Sheila Bautz
Special to the Herald
There are two types of social control within a society: formal and informal control. Both types of control have powerful negative and positive effects on individuals within that social structure. Through repetitive patterns, the type of control utilized within a social structure becomes normalized over time to create and reinforce a culture. Cultures can be difficult to change once established.
The positive side of formal and informal control creates a sense of community with the power to greatly deter certain actions from its members. The actions are considered socially unacceptable. In a healthy society, socially unacceptable actions include crimes such as thefts, violence or vandalism. However, when toxic conduct is accepted, there is a negative result in both types of social control that can spiral into inhumane toxicity.
Depending on where you live in the world, the social environment determining what is and is not tolerated by the society will directly impact what the society normalizes.
Formal Control
Formal control involves government and law, with specialized agencies to enforce written laws, policies and rules on behalf of the state. This type of control involves a complex society with many specialized and orderly sub-groups who are expected to enforce the proper procedures, protocols, standard techniques, laws, codes and regulations as legally determined. It formally establishes the conduct expected of the members within the society to establish the modes of behavior required by, and enforced upon, the public by these specialized agencies.
Formal control is a way to regulate the lives of people. Societies with multiple and complex formal laws are a measuring system for sociologists. It is an indication about the amount of social control desired by governing bodies over members of the population. The more laws, the greater the desire to control members of the population.
The goal of formal control is to make life as orderly as possible for the government. It is a political strategy and a way to legalize social norms for what the government feels is a productive society. It is arguably a technique to suit an agenda. In a democracy particularly, the power of determining appropriate conduct for the society is supposed to be determined by citizens. However, the reality is that the true power is held in the legal system and through the courts put in place by the government to ensure that the laws the public wants result in justice. This confirms a just society.
Formal control involves strategic punishments. By its very design, it is intended to invoke intentional pain and suffering on an individual who defies the accepted social norms. The goal is often to implement incapacitation, such as confinement, and restrict freedom of movement. It also includes intentional humiliation and shaming to cause embarrassment, set examples to the public and in return, control the masses.
Financial sanctions are another form of punishment with formal control. This is most often used to set an example to the public for manipulation and control of the public at large. For instance, financial punishments and sanctions have a purpose to deplete resources from members of the society. In the negative sense, this can become an abuse of power resulting in financial abuse.
For example, when countries are sanctioned, it does not necessarily hurt the government members who receive them. Instead, it is a symbolic shaming about the value placed on a culture by causing a depletion and deterioration of the financial state with an attack on the citizens. Many sociologists logically argue and oppose sanctions due to the reality that sanctions inflict suffering on the citizens within a country and can become extreme in cases, such as starving people. Sanctions make people physically suffer in various ways due to their leaders failing to conform to another country’s cultural values.
At times, the intent of sanctions have an undercurrent of malice intended to deprive people of their pride, sense of self-worth and deplete their quality and standard of living. It is a form of shaming and control. Other times, sanctions are required to right wrongs and ensure those suffering from injustice receive financial retribution.
Formal control enforces obedience for the law, rules of conduct and expectations that revolves around, and is rewarded or punished with, finances.
Informal Control
Informal social control involves unwritten laws and rules to establish a set of norms within a group. It creates or involves a distinct culture, or sub-culture. Culture embodies the values, morals, language, dress, beliefs and conduct about what is expected within a family or a community.
Every community and culture is constructed with informal social control techniques. Although the (sub)culture will have leaders, there is no formal leadership designated to any member. Informal control is simply a collective agreement about the unwritten rules for functioning within a social group. The rules may change spontaneously for certain members of that gropu, whether they are willing participants or not.
Naturally, as with all things, informal control can be positive or negative, depending on what is considered socially acceptable behaviour and conduct within the group. It has the mantra “we don’t do that here” from the collective group.
Informal control and the determination of the rules include defining the social norms for the group. Part of the norms include the rules for appropriate attire, the language and its usage, the conduct and that behavior that is expected and accepted by the community.
For instance, a community may expect young women to marry at 20 years old, have a child within the first year and cut their hair short after their wedding to morph their appearance as is expected by the community. Another community may expect young women to attain an education, find a career and marry if they choose. The informal rules of a group or community can be drastically different even if the communities are a 20-minute drive from each other.
To fail to conform to the established informal control and unwritten rules of acceptable behaviour, poses the risk for becoming a target in many forms, including as an outcast. The techniques to regain informal control of an individual result in positive or negative reinforcement. When it comes to abusive informal control, families and communities’ resort to gossip, slander, ostracism, and cruel and dehumanizing measures.
The expectation is for each member to know the unwritten rules, which are usually disclosed through direct face to face and personal interactions. As informal control is a collective group consensus, the entire culture of the community controls everyone’s behavior, which can create malice intent and inflict punishments, such harming reputations unjustly. It can also serve to uplift new members who find a sense of relief through finding a community that shares their values, integrity and morals. The positive alignments create heightened peace and prosperity for everyone involved.
In instances of abusive situations, the collective cohesion is a strategic motive to prevent disclosure about the unwritten rules to a wider population. Many times, this is a sure sign that the informal control operating within the group is toxic, but not always. Privacy is another matter.
Every Friday, Sheila Wanite Bautz addresses various Sociological issues in laymen’s terms. The next article addresses how law is an instrument of social change. Sheila has dual Honour BAs with Majors in Sociology and English through the University of Saskatchewan. In Sociology, she specialized in Indigenous history, law, addictions and criminology.
