The means whereby the group secures conformity to the expectations of its group members is termed social control. This may take the form of rewards to group members for meeting group standards. Such rewards may include recognition before the group, election to office, being accorded a certain status, or being given some other tangible recognition such as a perfect-attendance pin. Other rewards are less tangible and may take the form of being accepted by the group, a feeling of response from other group members, a smile, a word, or a pat on the back.
Control may also be in the form of punishments. Censure, ridicule, rejection, destitution, taking away privileges, or actual physical acts against the offender are examples of this type of control.
Every group has its group standards and enforces them by varying degrees of social control. Some groups rely mostly on incentives or rewards for control, others more on fear or punishment. If groups are to be productive, members need to know what the standards of the group are and the means used to enforce those standards – the methods of control. As pointed out, it seems to be important that the methods of control are recognized by group members and uniformly enforced – not rigidly enforced one time and very loosely enforced the next.
It is also important that social controls apply equally to all group members. This creates problems since there is seldom absolute conformity to any social norm. Thus control is brought into play, not so much by deviation from a norm, but by departure from the existing degree of obedience to the norm. The group, or the leader, must always face the problem of when to invoke the control.
Many groups have formal sanctions that they may invoke against their members. These formal controls automatically call into operation many informal sanctions, both social and internalized. For instance, the placing of a group member on the inactive list may formally restrict him from holding office and participating in certain group functions. It may also informally restrict the amount of association that group members may want to have with him. In addition, other members may set up certain sanctions against him in that they may consider him a “poor group member,” one who doesn’t take group responsibilities seriously, a person who is not reliable, etc. These informal sanctions give real force to the formal sanction. Controls are most effective when, for a single departure from the existing standards, not one but many separate controls are brought to bear on the individual. When such a complex system of controls is activated, future violations from the group norms are reduced.
The degree of control and the effectiveness of control are related to the importance the group member attaches to being accepted by the group. The identity or “we” feeling the member feels for the group and the relative importance of this group will help determine the effectiveness of the social controls. If there are easy psychological, social, or physical opportunities for group members to withdraw, controls will not be very effective. (The effectiveness of controls upon any member is directly related to the importance assigned by the member to maintaining his membership and status in the group.)
In many cases deviant behavior from group norms may be understood by recognizing that members in a specific group are also members of many other groups that also have standards or norms. Members may not conform to a given group’s norms because conforming to the norms of some other reference group is more important to them. For instance, winning may be a vitally important standard to a team group, and this team may place many controls on its members to assure maximum effort toward winning. Some members of the team, however, will not conform to this norm if they must employ unfair tactics to win. Winning by unfair tactics many conflict with standards of other more important groups, perhaps the family or church, and the urge to conform to these standards may be much stronger.
In some cases members may feel they cannot get recognition through the accepted channels of behavior. They may flaunt group standards to get recognition of another kind. A committee member may come to the committee meeting without fulfilling his responsibility of gathering data for presentation and thereby make light of the assignment. (At this stage, the other committee members may convert him to living up to the group standards of a good committee member or invoke additional social pressures upon him to motivate him to live up to the group standard.)
What About Your Group?
- Are group members involved in determining the means – social controls – to enforce group standards?
- Are the group members aware of the degree of deviation from group standards allowed before social controls are brought into play?
- Are group standards enforced relatively uniformly over time and on all members?
- Are rewards and incentives utilized as means of social control?
- Are both formal and informal controls and pressures used to maintain group standards?
- Are there various controls that can be brought into play against deviation from important group standards?
- Is there a recognition that group members may have group standards of several different groups as their referents in a given group situation?
- Are the means of social control reviewed periodically by the group?
- Is consideration given to making social controls explicit on specific group standards that the group is having difficulty enforcing?