Informal and Formal Social Control

The sanctions used to encourage conformity and obedience—and to discourage violation of social norms—are carried out through informal and formal social control. Informal social control, as the term implies, is used by people casually. Examples of informal social control include smiles, laugh­ter, raising of an eyebrow, and ridicule.

Techniques of informal control are typically employed within primary groups such as families. Individuals learn such techniques early in their childhood socialization to cultural norms. Since these mechanisms of social control are not for­malized, there can be great variation in their use even within the same society. For example, imag­ine that a teenager is seated on a crowded bus in a seal reserved for elderly and handicapped peo­ple. A rather frail-looking elderly man gets on the bus and has nowhere to sit, yet the teenager does not move. One nearby passenger may scowl at the teenager; another may stare until the teenager becomes uncomfortable, while a third may ver­balize the control mechanism by telling the teen­ager to get up.

In some cases, informal methods of social con­trol are not adequate in enforcing conforming or obedient behavior. In the example above, the teenager might look away from the scowling and staring passengers and might tell the third per­son, "Mind your own business!" At this point, passengers might enlist the aid of the bus driver— whose occupational role carries with it a certain authority—in an attempt to force the teenager to give up the seat. Formal social control is carried out by authorized agents, such as police officers, judges, school administrators, em­ployers, military officers, and managers of movie theaters. As we have seen, it can serve as a last resort when socialization and informal sanctions do not bring about desired behavior.

It is important to emphasize that formal social control is not always carried out only by govern­ment officials in response to violations of the law. Certain subcultures within a society exercise formal social control to maintain adherence to their distinctive social norms. For example, if a mem­ber of the Old Order Amish religious minority violates the com­munity's standards, he or she will initially be ver­bally chastised by a member (informal social con­trol). However, if an Amish person commits an especially serious transgression or repeatedly vio­lates accepted norms, the community may invoke its most severe means of formal social control, known as Meiching or "shunning." Within the close-knit Amish community, a formal decision to shun a member amounts to "social death": the person is totally ignored, even by family mem­bers. Generally, the shunned member chooses to leave the community rather than endure this painful technique of formal social control (W. E. Thompson, 1986).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11