Social control

Signs warning of prohibited activities; an example of social control

Social control is the regulations, sanctions, mechanisms, and systems that restrict the behaviour of individuals in accordance with social norms and orders. Through both informal and formal means, individuals and groups exercise social control both internally and externally. As an area of social science, social control is studied by researchers of various fields, including anthropology, criminology, law, political science, and sociology.[1][2][3]

Social control is considered one of the foundations of social order.[4] Sociologists identify two basic forms of social control. Informal means of control refer to the internalization of norms and values through socialization.[5] Formal means comprise external sanctions enforced by government to prevent the establishment of chaos or anomie in society. Some theorists, such as Émile Durkheim, refer to formal control as regulation.

  1. ^ M. Innes (2003). Understanding Social Control: Crime and Social Order in Late Modernity - Deviance, crime and social order. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). ISBN 9780335209408.
  2. ^ "Social Control". Merriam Webster. Merriam Webster Inc. Retrieved 18 November 2023. social control [...]: the rules and standards of society that circumscribe individual action through the inculcation of conventional sanctions and the imposition of formalized mechanisms
  3. ^ Carmichael, Jason (26 June 2012). "Social Control". Oxford Bibliographies. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0048. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  4. ^ E. A. Ross (2009). Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9781412834278.
  5. ^ Lindzey, Gardner (Ed), (1954). ':/Handbook of social psychology. I. Theory and method. II. Special fields and applications (2 vols), (pp. II, 655–692). Oxford, England: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., xx, 1226 pp.

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