Social Control And Social Influence

Social control is when a person unites to society that prevents them from violating rules therefore; if the bond weakens, they are free to commit delinquent acts. Travis Hirschi, a sociologist, argued that the social bond a person maintains with society contains the commitment to the pursuit of conventional activities, such as

These two beliefs make the idea of social control make sense, which is understood to be a group that imposes conformity based on what they have set to be identified as normal. To understand the elements that influence deviance and social control, an individual must understand cultural and societal norms, what is deviant behavior, and the actions that transpire to guarantee social control.

In the sociology of medicine Parson (1951) regarded medicine as functional in social terms. By tackling the person’s problems in medical terms the tendency towards deviance that was represented by ill health could be safely directed, until they could return to their normal self. (Lawrence 1994: p 64-65: BMJ 2004: Parson cited in Gabe, Bury & Elston 2006, p 127).

Social control/bond theory was developed by Travis Hirschi in1969. The social control approach is one of the three major sociological perspectives in understanding crime in our contemporary criminology. The theory holds that individuals will break the law as a result of the breakdown of the social bonds (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 16). Control theorists believe that an individual conformity to societal social values and rules produced by socialization and maintained through social ties to the people and institutions. The social bond may include family attachment, an individual commitment to social norms or institutions like school, employment, churches and mosques. The key elements of the social bonds theory are an attachment to other individuals in the society and the desire to remain committed to following rules. In addition, an individual involvement in typical social behaviours as well as one 's belief or the value systems a person ascribes. According to the theory, crime and delinquency will result when a person bond to society is weak or lose (Demuth & Brown, 2004, p.65). Moreover, as social bonds increase in strength, individual costs of crime increases as well and this ultimately act as a barrier for committing a crime.

Social control theory is used to help one understand and reduce levels of criminal activity. It is based upon the idea that an individual’s basic belief system, morals, values, commitments and relationships foster a lawful environment. Most individuals who possess these values and beliefs tend to have a level of self-control over their actions and are consequently prepared to remain on the correct side of the law. Furthermore, social control theory is used to examine how society can influence criminal behaviour. It also emphasizes the idea that when an individual is involved and in-touch with their community, they are less likely to commit acts of delinquency.

Throughout history society has had many views on individuals with physical and health needs, consequently impacting the way they live. In the article, “The Discovery of Hyperkinesis: Notes on the Medicalization of Deviant Behavior,” it discuses the Pharmaceutical Revolution, and how psychoactive drugs were being produced to suppress, what society felt, was deviant behavior (Conrad, 1975). This article is a good example of how society has created ‘disabilities’ for people with health needs. The article also expresses how children who act out, or have parents and schools members feeling they are exhibiting deviant behaviors, are considered to have medical conditions. Many people in today’s society don’t have the time or patience to learn about individuals with physical and health needs, thus giving the medical world more control over, ‘disability.’

In social psychology, social influence is a process where someone’s beliefs, thoughts and behaviour change by being exposed to beliefs, thoughts and opinions of others. It manifests in several forms, such as obedience, compliance and conformity. All these types of social influence have been studied by numerous researchers who investigated the reasons why people conform to social norms and obey to authorities, such as Milgram’s classic studies on obedience. His experiments support the popular idea of ‘banality of evil’ –Hannah Arendt (1963)’s famous phrase referring to the capability to accomplish dreadful things out of banal reasons–, revealing that people conform submissively and thoughtlessly to the orders that authorities deliver, no

Ideological social control is the attempt to manipulate consciousness of citizens so that they accept the ruling ideology and refuse to be moved by competing ideologies. The agents of ideological social control consists of family, education, religion, sport, media, and government. All of these agents of ideological social control controls citizens unconsciously, without them knowing, by controlling them and to refuse to think differently because they grew up and have conformed to these ways. Firstly, family is effective in controlling children’s behavior. The responsibility of parents is to teach their child attitudes, values, and behavior

Social control theory has become one of the more widely accepted explanations in the field of criminology in its attempt to account for rates in crime and deviant behavior. Unlike theories that seek to explain why people engage in deviant behavior, social control theories approach deviancy from a different direction, questioning why people refrain from violating established norms, rules, and moralities. The theory seeks to explain how the normative systems of rules and obligations in a given society serve to maintain a strong sense of social cohesion, order and conformity to widely accepted and established norms. Central to this theory is a perspective which predicts that deviant behavior is much more likely to emerge when

Public executions have been common throughout human history with arguably the most noteworthy or famous – the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The conceptualisation of medicine as an institution of societal control was first theorised by Parsons (1951), and from this stemmed the notion of the deviant termed illness in which the “sick role” was a legitimised condition. The societal reaction and perspective was deemed a pillar of the emerging social construction of disease and conception of the formalised medical model of disease. Concerns surrounding medicalisation fundamentally stem from the fusion of social and medical concerns wherein the lines between the two are gradually blurred and the the social consequences of the proliferation of disease diagnosis that results from such ambiguities of the social medical model.

“Social influence is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others” (Feldman 495). These influences are strongly experienced by members in the group. Every group is unique and is mostly guided by a particular norm and behavior. An individual in a group passively or actively allows himself to be influenced by the group just to have a sense of belongingness. In the bid to prevent being excluded or rejected from a group, some individuals overtly adhere to the norms of the group. “Thus, people conform to meet the expectations of the group” (Feldman 495).

The social sciences became so pervasive in the twentieth century they not only produced new additions to medical discourse, but completely shifted the means of enforcing power. The emergence of individualism and the importance that was placed on one's essential and core identity made it so power that was once externally imposed by physical punishment only, began to enforce itself by way of the individual. The internalization of surveillance, domination, and discipline created a society of self policing individuals. This self policing behavior is most evident among women, and unlike the bodily protest against domestic expectations and other inequalities; it is the internalization of these oppressions, however ultimately manifesting as illness

The treatment of physical and mental problems has undergone a rapid change in the past few decades. An increasing number of bodily and behavioural symptoms now have a recognised medical diagnosis and corresponding treatment. Sociologists have attributed these changes to the process of medicalization, wherein “non-medical problems come to be defined and treated as if they were medical issues” (McLennan, McManus & Spoonley 2009: 271). Medicalization is an ongoing, gradual process which occurs through the social construction of new diseases by groups such as health professionals (Conrad 2007: 4). It can be argued that medicalization is an active and passive process by which diseases are constructed in an attempt to find treatments for patients; and that diseases can be ‘socially’ constructed as well as ‘corporately’ constructed by companies to create a profitable market of consumers. At the micro level of society, medicalization in the Western world has been influenced by liberal notions of individualization which has extended to some parts of the health sector. At the macro level, medicalization has been buoyed by the process of the professionalization, expansion of state monopoly over the health profession and religious and political social movements. Although some academics argue that the medicalization of society is less significant than the process of “de-medicalization”, there is clear evidence that the process of medicalization is intensifying and outstripping the rate

Education is an important structure in society that shapes the most important years of your life, and therefore many theorists have ideas about what is wrong with education, what is right, and what needs to change or develop. Education is confined a lot by social control and social reproduction. Social control is a concept that refers to how social systems control the way we feel, think, behave, and even how we should present ourselves. These can appear openly, shown as rules and laws, or they could be not openly acknowledged and just appear as the “common” thing to do. Social reproduction is the reproduction of inequalities throughout generation-to-generation, one way education does this is how it supplies “wealthy” schools more and “poor” schools less. Michael Apple and Maxine Greene both define Social reproductions and Social Control. Throughout this text, I will explain the theories of Greene and Apple, as well as comparing and contrasting them against one another while applying some of my own experiences of education.