Social control refers to the methods used by society to regulate the behavior of individuals. There are formal and informal means of social control, including laws, education, religion, customs, and public opinion. The major agencies of social control are the state, family, religion, education, neighborhood, and administration. As a nurse, it is important to understand social control and how deviations from social norms can impact health so they can properly treat patients.

1. SOCIOLOGY
SOCIAL CONTROL
By : Akshita Rathee
ASU2023010200235

2. Introduction:
▶ Social control :
▶ Nature and process of social control
▶ Political, Legal, Religious,
Educational, Economic, Industrial
and Technological system, Norms &
Values – Folkways & Mores Customs,
Laws and fashion
▶ Role of Nurse

3. Social control
▶ Social control refers to the control of society over
the individual.
▶ Some social control implies a system of device
through which society controls the activities of
individual members.
▶ Mannheim – “Social control as the sum of those
methods by which a society tries to influence
human behaviour to maintain a given order”.
▶ Ogburn and Nimkoff – “The patterns of pressure
which a society exerts to maintain order and
established rules”.

4. Nature of Social Control
▶ Social control denotes some kind of
influence.
▶ It is essentially use by the society or
community.
▶ It is implement for promoting the welfare
of all the individuals or of the group as a
whole.
▶ The social control is an old as human
society.
▶ It is universal.

5. Nature of Social Control
▶ Social control denotes some kind of
influence:
▶ The influence may be exercised in various ways
by means of public opinion, coercion, religion,
morality, ideology, leadership, law, customs,
values, folkways, etc.
▶ It is essentially use by the society or
community:
▶ It may reflect in some cases the influence of a
few extraordinary individuals over other
ordinary individual.

6. Nature of Social Control
▶ It is implement for promoting the welfare of all the
individuals or of the group as a whole.
▶ It is there to serve the general interests of all and to control
the dangerous selfish interests of those who try to satisfy
them.
▶ The social control is an old as of the society.
▶In the absence of social control no society can ever hold
together its members for any length of time.
▶ It is universal.
▶ Where there is society there is social control.

7. Process of Social Control:
▶ Customs create habits.
▶ Habits create customs.

8. Types of social control:

9. Formal social control:
▶ The formal means of social control come from
institutions.
▶ Man is forced to accept these forms of social
control
▶ Generally these forms are exercised by secondary
groups.
▶ The state, law, education and those which have
legitimate power. They apply coercive measures in
the case of deviance.

10. Informal social control
▶ These agencies of Social Control have
grown according to the needs of the
society.
▶ Folk ways, mores, customs, social norms
etc. fall under this category of social
control.
▶ Generally primary institutions exercise this
type of social control.

11. Agencies of Social
Control
There are following agencies of social control
▶ Law
▶ State
▶ Education
▶ Folkways
▶ Mores
▶ Administration
▶ Religions
▶ Family
▶ Neighborhood
▶ Public Opinion
▶ Fashion

12. Law
▶ Law is a powerful method of control.
▶ The state runs its administration through the
government.
▶ In primitive societies, the groups followed similar
occupations and individuals shared a direct and
personal relation among themselves.
▶ These folkways, mores and customs sufficed in
controlling the individual behavior. There was
almost unquestioned compliance with the formal
mechanism of social control.
▶ In short, law is an important formal means of
Control to regulate the individual behaviour in
society

13. State:
▶ State has a vital role in administering
social control.
▶ State functions through the government.
Modern nation-states strive to be welfare
states, i.e. they seek to provide to the
citizens a wide range of social services like
education and medical care.
▶ In modern societies, State has become
increasingly important as an agent of
social control.

14. Education
▶ Education in modern times is a very powerful means of
social control. It prepares the child for social living and
teaches him the values of discipline, cooperation,
tolerance and integration.
▶ Educational institutions at all levels(i.e. school, college,
university, etc.) impart knowledge as well as ethics
through formal structured courses and behavioral inputs.
The child learns many things from the Education
institutions, which he cannot learn from other sources.
▶ It is education, which makes all efforts to discipline the
mind of the student in the school so that he can realize
the importance of social control.

15. Folkways
▶ Folkways are norms to which individuals conform.
It is customary to do so. Conformity to folkways is
not enforced by law or any other agency of the
society.
▶ It is the informal acceptance of established
practices in each group or society.
▶ Folkways are manifested in matters of dress, food
habits, observance of rituals, forms of worship and
methods of greeting etc

16. Mores
▶ ‘Mores’ represent another category of norms. Mores are
considered to be essential for group welfare.
▶ Mores seek to regulate the relationship between
individuals in defined situations, viz. between wife and
husband, parents and children, student and teacher, etc.
▶ They may also refer to general social relationships in
terms of honesty, truthfulness, hard work and discipline,
etc
▶ The positive mores prescribe behavior patterns while the
negative mores or taboos prescribe or prohibit behavior
patterns.

17. Religion
▶ Religion serves as an important agency of
social control.
▶ It is religion, which supports the folkways
and modes of a society by playing super
natural sanctions behind them. It adopts
negative as well as positive means to
regulate the behavior of the individuals in
society.

18. Administration
▶ Administration is very powerful and the
most effective instrument of social
control.
▶ It forces the individual to obey social
control. The administrations punish the
violators with the help of the police, the
army etc

19. Family
▶ Family is a very important instrument agency of
social control. Family prescribes rules and
regulations that the members have to follow. These
rules and regulations form a part of social control.
▶ The family socializes the child into the norms,
values, traditions and customs of the group. Thus,
family has predominant role in the shaping of the
personality of the child. Family teaches the child to
conform to the norms of the society. It exercises
control over its members to bring about the desired
action.

20. Neighborhood
▶ Neighbourhood is a simple and specific
part of a community. It has a feeling or
sentiment of local unit. There may be
more than one Neighbourhood in a
community.
▶ The neighbourhood is the first community
with which the individual comes into
contact with. It exists, a deep influence
on its members as an agency of social
control.

21. Public Opinion
▶ Public Opinion of the people is the most important
method of social control in a democratic set up.
Every man tries to escape from the criticism and
condemnation by the society. He therefore, tries to
act according to public opinion and public
sentiments.
▶ In a democratic set up, public opinion is more
effective and important than any other agency.
Newspapers, radio, television, motion pictures,
legislations, pamphlets, etc. mould public opinion.

22. Fashion
▶ Fashion may be defined as ‘permitted range of variation
around a norm’.
▶ People want to be like their associates and friends and
also want to be different from them.
▶ They help us to express our individuality without going
against norms.
▶ Thus no woman want to attend a dinner party in a night
dress.
▶ People want to eat fashionable foods, wear fashionable
dresses, read fashionable books, enjoy fashionable
amusements, etc.

23. Role of Nurse
▶ These social control are to be followed by the
individuals.
▶ But no society completely succeeds in making all its
members follow the social control.
▶ Some of them fail to conform to these social control.
▶ Failure of conform to the social control of society is
called deviant behaviour or deviance.
▶ Social deviance disturbs life pattern of people and leads
to many diseases.
▶ As a nurse should understand the patient’s deviance
behaviour and treat the patient.