How do values and norms hold a society together and keep behaviour predictable?
Explain how values, norms and mechanisms of social control regulate behaviour and maintain social order in Australian society.
How values and norms differ, the types of norms from folkways to laws, and how formal and informal social control maintains social order and responds to deviance in Australian society.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
Have a quick question? Jump to the Q&A page
Jump to a section
What this dot point is asking
You must distinguish values from norms, classify norms by strength, and explain how formal and informal social control maintain order, using Australian examples.
Values and norms are different things
A common error is to treat values and norms as the same. They are linked but distinct. A value is a broad, abstract belief about what is desirable: in Australia, common values include a fair go, equality of opportunity, freedom of speech and respect for the law. A norm is a concrete expectation about behaviour in a particular situation. The value of a fair go produces norms such as queuing in order, not pushing in, and giving everyone a turn to speak.
Types of norms
Sociologists rank norms by how strongly a society enforces them.
- Folkways are everyday customs and etiquette. Breaking them, such as wearing pyjamas to a formal event, attracts mild disapproval but no serious penalty.
- Mores carry stronger moral weight. Breaking them, such as cheating in an exam or abandoning a child, brings strong condemnation.
- Taboos are the most deeply held prohibitions, such as incest, that provoke disgust across almost the whole society.
- Laws are norms formally written down and enforced by the state, with official sanctions for breaking them.
The same behaviour can shift category over time. Smoking indoors moved from an accepted folkway to a regulated, sometimes illegal, act within a generation in Australia.
Formal and informal social control
Social control is how a society pressures members to follow its norms.
- Informal social control operates through everyday social reactions: a smile of approval, a raised eyebrow, praise, teasing, gossip or being left out. It is unwritten and enforced by ordinary people. Most behaviour is actually regulated this way, not by law.
- Formal social control is exercised by official agencies through written rules and sanctions. In Australia this includes police, courts, prisons, regulators and school discipline systems.
Sanctions
Social control works through sanctions, which are the rewards and punishments that follow behaviour. Positive sanctions reward conformity, such as a promotion, an award or simple praise. Negative sanctions punish deviance, such as a fine, exclusion or imprisonment. Sanctions can be formal (a court fine) or informal (being ignored by a friendship group). The pattern of sanctions teaches members which norms matter most.
Deviance and what it reveals
Deviance is any behaviour that breaks a society's norms. Importantly, deviance is not fixed; it is defined by the society and changes over time and between cultures. Tattoos, once strongly stigmatised in Australia, are now widely accepted. What counts as deviant is therefore a clue to a society's current values. Studying how a society reacts to deviance, who gets labelled deviant, and how harshly they are sanctioned shows where power and dominant values lie.
Australian examples
Australia shows social control at every level. The norm of mateship and looking after each other is enforced informally through approval and belonging. Public health rules during the COVID-19 period combined formal control (fines, mandates, police enforcement) with intense informal control (public shaming of rule breakers online). Road rules show formal control through speed cameras and demerit points, while the informal disapproval of dangerous driving reinforces them.
Why this matters for the course
Values, norms and social control are the machinery that makes the abstract idea of culture into actual ordered behaviour. This dot point connects directly to power and social structures, because the groups who decide which norms become law and which behaviours are labelled deviant are exercising power. It also feeds into social change, because shifting norms and contested deviance are exactly where societies transform. When you analyse any contemporary issue, ask whose norms are being enforced and through what kind of control.