Social control refers to the mechanisms a society uses to promote conformity and order among its members. Without adequate social control, a society risks instability, conflict, and chaos. Social control can be formal, such as laws and law enforcement, or informal, such as norms and values. Both types of social control play vital roles in maintaining social order.
Some key questions regarding social control include:
What are the main functions of social control?
Social control serves several crucial functions in society. First, it promotes conformity to social norms and values. Norms are shared expectations about appropriate behavior, while values are beliefs about what is important and desirable. Social control encourages people to internalize norms and values and shape their behavior accordingly.
Second, social control maintains stability and cohesion. By promoting conformity, social control ensures that people generally cooperate, follow rules, and fulfill their social roles. This creates an ordered, stable environment.
Third, social control protects people and property. Laws prohibit and penalize acts like theft, violence, and fraud. This protects citizens and maintains public order.
Fourth, social control facilitates coordination. Adhering to laws, norms, and values allows large groups of people to productively coordinate their actions. This is essential for societies to function.
Finally, social control supports shared morals and cultures. Values like honesty and loyalty are reinforced through informal social controls. This strengthens bonds between people and fosters shared identities.
What types of social control exist?
There are two broad categories of social control:
Formal social control refers to mechanisms established through official systems and institutions. Laws, law enforcement, and criminal justice systems are examples of formal control.
Informal social control refers to unwritten, unofficial rules and procedures that emerge spontaneously in societies. Social norms, morality, shaming, peer pressure, and conscience are forms of informal control.
Both play crucial, complementary roles. Formal control establishes standards through codified rules and sanctions. Informal control regulates day-to-day interactions through shared norms and values.
What are some major social control theories?
Sociologists have developed theories to explain how social control arises and functions. Some key perspectives include:
– Functionalism argues that social control maintains order and balance. Shared norms, rules, and sanctions prevent deviance.
– Conflict theory contends that social control serves the interests of dominant groups. Laws and norms perpetuate inequality by protecting elite privilege.
– Symbolic interactionism examines how individuals internalize social values and practise self-control. Socialization and identity shape obedience to codes.
– Social control theory spotlights how ties to society reduce deviance. Strong bonds to family, schools, and social institutions discourage rule-breaking.
– Labeling theory argues that being labelled as deviant spurs further deviance. Control can stigmatize people and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Each theory provides insights into the complex dynamics of social control in society. Together they illustrate how control can have both positive and negative effects.
What would happen without social control?
Social scientists have long contemplated what human society would look like without mechanisms of social control. While purely hypothetical, these thought experiments highlight just how vital control is for ordered, functional societies.
No formal laws or law enforcement
Without formal laws prohibiting and punishing offenses like violence, theft, and deception, these acts would undoubtedly proliferate. Some people would indulge their self-interest at the expense of others.
Criminal acts would go unpunished, given the lack of police, courts, and jails. Victims would lose any institutional recourse. Absent enforcement, laws would become meaningless.
Violence could easily spiral as people take vengeance. Blood feuds between families or groups could multiply without authoritative resolution. Disorder and fear would likely reign.
No informal social norms and values
Even without formal control, informal norms and values regulate behavior. But suppose a society completely lost its shared sense of moral and appropriate conduct.
If people abandoned norms of honesty, trust, and consideration for others, opportunism and selfishness would thrive. Mutually beneficial cooperation could break down.
With no informal sanctions like shame or guilt, people could freely violate social expectations. Everyday relations would grow stressed, antagonistic, and unstable.
moreover, it could be easier to violate laws. Moral ambivalence leads to justifying rule-breaking more readily. This causes formal controls to erode.
No conscience or self-control
Many restraints on deviance come from within. Our conscience, morality, and self-control deter harmful conduct.
Without these internalized guidelines, individuals would lack compulsions to follow external rules. Impulsive, reckless, and gratifying behaviors could surge.
Some philosophies argue humans are innately selfish. Conscience and self-control override destructive impulses and make cooperation possible. Their absence could unleash our supposed amoral nature.
Rise of conflict and violence
As the above scenarios illustrate, the breakdown of social control could foster a rise in interpersonal conflict and violence.
Some reasons this could occur:
– More perceived grievances and acts of vengeance in the absence of regulation
– Self-interested competition spiraling into fights over resources
– Impulsive violence and harm due to lack of internalized norms
– More deviant subcultures using violence to achieve goals
– Violent acts previously forbidden becoming seen as acceptable
– Loss of nonviolent conflict resolution mechanisms like laws and norms
The potential for violence to become pervasive and destabilizing without control is high. Strong formal and informal controls in modern society greatly suppress our capacity for violence today. Their disappearance could unleash it.
Social inequality and exploitation
Social control does not only suppress “bad” behaviors – it also reduces inequality and exploitation to some degree.
For example, laws prohibit discrimination in employment, education, housing, etc. They aim to ensure equal opportunities. Without such formal controls, discrimination could intensify.
Likewise, informal controls such as ethics and morals curb greed and compel sharing to an extent. Losing norms of fairness and equality could enable more exploitation.
Those possessing power, wealth, or strength could more freely dominate and abuse those lacking it. Protecting human rights and dignity becomes harder absent social control.
Economic instability and decline
Social control is crucial for economic activities as well. Property rights and contracts underpin modern capitalism but require formal enforcement.
With no legal protections or enforcement for owners, theft and fraud could make commerce perilous. Markets rely heavily on trust and rule-following.
Likewise, informal controls like work ethics and professionalism nurture efficiency and growth. Businesses might have more difficulty functioning and coordinating without these norms.
The instability and conflict resulting from diminished control could also depress economic activity. Investments and transactions require a predictable environment. Overall, economic performance could sharply suffer.
Collapse of organizations and institutions
Modern society depends on a diverse array of organizations and institutions made possible by social control.
Businesses, schools, religious groups, clubs – any organized group requires shared norms to coordinate members’ actions towards collective goals. Without informal controls, cooperation would be harder to achieve.
And formal organizations like governments, corporations, and agencies need formal control systems to function. Rules, regulations, contracts, and hierarchy enable them to operate and make decisions. Absent formal controls, organizations would struggle to remain stable.
The capacity to construct and operate complex institutions could decline severely without the cooperation bred by social control.
Alienation, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction
On an individual level, the lack of behavioral guidelines could foster a sense of confusion, uncertainty, and disconnect from society.
Norms give us reference points for how to act appropriately. Losing norms creates a vacuum in knowing how to properly behave and interact. Alienation and drift could rise.
Self-control and conscience also anchor our personal identities. Without these internal compasses, people may feel empty and morally adrift.
And the rise of conflict and exploitation could disillusion people about society overall. Greater inequality and instability promote discontent and anxiety across groups.
Conclusion
Social control is a complex phenomenon with positive and negative dimensions. But experiments in loosening control have often resulted in rising deviance and disorder.
The thought exercise of removing social control entirely reveals the pivotal role it plays in developing cooperative, safe, stable societies. Humans likely have innate capacities for both sociality and violence. Controls keep destructive tendencies in check while nurturing prosocial ones.
Societies must strike a balance, using formal and informal controls to facilitate order and progress while minimizing coerciveness and inequality. Dispensing with controls altogether would likely release our worst destructive impulses.
While no society lacks social control entirely, those wracked by conflict and instability provide glimpses of what such a situation could look like – pervasive violence, exploitation, economic strife, institutional collapse, and social alienation.
Controls enable the levels of organization, cooperation, and harmony humans are capable of achieving. But we must be vigilant that social control does not also squash freedom, diversity, and equality. All societies must continually rethink if their forms of control achieve an optimal balance.