SOCIAL BOND

Social bond is the degree to which an individual is integrated into the society, or ‘the social’.

The binding ties or social bonding to the family. Social bond also includes social bonding to the school, to the workplace and to the community.

Social Bond theory was written by Travis Hirschi in 1969. Social Bond theory later developed into Social Control Theory.

While Durkheim first focused on the importance of the social bond it has gained wide acceptance in the theory and research of Travis Hirschi. Hirschi argues that as the socal bond is weakened as the degree of deviant involvement goes up.

Travis Hirschi's Social Bond Theory
Travis Hirschi presented four social bonds which promote socialization and conformity: attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. According to Travis Hirschi, the stronger these four bonds, the least likely one would become delinquent. Hirschi first assumes that everyone has potential to become delinquent and criminal and it is social controls, not moral values, that maintain law and order. Without controls, he argues, one is free to commit criminal acts.

Social bond theory and drunk driving in a sample of college students.(Report): An article from: College Student Journal by Keith F. Durkin, Scott E. Wolfe, Ross W. May

School Delinquency and the School Social Bond - PATRICIA H. JENKINS 
Using data from a sample of 754 middle school students in Grades 7 and 8, this article examines the independent effects of the four components of the school social bond—school commitment, attachment to school, school involvement, and belief in school rules—on school crime, school misconduct, and school nonattendance. The results suggest that personal background, family involvement in schooling, and ability grouping have differential effects on the school bond components. Also, an examination of the independent effects of the four components of the school social bond suggests that certain components are more important than others in controlling different types of school delinquency. These results suggest that the school social bond is an important intervening mechanism that helps to explain the effects of certain predictor variables on school crime, school misconduct, and nonattendance in middle schools. - jrc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/3/337

Shame and the Social Bond: A Sociological Theory - Thomas J. Scheff 
Emotion has long been recognized in sociology as crucially important, but most references to it are generalized and vague. In this essay, I nominate shame, specifically, as the premier social emotion. First I review the individualized treatment of shame in psychoanalysis and psychology, and the absence of social context. Then I consider the contributions to the social dimensions of shame by six sociologists (Georg Simmel, Charles Cooley, Norbert Elias, Richard Sennett, Helen Lynd, Erving Goffman) and a psychologist/psychoanalyst (Helen Lewis). I show that Cooley and Lynd, particularly, made contributions to a theory of shame and the social bond. Lewis's idea that shame arises from threats to the bond integrates the contributions of all six sociologists, and points toward future research on emotion, conflict, and alienation/integration. - blackwell-synergy.com

Social Bond Theory and Alcohol Use Among College Students. - Authors: Cherry, Andrew L., Jr. 
Abstract: Investigated incidence of alcohol use by college students, relationship among social bond variables, and ability of social bond variables to predict alcohol use. Psychosocial scales measuring elements of social bond to the college community were used successfully to classify abstainers, light-to-moderate drinkers, and heavy drinkers in 74% of the cases. - eric.ed.gov

An empirical examination of the social bond theory of drug use. - Dull RT.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between control theory, measured through a created social bond scale, and the respondents' self-admitted drug use (alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, amphetamines, and barbiturates). An analysis was conducted of self-reported drug use data from a general Texas adult population. This analysis included a series of bivariate cross-comparison correlations between the independent variable (social bond) and the dependent drug variables. The relationship between the independent and dependent variables was further examined by calculating the correlation and level of significance within selected categories of several demographic (age, race, sex, education, income, and marital status) variables. The results showed a significant positive correlation between reduced social bonding and greater drug use. However, while these relationships were significant, they were relatively weak and of little explanatory value. It was concluded that Hirschi's social bond theory fails to provide an adequate explanation for the use of drugs within the framework of this analysis. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 

SOCIAL BOND THEORY AND BINGE DRINKING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS.
College Student Journal, September 1, 1999, DURKIN, KEITH F.; WOLFE, TIMOTHY W.; CLARK, GREGORY
This paper presents the results of a research project that examined the influence of social bond variables on binge drinking in a sample of college students. A questionnaire containing items which reflected a number of social bond variables and a measure of frequency of binge drinking was administered to a sample (n=247) of college students. The results indicated that nearly all of the social bond measures were inversely related to the frequency of binge drinking. A multivariate model that used these social bond measures explained approximately one-quarter of the variance in ...