Mechanisms of social control, social order and conformity

We have seen that socialisation specifically refers to the process by which people
learn the skills, knowledge, values, motives and roles (that is, culture) of the groups
to which they belong or the communities in which they live. Socialisation is
generally quite effective but there is always the possibility that members of society
may be tempted to deviate from agreed standards, norms and rules. Consequently,
most societies feel the need to use ‘social controls’ – to regulate and reinforce ‘ideal’
behaviour to make sure that citizens conform to the rules or laws agreed upon by a
society and to publicly punish those who fail to abide by cultural values and norms.
Members of society agree to consent to these social controls because they realise that
they benefit from them in the long term. Sociologists tend to distinguish between
two broad agencies of social control: formal and informal.

Formal agencies of social control

Formal agencies of social control tend to deal in repressive or coercive types of
control which are embodied in formal written laws. They often involve negative or
‘hard’ sanctions that may result in physical punishment, removal from society or
some other restriction on individual liberty. Examples of formal agencies of social
control that function to ensure conformity include the military (although this agency
tends only to be used as an emergency measure), the security or intelligence services,
and the criminal justice system, which includes agencies such as the police and the
judiciary – responsible for enforcing laws and civil order. If a person is found guilty
of breaking the law, a range of negative sanctions are available to the courts.

Some of the more extreme sanctions available to formal agencies of control across the
world may also include capital punishment, extra-judicial (not legally authorised)
execution by police officers or death squads, torture, imprisonment without trial,
solitary confinement and the denial of basic civil liberties. However, evidence
suggests that the regular use of extreme negative sanctions such as violence and
physical coercion by formal agents of social control often leads to hostility, dissent,
defiance, protest and social instability. This oppositional resistance to the real and
symbolic violence used by some agents of social control may mean that social order
is constantly under threat because citizens see themselves as outsiders and feel
forced to engage in deviant action such as rioting (which they may interpret as
‘uprisings’), public protests and demonstrations and, in extreme cases, terrorism
(which they may interpret as ‘freedom fighting’).
Control by consent

These potential problems with formal social controls have led to many governments
seeking to control by consent. This involves those in power ‘persuading’ society that
the law is ‘blind’, that it seeks to protect all social groups equally and that all formal
agencies of social control operate in a just way according to that law. For example,
members of society are persuaded to follow the traffic laws laid down by the state
because it protects life; and citizens are persuaded to follow the law and consent to
policing because the state is willing to pursue justice on their behalf if they are ever
victims of crime. However, control by consent is criticised by Marxists as an
ideological device which functions to convince members of society that social
controls are both fair and necessary. Marxists claim that social controls are actually
aimed at controlling the poor and proletariat, who are seen by the wealthy and
powerful as a potentially dangerous class.

Education as both formal and informal social control

Education is an important agency of social control. On the one hand, educational

systems qualify as formal agencies of social control because in many societies
education is compulsory by law and parents who fail to send their children to school
may be criminalised. Moreover, many schools operate a set of formal rules, and
failure to abide by these may result in a range of official and negative sanctions
ranging from letters home to parents, detentions, corporal punishment (this is
banned in many countries but is still an option in countries such as China, Japan,
Korea and Singapore), suspension and exclusion. However, schools and particularly
individual teachers can also be seen as informal agencies of social control because
teachers usually have a great deal of discretion in terms of how they manage their
classrooms and interact with students. They may, for example, use informal modes
of praise and reward such as constructive criticism of students’ work and friendly
chat with students to make sure that classroom behaviour is mainly focused on
academic work.

The workplace as both formal and informal social control

The workplace is an important agency of social control because it is in the factory,

office and so on that people learn specialised skills ‘on the job’ that are essential to
the smooth running of the economy. It is important that those skills are effectively
learned especially if workers are engaged in dangerous work such as coal-mining,
where a mistake made by one individual could have severe consequences for the
whole workforce. Consequently, employers will employ a number of positive
sanctions to reward those who demonstrate skill but also the appropriate attitude
towards work such as industry, dedication and commitment to following orders.
Employers may reward those who show skill and willing commitment with pay
rises and promotion to supervisory and management positions. Employers may
encourage groups of workers with promises of future reward if they continue to
work hard. However, employers can also use hard negative sanctions which are
often underpinned by the state in the form of the law. If an employee is interpreted
as lazy, incompetent or is frequently late to work or absent employers have the
power to give them both informal and formal warnings before eventually dismissing
them. Threats by whole groups of workers to take industrial action may be
countered by the employer with mass redundancy or by the threat to move
production to other parts of the world in which workers are more easily controlled.

Informal agencies of social control

Informal agencies of social control are mainly made up of primary groups such as
families, communities and tribes in which relationships are close, direct and
intimate. Social control is often maintained by informal mechanisms such as
customs, traditions, mores and religion.

The family as an agency of informal social control

David Morgan (1996) suggests that a great deal of family interaction between
parents and children is concerned with social control and encouraging conformity.
For example, parents often use positive sanctions to reinforce and reward socially
approved behaviour, and negative sanctions to discipline and punish ‘naughty’ or
deviant behaviour.

Positive sanctions might include praise, sweets and the promise of extra television-
viewing or new toys, while negative sanctions may include the threat to ‘withdraw’
love, sending children to sit on a ‘naughty step’ or to their room. Parents may punish
adolescents by banning them from going out at night or by temporarily confiscating
their smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Some cultures may even encourage the physical punishment of children via
smacking or beating. A 2013 study by Sylvia Y.C.L. Kwok, Wenyu Chai and
Xuesong. He found that about 72 per cent of Chinese children said that their parents
had beaten them. Kwok, Chai and He conclude that the evidence suggests that
Chinese parents often use physical and emotional punishment to solve parent-child
problems and conflict, which sometimes leads to child abuse. Chinese law,
specifically the Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, authorises ‘strict
discipline’ of children by parents and guardians. Corporal punishment is at present
lawful in the home in China, South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia. However, over
40 countries around the world have now made parental smacking, beating and
spanking of children illegal.

Parental or family sanctions are frequently aimed at encouraging the development

of a conscience or ‘inner policeman’ in children. This conscience is supposed to
equip children, adolescents and adults with a moral compass which aims to guide
their future actions and to deter them from potential deviant behaviour by invoking
strong feelings of guilt.

The peer group/friendship network as an agency of informal social control

There is evidence that peer groups, friendship networks or subcultures are also
successful informal agents of social control. (A subculture is a distinct group that
exists within a wider society which has a very distinct and separate identity, for
example, in terms of the way they dress or behave, that stands out from
mainstream culture.) These groups, networks and subcultures may put considerable
peer pressure on teenagers to conform to subcultural values and norms which may
differ from those of adult society, and consequently encourage deviant and even
criminal behaviour. Some adolescents may identify with spectacular youth
subcultures (highly visible groups of young people whose behaviour is often
interpreted by the media as ‘threatening’ the moral order of society), for example,
mods, punks, soulboys, skinheads, metallers, goths or hippies that they see
portrayed in the global media. They may aim to copy the distinctive and often
symbolically ‘shocking’ dress and hairstyles of these global subcultures in order to
challenge and oppose adult society’s attempt to turn them into conventional citizens.
This symbolisation makes the group stand out from ‘normal’ society as ‘different’
and therefore deviant.

However, the majority of youth rarely come into contact with spectacular youth
subcultures. Rather, their lives are much more likely to revolve around their peer
group in the mundane contexts of school, the street and social media. Peer groups
may use positive sanctions such as the endowment of respect or status (although this
is often awarded for deviant activities), as well as negative sanctions such as gossip,
ridicule, sarcasm, criticism, shame, bullying, discrimination and exclusion to socially
control the attitudes and behaviour of those in their orbit. Consequently, the peer
group sometimes has more of an influence on the behaviour of adolescents than their
parents do, although sociological studies generally demonstrate that the majority of
adolescents usually end up conforming to the same set of cultural values and norms
as their parents.

The media as an agency of informal social control

A principal agency of social control in many cultures is the media. Tabloid

newspapers, magazines, television and films often reinforce what count as the
boundaries between ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ behaviour. Journalists are responsible for
representing the actions of particular social groups and their relationship to specific
social problems as part of the news reported in newspapers and on TV news
programmes.

Critics of the media point out that these representations are often ideological in that
they stereotype particular social groups as engaged in either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
behaviour. For example, females may be ‘demonised’ or negatively labelled
because their behaviour is interpreted by journalists as not sufficiently ‘feminine’.
Some women may be ‘fat-shamed’ by the media because journalists subscribe to
patriarchal stereotypes which interpret slimness as best representing femininity.
Similarly, both men and women may be ‘persuaded’ by the media that their social
destinies should be on very different trajectories. The media may reinforce the idea
that the certain arenas of work such as science, business, medicine and engineering
are best suited to male abilities and traits. A great deal of media content may
represent females as either nurturers and domestic workers so reinforcing the notion
that women’s skills are better suited to the home and the raising of children.

On a more positive note, Deidre McKay (2016) found that Filipinos living and
working in Europe used social network sites to stay true to the social duties and
obligations encouraged by Filipino culture in their home villages and towns despite
being thousands of miles away.

Religion as an agency of social control

Another informal agency of socialisation is religion, although in some societies

religion is intertwined with both the law and state and consequently acts as a formal
agency of social control. Those who believe in God, who regularly attend church,
temple or mosque and conform to religious norms may find that that their behaviour
is controlled by the fear of what might happen to them in an ‘after-life’ if they fail to
have faith or to abide by religious mores. Religion awards the faithful with promises
of spiritual rebirth, heavenly reward, nirvana and redemption while it threatens the
sinful and wicked with hell fire and eternal suffering. In those countries in which
religion shapes most social institutions, especially the law and politics, non-believers
and people who question religion may be threatened with prison or death.