Which term refers to measures to regulate individual behavior in society?

• A. Agencies
• B. Social Control
• C. Government-Sponsored Agencies
• D. Prisons

Answer: (B)

Social control is the set of methods a society uses to regulate how people behave. It covers both informal approaches, like social norms, expectations, and sanctions carried out through peers and family, and formal approaches, such as laws, policing, courts, and sanctions imposed by the state. This broad concept explains why people conform and how deviance is discouraged, creating social order.

Prisons are a concrete tool used within social control to punish and deter wrongdoing, but they are not the overall concept itself. Agencies and government-sponsored agencies are organizational bodies that carry out or administer these controls; they are part of the system, not the term for the measures guiding behavior.