Listen to part of a lecture in an anthropology class.

Professor: Okay. Now, every society has standards for what's appropriate behavior, what's okay to do and what's not, right? Male Student: Like laws? Every society has laws?

Professor: Well, now that's an interesting question. Laws are one way, a formal way of defining standards for behavior, you know, by specifying what's not okay to do. But do we want to say that every society has laws specifically? Well, it depends. Ah, one definition of law is if a society grants some individuals the authority to threaten people who break social norms with, with punishment or to carry out a punishment, then we say that, that society has laws. And using that definition, then I think it'd be hard pressed to find a society that's ever existed that hasn't had laws. But not all societies have formal court systems where there's a written, codified set of rules, laws and sanctions for breaking them that are supposed to be applied objectively, almost impersonally, a whole system in place to administer those laws and determine consequences when one is broken. So if you define law in that way--to mean there's a formal court system, then not all societies have laws.

Male Student: But even societies that don't have laws defined the second way, they still have rules, right? You just don't refer to them as laws.

Professor: Yes, I think we can say that that every society that's ever existed has had clearly defined rules that govern the relationships between its members, and there's some way of imposing sanctions on members of the society who violate them. So every society has a way of trying to control behavior.

Male Student: Using either rules or laws? Professor: Right. To see the difference in our society, some standards are formalized and written down as a formal set of laws with a publicly recognized authority, or mechanism for punishing people who violate them, right? The legal system. But even so, not all behavior is governed by laws. Not every behavior that most people would consider wrong is against the law, as speaking rudely to another person, insulting them or or acting in an inconsiderate way, usually not against the law. But there are other ways, informal ways of, of trying to prevent people from behaving like that, right? I mean, how people bring up their children, so-called good behavior is modeled for us by parents or teachers. So our society has informal means of social control as well as formal, codified ones. Jennifer.

Female Student: So these formal and informal ways, they're ways of defining appropriate behavior, but also a way of making sure that people behave appropriately, right? That's what you mean by social control?

Professor: Right. When we consider formal, codified legal systems, it's likely that people conform in part, because there are legal consequences if you don't, right? Because if you violate a law, you might be subject to some form of legal sanction, one point of which is to get violators to change those behaviors. And also so that other people will see the costs and they'll know what will happen if they break the law. So the hope is that people won't ever engage in those behaviors in the first place. So in a sense, the legal system controls behavior. So why do people conform to standards of behavior in societies without formal court systems? Note that these are typically small communities.

Female Student: Maybe they'd be afraid of some sort of public embarrassment. Professor: Yes, that can be an effective way to get people to conform. And in fact, it doesn't even have to be so public, out in the open for everyone to see. Simple gossip in a small social network sometimes serves as a strong deterrent, just the threat of being talked about negatively, being the subject of embarrassing gossip. Yes, Matthew.

Male Student: Well, but some people just don't care how they're seen by others. Professor: True, but there are other recourses, like a person's family could cut off economic support, or the person might be completely avoided by his or her community or family, or even expelled or forced to leave. Again, we're focusing on societies that don't have court systems, which are typically fairly small communities. And in a small community, expulsion, a total rejection, can be devastating. In fact, it might exert the strongest social control, since it's very effective as a deterrent.