social control
Americannoun
-
Sociology. the enforcement of conformity by society upon its members, either by law or by social pressure.
-
the influence of any element in social life working to maintain the pattern of such life.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This concentration of power risks creating new forms of dependency and social control incompatible with human nature and freedom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
“Power dynamics, social control; the actual themes the films are exploring seem very simple and universal to me,” he says, “but the ways in which he’s exploring them are always askew.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 5, 2026
Government planners see AI as both an economic tool and an instrument of social control.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025
"There is a comfort with authoritarian social control," Whitehead said.
From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2022
Nothing in the opinion or in the subsequent legal strategy made clear that segregation had afforded elites a crucial means of exercising social control over poor and working-class whites as well as blacks.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
