Applying Theoritical concepts in Sociology

Sociological theories are central part, a hub and the power of the discipline. It gives a fundamental perspective of how to see a larger picture in your own creative manner. Sociological has many theories, which are inter-related concepts of a situation that have been scientifically tested and combined to clarify and expand our understanding of the society and people around us. Emotion has long been recognized in sociology as significantly important, but most references to it are generalized and vague.

Social bond theory is amount to which a person is included into the society, their bond with the family, parents. The role they play as an individual in everyday life. Its crimes are common. Like mugging, robbery, rapping, alcoholism and drug abuses. While the second theory discussed is low self-esteem. In low self-esteem a person knows that he is able (competent) to make choices that stay true to what he is right and wrong. And when you don’t come up to your expectations it’s called low-self-esteem.

Two researches were weighs according to these theories to judge the criminal attitudes. And the reasons were marked. The most common in all was less counseling by an adult, or no parenthood, street life and under wrong supervision.

The better way to reduce these crimes was to educate the person as a child from the start and if someone is on wrong should be counseled for good. And to stop the crime before hand by understanding a person psyche.

Let’s talk about Social Bond Theory, given by Travis Hirschi in 1969 latter called Social Control Theory, in the past it has been a fascinating way of impending communal harms and how every day we deal with them.

As described by Hirschi (1969), “fundamentals of social bonding contain attachment to families, commitment to social norms and institutions (school, employment), involvement in activities, and the belief that these things are important” (p.16). There are four essentials of this theory. First is attachment. The level of value a person hold in their normal life to one another is called Attachment. It is particularly vital when it come to parenting.  Attachments can be with a school going child, as schooling plays an important role in our lives (Hirschi, 1969). Children learn many things from their teachers. It covers both upper and middle class. The higher ones bully the oppressed. Due to this the person starts to avoid school at the earliest point. This leads to retreatment from studies. After that is commitment, it is portrayed as the level of pledge that a person has to bear by legal actions (Burton, Cullen, Evans, Dunaway, Kethineni, and Gary, 1995). We learn difference between right and wrong early in our lives taught to us by our parents or family. For example, if a child is brought up in an environment where there is continuous drug dealing the ultimately he will end up being a part of it. Third is the choice of a person to get his hands on principle versus crime. By this time the child is at their adolescence so he may have enough idea and a choice to decide between right or wrong. This leads to family involvement in an individual’s life. Last is the ordinary value system which is surrounded by an individual’s community. Altogether they shape the moral fiber, a back bone of the everlasting “bond” theory.

The second theory is low self-esteem theory. It is also called self- worth, self-value or self-respect. Self-esteem should be viewed as a range, which can be elevated, average or near to the ground, and is often quantified as a number in experimental research. Self-worth has various viewpoints about the character, such as the evaluation of one’s own look, attitude, sentiment, and performances. A person can be shy, withdrawn, insecure, depressed or dependent. There are three key components of self-esteem (Braden, 1969). First, it is an essential mortal need to survive; second, it arises automatically in person’s belief and consciousness, and third, is in combination with a person’s opinion, actions, thoughts, and measures. Abraham Maslow’s, chain of command depicts self-esteem as one of the fundamental human inspiration. Maslow recommended that people need good remarks from others as well as inner satisfaction of being satisfied (Urwiler & Frolick, 2008). By this a person cultivates his personality and self-actualization. To our imagination there are multiple factors that can boast or drop our self-esteem. Genetic may play a role to form a personality but incidentals are the major ones. People who are constantly and negatively assessed by their caregiver, family, and friends, will likely experience problems with low self-esteem. Manipulated success or failure has no measurable impact when assessed against a lifetime of self-evaluative experiences (Blascovich and Tomaka, 1993).

Let’s take an example though a research, Marcos (1986), “Test of a Bonding/Association Theory of Adolescent Drug Use”.

The study correlates the social bond theory with the college going drug abusers. Self-reported drug use data from a general Texas adult population was analyzed. A sequence of bi-variate cross-comparison correlations between the two variables was incorporated. The affiliation was inspected by scheming the correlation and level of significance within selected demographics. As results significant positive correlation between reduced social bonding and greater drug use was shown but Hirschi’s social bond theory could not explain much about the usage of drugs in this research.

Another research by LaGrange (1999), “Low self-control and opportunity: testing the general theory of crime as an explanation for gender differences in delinquency”. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory is tested as general assumption of crime with explanation for gender dissimilarity in the delinquency of approximately 2,000 Canadian secondary school students. Different dynamics, together with a fondness for looking for hazard, impetuous, displeasure, in attendance sloping, and recklessness, are used as parameters of self-control including the frequency of self-reported smoking and drinking. Adult supervision was marked fundamental of delinquency. To predict self-reported general delinquency, their property wrongdoing, aggression, and drug felony these measures were used. Consequently, it tells partial support for the general theory, revealing relationships between measures of self-control and delinquency that differ by extent across genders and for different evil doing types.

Now we are talking about both the theories in real life examples. Considering social bond theory, a 55-year-old lady, Riana, drives up to Tariq-road; she parks her car and was getting out. While she was preparing to come out an attempt of mugging was contemplated on her by a 19-year-old boy. The kid was pointing the gun at the lady. The lady refused to hand over the cellphone. The 19-year-old kid was in hurry and devastated, he shot the lady. In despair he ran out leaving her to die. Later the teen aged boy was arrested. Police investigation revealed he lost his mother when he was 3 years old. Did not have any one else to take care of, except a father who was a drug addict and belonged to a lower financial class. The father was drug dependent and no other family member available to inject social norms that led the child towards becoming a robber and eventually even murdering a lady in cold blood. The child was unable to develop the social bond that he would have developed in case of a proper family. The respect for women and the thought that this lady could be a mother, daughter and sister of someone was missing in this case that would have been instituted in case of a proper social circle. If he would have been educated this could have been long avoided.

Anum 15 year old, belonging to a tycoon family, studying in her high school was caught stealing purses from girl’s common room of her college. This was a surprising revelation for every one there. On investigating the case, it was found that she was the youngest child of the family. She had a difference of at least 10 years from her other 4 siblings. She was bullied by her brothers and sister as well as by class mates. Her parents were too old to take care of her. She had no friends in school. All these factors summed up to having a low self-esteem which instigated a criminal behavior in the form of stealing. Though, she belonged to a rich family and had no desire not being fulfilled, she did this to satisfy her low self-esteem. If she had good counseling by parents and less bullying all this could have been avoided.