Theories

Travis Hirschi’s Control Theory

Hirschi theorized that the tendency to conform comes from four types of social controls. The first social control is attachment, meaning that people with strong relationships with family, friends, and others in their community are more likely to conform to their social conventions while people with weaker attachments are freer to engage in deviance. The second social control is commitment, meaning that the greater a person’s commitments to legitimate opportunities in their society and economy, the greater the advantages of conformity are to them. Involvement is the third social control, meaning that the more involved in legitimate activities a person is, the less likely they are to engage in deviant acts. The final social control outlined by Hirschi is belief, meaning that the stronger a person’s respect for societal authority figures and belief in conventional morality, the more likely they are to conform to societal beliefs. (Orcutt)


Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory

Differential Association Theory is closely related to Hirschi’s idea of attachment. Sutherland theorized that a person’s tendency toward conformity or deviance depends on that person’s contact with other people who are accepting or rejecting that kind of behavior. This essentially means that if someone is constantly surrounded by others who engage in socially acceptable behavior and abide by laws, then that person is likely to conform, but if the same person is surrounded by others who deviate from societal norms, then that person would be likely to deviate. (Geis)