems with today’s Egyptian government, people are scared to talk about them in the mass media because of the consequences we have seen to people who do. Hundreds of people who have expressed their opinion on the government have been taken from their homes and are yet to be seen. That is why people are now scared to discuss politics publicly or express their opinion. For the government, this is a form of social control. Like John Adams once said: “Fear is the foundation of most governments.” Even simpler than that, people will most likely follow social control and abide by their norms just because they are afraid of facing the

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consequences of deviating from these rules and norms. Because fear is one of the most powerful human emotions, it lets people decide to conform to society instead of confronting the consequences. There are many types of Social Control that are universally used in all societies like social pressure, religion, gangs, clubs. One of the most popular and universal social control is Education. Education is the process where people’s behaviors are being altered from a very young age in order to fit society’s norms. Education is considered an Informal type of social control because it alters the human behavior through experiences and through learning. It is something that carries one for most of a person’s life which is why these institutions always try to groom kids into a better member of society. We can see this everywhere in schools; students singing the national song, students treating older people respectfully, treating others nicely, rules like not vandalizing school property or expulsion, etc. These things that are taught by teachers and figures of authority in schools will most likely affect the students behavior when it comes to the outside world. Singing the national anthem every morning in school teaches the students nationality and loyalty to one’s country. Treating their teachers in a respectful ways teaches them to treat anyone who is older or any authority figure politely and treating school mates nicely teaches them to treat anyone who talks to them in a civilized manner. Furthermore, school rules are a way for kids to learn how to act in a society and to conform to norms. For example, someone who breaks the rules of vandalism in a school will most probably vandalize public property outside of school and will be appropriately punished for it. Also, rules against cheating or fighting during school sets tone of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the society. An example of what is acceptable to society is people who have friends and are social. Kids in school who grow up to be “loners” and tend to keep to their selves are perceived as weird and unnatural. By not being social in school, they will most likely act the same outside of school. This behavior will seem weird to other members of society. Social Control is the most important way for people to follow the rules and norms of a society. Although we might not feel its effects everyday, social control has been around us since birth, whether through schools, religion, clubs, friends, families, or governments. Those rules and norms that are set by society are there to make us feel safe and to help us

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fit into our culture. Although “control” might sound negative in certain connotations, in this case it is beneficial for our society. However, some societies have manipulated the purpose of social control into oppressing people and forcing them to follow their abusive societies, which is why many people are negatively affected by social control. Furthermore, Formal social control exists to ensure the safety of members of society. By making laws against murder, theft, robbery, and rape people will feel protected and secure from anything bad happening to them, and if something happens that they will receive the justice they deserve. Informal social control makes sure that people of a society will comply to the social norms in their culture. This is important because people feel secure in a society where people are similar and where members do not deviate from these norms. Social Control is a natural thing that has happened for hundreds and thousands of years in order to keep a society in tact and secure from delinquency. Although there are some people who like to deviate from society, most people allow social control to help them follow the right path of a good member of that society.

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Work Cited Page

-Payne, E. George. “Education and Social Control.” The Journal of Educational Sociology, vol. 1, no. 3, 1927, pp. 137–145 -Hollingshead, A. B. “The Concept of Social Control.” American Sociological Review, vol. 6, no. 2, 1941, pp. 217–224. -Benjamin W. Fisher, Joseph H. Gardella & Emily E. Tanner-Smith, Social Control in Schools: The Relationships between School Security Measures and Informal Social Control Mechanisms, Journal of School Violence, 06 Aug 2018 -Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “social control.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved December 26, 2020 (https://sociologydictionary.org/social-control/).

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