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Introduction
I will show how a model might be applied to social control, and then more specifically focus on religions as mechanisms of social control. As in our previous articles, I will define social power as potential influence, the ability of a person or group to induce or prevent change in another. Social control I will define as the process by which members of a social entity are influenced to adhere to values and principles of proper behavior deemed appropriate for that social entity. This is essentially a definition that had been used by many sociologists in the past (Janowitz, 1975). Parents control their children in the interests of the family, universities exercise control over professors and students, government exercises control over citizens, and religions control their adherents. . . . Society's need for social control was stated most dramatically by Hobbes (1651/1958), who observed that in the "natural" state (without social control), as each person attempted to satisfy his/her individual needs and desires at the expense of others, humankind would be in a war of all against all, such that life would be "nasty, brutish, and short." As we can see then, the concepts of social power and social control are closely interrelated, since the process of social control involves the exercise of the bases and resources of power. But both terms also have their negative and even threatening connotations. All of us, or at least most of us, like to think that we are independent agents, and being subjected to social power restricts that sense of independence. The thought of being "socially controlled" also brings forth strong negative feelings. Yet, when we consider it more carefully, power and influence are part of our everyday interaction and contribute to individual and collective benefit. Similarly for social control.

In his 1975 presidential address to the American Psychological Association, Donald Campbell (1975) presented as his major thesis that psychology and psychiatry are more hostile to the inhibitory messages of traditional religious moralizing than is scientifically justified. Indeed, religion generally has a bad name in many intellectual circles, and not without cause. We think of the numbers of people who have been killed in religious wars, the numbers who have been tortured for their religion in the Inquisition, in Salem witch hunts, or hunted down by crusaders. . . . We see some religions as inhibiting science, medical innovation, and social progress. Yet, Campbell makes a case, through his analysis of social evolution, for the adaptive quality of optimal social coordination in limiting "selfishness, pride, greed, dishonesty, covetousness, cowardice, wrath" (p. 1104). He notes that biological evolution would tend to select for characteristics that help assure biological survival; essentially it would select for tendencies to satisfy selfish interests, for oneself and one's genetic line, without concern for others. Social evolution would counter such selfish tendencies, selecting for personal restraint, sympathy, concern for others, and altruism. How many lives were saved when people, motivated by revenge or desire for personal gain, were restrained by religious belief from injuring or killing their neighbors?

Aside from social coordination, we can all cite religious restrictions that are maladaptive, such as restrictions on accepting blood transfusions, or use of contraceptive devices to avoid venereal disease or excessive births. But how many lives were saved because of religious restrictions against the consumption of pork products and shellfish in the Middle East, at a time when there was no refrigeration? Or even in more modern times, by religions that proscribe the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, narcotics, and other substances later determined to be unhealthy and life-threatening (Paloutzian & Kirkpatrick, 1995)?

Campbell is then "convinced that in past human history, an adaptive social evolution of organizational principles, moral norms, and transcendent belief systems took place . . . [but] sociocultural evolutionary studies [do not give] attention to the mechanism that would make an adaptive evolutionary progress possible" (p. 1106). Religions, then, despite their failings, have contributed significantly to social control and the protection of society. It is my purpose here to examine some such mechanisms, and to further explore some of the effects of such mechanisms, positive and negative.

I should say at the outset that I must admit some inadequacies on my part in such an analysis. I can make no claim to being an expert on religions, nor at this point do I have the time and energy to develop such an expertise. And what I do know is restricted to only a segment of world religions, those that stem from the Judeo-Christian tradition. But I propose that an understanding of the social psychological mechanisms of social control, through an analysis of the bases of power, might help us to understand how religion and other agencies operate in the interests of positive social evolution, as well as how these same mechanisms might lead to harmful effects if they are utilized improperly or manipulatively.

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Excerpted and adapted from: Raven, Bertram H. 1999. Kurt Lewin address: Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control. Journal of Social Issues. 55(1):161-186.