01 Section A, Key question 2 - Formal and informal social control (part 3)

Sanctions and socialisation

Social control encourages people to follow the expectations of a society or group.

A norm is an expectation about behaviour, such as taking turns; a value is a broader belief about what matters, such as fairness. Socialisation is the lifelong process of learning a society's or group's culture, including its norms and values. Social control concerns how conformity to those expectations is encouraged and departures are discouraged. These processes overlap: learning which actions bring approval helps someone learn the norm itself.

Positive and negative describe the direction of the response, not whether the norm is morally good. Praise for helping a neighbour is positive; ridicule for an unpopular clothing choice is negative. Either can make someone more likely to follow the expectations of the people responding. These distinctions, and the connection between control and social order, are explained in OpenStax's account of social control.

Sanctions influence behaviour through a mechanism. In this original teaching example, a child shares a game and receives warm praise from family members. The praise makes sharing rewarding and communicates that consideration for others is valued. If a child interrupts and receives disapproval, the uncomfortable response may discourage interrupting. Repeated experiences can lead to internalisation: people accept an expectation as their own and regulate themselves even when no one is watching. A person may also obey without accepting the value, simply to avoid an unwanted consequence. The same visible behaviour does not reveal which motivation is operating.

Social order means a relatively stable, predictable pattern of social relationships and behaviour. If people can usually expect others to take turns, everyday cooperation becomes easier. Socialisation can build agreement about the expectation; sanctions can reinforce it when agreement is incomplete. Control therefore includes ordinary encouragement and self-restraint as well as punishment. It does not eliminate every disagreement or guarantee that all people benefit equally from the rules.

In another original example, a friendship group rewards members who refuse to report bullying. Its approval is a positive sanction for the group's norm, even though it can sustain harmful behaviour. This shows why a sociologist must identify whose norm is being enforced before judging its effects. Control can maintain order within one group while conflicting with another group's expectations.

Formal control through authorised agencies

Formal social control operates through recognised institutional rules and people authorised to enforce them.

Formal rules are explicit and backed by procedures, such as legislation or an organisation's disciplinary code. A person exercises authority because of an official role, rather than simply because other people like or dislike them. Formal control can use negative sanctions, such as a fine, and positive sanctions, such as an official award. It is not defined by how severe the response feels. An authorised recorded warning can be formal even if it is mild.

The five agencies below have related but distinct functions. They should not be treated as five names for the same process.

Law and the legal system

Law sets publicly recognised, enforceable rules and establishes rights and responsibilities. It distinguishes a legally prohibited action from something that merely attracts disapproval. Laws concerning theft, for example, establish a formal boundary around taking another person's property; legal procedures determine how alleged breaches are handled. The legal system also provides ways to settle civil disputes and protect rights, as the Judiciary's explanation of civil justice in England and Wales illustrates. It regulates behaviour through both prohibitions and protections, rather than only through criminal punishment.

Government

Government develops policy, proposes legislation and puts policy and law into practice through departments and agencies. It can shape conduct by regulating activities, allocating resources and organising enforcement. For example, deciding how to support enforcement affects an institution's capacity to implement rules. Government and Parliament are distinct: UK Parliament describes its roles as making and changing laws and scrutinising government, while GOV.UK explains that departments and agencies implement government policy. Formal authority is distributed among institutions rather than resting with one actor.

Police

Police help prevent and investigate crime, protect people and maintain public order. Their ability to investigate an alleged offence and use authorised enforcement powers can discourage rule-breaking; their presence can also reassure people that rules will be upheld. The College of Policing identifies protecting life and property, preserving order, preventing offences and bringing offenders to justice among policing purposes. Investigation of a suspect is not a finding of guilt, and an arrest should not be confused with a court's sentence.

Courts

Courts apply law to particular cases through legal procedures. Criminal courts determine guilt through the relevant trial process, and sentence a person when convicted. The possibility of a sentence can discourage offending, while a judgment also communicates that a rule has been enforced. Courts can hear disputes and protect rights as well as punish. In England and Wales, the Judiciary explains the roles of magistrates, judges and juries, including the judge's responsibility to conduct a fair trial and sentencing following conviction. In a Crown Court jury trial, the jury decides guilt; saying that every judge personally decides guilt would be inaccurate.

Military

The military is an organised armed institution operating under state authority. It contributes to the security of the state, and it also controls conduct within the armed forces through a chain of command, service rules and disciplinary procedures. For example, formal military discipline makes compliance with authorised requirements a condition of service, helping coordinate actions within units. The Ministry of Defence describes its protective role, and the Judiciary explains that the Service Justice System handles military disciplinary offences as well as criminal offences. This does not mean that the military routinely performs the police's everyday civilian role in the UK.

To connect these roles, consider an original example of an alleged theft. Law defines the offence; government helps organise implementation; police investigate; a prosecution may bring the allegation to court; the court follows a trial process and, if there is a conviction, sentences. Each step uses formal authority, but each performs a different function. Military discipline illustrates another institutional setting for formal control, rather than an additional stage in that theft example.

Informal control in everyday relationships

Informal social control works through social approval, disapproval and people's desire to belong.

An informal sanction does not require an official penalty procedure. A smile, an admiring comment, ridicule, gossip or exclusion from friendship can signal whether behaviour is accepted. These reactions may be deliberate, but they can also arise spontaneously. The prospect of losing affection or reputation can influence conduct even when no written rule exists. Informal does not mean unimportant, harmless or necessarily face-to-face: social reactions can also occur through digital communication.

Family

Family members can reward behaviour with praise, attention and affection or discourage it with criticism and disappointment. Because close relationships matter to many people, a wish to maintain family approval can make these sanctions effective. Everyday responses also communicate values. Thanking someone for helping with care, for example, can reinforce responsibility towards relatives. Families differ, and a person can question or resist their expectations; family influence is not a uniform set of rules that everyone learns in the same way.

Peer groups and subcultures

A peer group consists of people in a broadly similar social position, often of a similar age. A subculture shares distinctive norms, values or practices within a wider culture. Peers may reward a style, joke or action with admiration and acceptance, or punish departures through ridicule and exclusion. In an original teaching example, a group treats refusing to join a prank as disloyal. Fear of exclusion could encourage participation even though a school rule forbids the prank. The group has its own internal control: a subculture that challenges wider norms can still expect conformity from its members. Peer pressure can also support helpful norms, such as opposing discriminatory language.

Media

Media representations can depict particular conduct as admirable, embarrassing or unacceptable. Public criticism can threaten reputation; favourable coverage can make a behaviour seem worthy of recognition. Audiences may anticipate these reactions and adjust how they present themselves. In an original example, a fictional programme repeatedly celebrates neighbours who help one another; a viewer could come to associate cooperation with respect. This is a possible influence, not proof that every viewer adopts the same norm. People interpret media differently, and conflicting messages can circulate. Criticism in a news report or social-media comment is informal control through reputation; it is not a legal sentence.

Religion

Religious teachings can provide moral expectations, while members of a religious community may offer approval for conduct they regard as right and disapproval for departures. Participation and a sense of belonging can make these reactions meaningful. If an expectation is internalised, a believer may feel a personal moral obligation even without a visible sanction. This mechanism differs from peers directly applying pressure. Religious traditions and individual interpretations vary, so one should not assume that all religious communities enforce identical norms or that all members comply.

Education

Education transmits expectations through classroom routines and everyday relationships as well as explicit rules. A teacher's spontaneous appreciation of a considerate response can reward cooperation. Classmates can approve diligence or, in a particular peer culture, ridicule it. These social responses may encourage different patterns of conduct. Pupils consequently encounter more than one source of informal control within the same school; staff and peer expectations need not agree.

Workplace

Workplaces develop expectations about how colleagues should behave, sometimes without putting them in a formal policy. Coworkers may express appreciation for reliability or disapproval when someone repeatedly leaves shared tasks to others. Acceptance within a team can encourage cooperation, and repeated responses teach a newcomer what the group values. Workgroup norms can also conflict with management's official expectations, such as when colleagues discourage reporting a problem. Workplace influence therefore involves belonging and reputation as well as an employer's formal authority.

These mechanisms explain how socialisation can continue through daily interactions. A person learns what others expect, anticipates a response and may adjust behaviour or internalise the expectation. Different agencies can reinforce each other, but they can also apply competing pressures. Naming an agency is only the start of an explanation: identify its expectation, the response it can deliver, and why that response could influence the individual.

Overlapping control in work, education and religion

The same institution can influence behaviour through both formal authority and informal social relationships.

Classification depends on how control is exercised, not simply where it happens or who is present. A written rule is useful evidence of formal control when backed by an authorised procedure, but writing is not a complete test: informal disapproval can arrive in a text message, while an authorised formal warning may be delivered verbally. Equally, a harsh reaction is not automatically formal. Exclusion from friendship can feel severe while remaining an informal social sanction.

Work: an employer's procedure and a team's reactions

An employer can use an explicit disciplinary procedure and a manager authorised to issue a warning for misconduct. This is formal control. The Acas Code of Practice discusses clear disciplinary rules, fair procedures and written warnings. Its existence demonstrates an official mechanism; it does not prove that all employers use it consistently or fairly.

Coworkers can also apply informal control by showing appreciation, criticising someone or withdrawing social acceptance. In this original workplace example, an employee repeatedly ignores an agreed safety procedure. A manager issues an authorised warning after a disciplinary process, while colleagues express disappointment about the risk to their team. The formal warning and informal disapproval may reinforce the same expectation. Alternatively, colleagues might admire risk-taking, weakening the influence of the formal rule. An institution can contain agreement and conflict at the same time.

Education: official policy and everyday expectations

Schools can have a behaviour policy, authorised sanctions and organised reward systems. The government's school behaviour guidance for England identifies behaviour policies and sanctions including warnings and detention. A detention imposed through school rules is formal control even though the pupil has not been convicted of a criminal offence. Formal institutional control is wider than criminal law.

The same school contains spontaneous praise, teasing and peer-group approval. In an original example, a pupil receives a recorded merit under the school's official reward system for helping another pupil. The merit is a formal positive sanction. A classmate's warm thanks is informal and positive. If friends mock the helper, their ridicule is informal and negative. All three responses occur in education, but they use different mechanisms and can push behaviour in different directions.

Religion: organised discipline and community relationships

Religious organisations can also have official rules, office holders and disciplinary procedures. For a specific example, the Church of England describes a formal process for serious allegations of clergy misconduct and records penalties including removal from office or prohibition from ministry. These are formal organisational controls over clergy, rather than an account of how every believer is disciplined. This example should not be generalised to all faiths.

Alongside official discipline, members of a congregation may admire generosity or express disappointment about unkind behaviour. The wish to retain relationships and respect can encourage conformity without an official hearing. Religious teaching can also become part of a person's own moral judgement. An organised disciplinary penalty, neighbours' reactions and an internalised obligation are different routes through which conduct may be influenced.

Reading a situation sociologically

Consider this original educational example: a school bans cheating through its assessment rules, a teacher applies an authorised penalty, and friends stop trusting the pupil who cheated. The rule and penalty are formal; the loss of trust is informal. Both may discourage cheating, while teaching the pupil that honesty matters. However, the account must remain conditional: a pupil might accept honesty as a value, obey only while watched, or reject the rule. Observing conformity alone would not establish that socialisation had produced genuine agreement.

Social order is therefore maintained by a combination of learned commitments and external responses. A rule may make cooperation predictable, but a sociologist also asks whose interests it serves, whether it is applied consistently and whether it conflicts with other groups' norms. Describing a process as social control identifies its operation; it does not automatically endorse its fairness or show that it is effective.

The following check asks you to apply that distinction to a different combination of reactions.