Social Control

Abstract

Abstract Social control is such a widely recognized concept that one would suspect that a consensual definition of it exists. That is not the case. While one can generally define social control as the formal and informal processes that socialize, sanction, and/or reward individuals for conformity, and produce social regularity, specific definitions of social control vary widely (see Meier's 1982 discussion on this point and his fascinating history of the concept). In its broadest definition, childhood socialization plays an important role in social control, ongoing social influence processes such as shaming rituals play critical roles in informal social control, and law enforcement and the legal system play critical roles in formal social control. Moreover, social control can involve fairly innocent creations of conformity that generally bring great social good (i.e., driving on the same side of the street and acknowledging and abiding by common rules of the road) or can involve a dark side where conformity is achieved through the loss of liberty, individuality, and free expression. Perhaps because of this breadth and dimensionality, Sutton (1996) has argued that the concept goes too far and is too imprecise; he recommends abandoning the term altogether and using a more precise term such as sanctioning instead.