Culture and Social control- unwritten rules

The process of informal control are of particular interest to sociologists. Travis Hirschi, a fucntionalist writer, pointed out that breaking rules can give people considerable advantage in life. Despite this, most people do not commit serious crime. He believed that criminals and deviants lacked proper socialistion.

There are a number of unwritten rules and codes that control behaviour:

• Norms-are the expected behaviour for a cutlture. A norm in one culture may not be normal in another, for example, in the UK we do not choose to eat insects, whereas some cultures value insect protein, for example the Maori culture of New Zealand.
• Mores-are ways of behaving that are seen as good, or moral. For example, most people would agree that stealing from the elderly is wrong, thus those who cheat old people have broken the moral…