What is control balance theory?
Control balance theory holds that the likelihood of deviance depends on the ratio between the control a person exercises and the control they are subjected to: it rises with both control deficits and control surpluses. Charles R. Tittle formulated it in Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance (1995).
A supermarket cashier has his backpack searched by his manager every night on the way out; a CEO answers to no one, not even his own board. Charles Tittle argued that both share the same risk factor: they live with the scales of control out of balance. The first is controlled far more than he controls; the second controls far more than he is controlled. And from both ends, he said, deviance springs.
Control balance at a glance
- Authors
- Charles R. Tittle
- Year
- 1995
- Family
- Integrative
- Idea
- Deviance comes from those who endure far more control than they exercise, or exercise far more than they endure
Control exercised ÷ control experienced = control ratio · imbalance + provocation + opportunity − constraint ⇒ deviance// OriginTittle and the scales
Tittle had spent decades working on deterrence when, in 1995, he published Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance. The book was also a reckoning: it reviewed anomie, conflict, social control, learning, labeling and routine activities theories and concluded that none was enough as a general theory. His proposal pulled them together around a single idea, the control ratio: how much control a person exercises over others and over their surroundings, divided by how much control they endure. And it is not fixed: it shifts with every situation.
The novelty was breaking with classic control theories, for which more control always means less crime. For Tittle, control also motivates. Those in deficit want to throw off the yoke; those in surplus want to extend a domain that is already large, because the desire for autonomy, he says, is almost universal. Only balance favors conformity.
Tittle’s thesis
It is not only people with too little control over their own lives who offend: so do those with too much over everyone else’s.
Provocation
No one thinks about their control ratio all day long. It takes a provocation, an event that puts it in plain view, and Tittle insisted it works when it stings: a humiliation, a slight, a degrading order. At that point deviance looks like a remedy for restoring the balance. But the remedy is applied only if there is opportunity and if fear of counter-control, the response the act might trigger, does not hold it back.
From the scales to the act, step by step
- 1Control ratioWhat you control versus what controls you: deficit, balance or surplus
- 2ProvocationA humiliation or a snub makes the imbalance conscious and unbearable
- 3OpportunityAn occasion arises in which the deviant act is possible
- 4ConstraintCounter-control is weighed: if the likely response is very harsh, another act is chosen, or none
That is why the most serious acts do not come from the most oppressed: it takes some leeway to risk the backlash.
// Six pathsSix ways to tip the scales
In 1995 Tittle sorted deviance into two families. On the deficit side, repressive deviance: with a small deficit, predation (violence, theft, direct assault); with a moderate one, defiance (vandalism, insolence, open contempt for the rules); with an extreme one, submission, the passive obedience of someone who can no longer push back. On the surplus side, autonomous deviance: with a little, exploitation, an indirect predation that uses other people or the organization; with more, plunder, pursuing one’s own ends with no regard for the damage; and at the top, decadence, capricious and unpredictable acts that answer only to whim. The paradox is a subtle one: the person who is most crushed does not usually strike out but gives in.
// In fictionThe two pans of the scale
At the top of the scale, Joffrey is textbook decadence: a teenage king whom no one can refuse and who tortures and executes on a whim, with no calculation and no gain. el Sr. Burns stands for plunder: the owner of Springfield who dumps waste and even blots out the sun to sell more electricity, because other people’s harm does not show up on his books. Gekko is exploitation in its purest form: he never lays a finger on a victim; he moves information, companies and other people’s employees, and lets the structure do the dirty work.
In the lower pan, D-Fens is provocation turned into a movie: laid off, kept from his daughter by a restraining order, stuck in a traffic jam, he meets a small humiliation at every stop and answers each one by trying to seize back control of his day by force. Carrie has spent years in extreme deficit, bullied at school and terrorized at home, and for as long as it lasts she does what the theory expects at that end of the scale: she submits. She explodes only when the humiliation at the prom coincides with a power that has long been growing inside her, telekinesis, which hurls her to the other end of the scale in a single moment.
Three who control too much and two who are controlled too much: the scales broken on both sides. Tap to open their case file.
// The evidenceWhat the tests found
The theory has been tested little, and almost always with surveys. One of the first tests, by Piquero and Hickman (1999), produced a mixed result: both deficits and surpluses predicted predation and defiance, which in theory belonged to the deficit side alone. It fared better in the boardroom: Nicole Leeper Piquero and Alex Piquero (2006) found, among working adults, that control surpluses, not deficits, were linked to exploitation in a corporate setting. And among people held in local jails, Fox, Nobles and Lane (2016) found that both imbalances raised the likelihood of offending, although when men and women were analyzed separately only the surplus kept its effect.
// The flawThe typology that did not survive
The most striking piece of the theory, the match between each degree of imbalance and a type of deviance, is the one that held up worst against the data. Imbalances were linked to deviance, but without respecting the borders: surpluses also produced “repressive” acts. Tittle did not paper over it. In 2004 he acknowledged a logical flaw and a mistaken categorization, withdrew the six types, took submission out of deviance to treat it as a failure of rebalancing, and brought in self-control. The revised version no longer assigns a type of act to each degree of imbalance: it only says which acts are most attractive for rebalancing, those with lasting effects and those that do not require facing the victim in person.
A theory its author rewrote
John Braithwaite devoted a lengthy analysis to it in the first issue of Theoretical Criminology, and Tittle’s replies turned control balance into a rare case of a theory corrected in public by its own author.
- 1995Tittle publishes Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance.
- 1997Braithwaite analyzes it in depth in Theoretical Criminology.
- 1999Piquero and Hickman, one of the first empirical tests: mixed results.
- 2004Tittle publishes “Refining Control Balance Theory”: farewell to the six types.
- 2006N. L. Piquero and A. Piquero link control surplus to corporate exploitation.
// Why it mattersLooking up as well
Almost every control theory looks down, at the young person with no bonds or no brakes. Tittle forces us to look up as well, and explains with one and the same logic the executive’s fraud and the humiliated man’s assault. The upshot is uncomfortable for any organization: concentrating power without checks is not only unfair; it is also criminogenic.
Strengths and shadows
- It explains deviance at the bottom and at the top with a single mechanism, white-collar crime included.
- It brings provocation and humiliation back in as triggers, something control theories tended to ignore.
- It weaves pieces of anomie, learning, conflict, labeling and routine activities theories into a single process.
- Its author corrected it in light of the data, a rare thing in criminology.
- The original typology did not survive testing: deficits and surpluses predicted the same acts.
- It is complex and hard to measure: the control ratio shifts with every situation.
- It has been tested little, mostly with students and hypothetical vignettes.
- The 2004 version is more flexible, but also harder to falsify.
Three key takeaways
- Control balance (Tittle, 1995): deviance rises when the ratio between the control one exercises and the control one endures tips, downward or upward.
- It takes a provocation that makes the imbalance conscious, often a humiliation, plus an opportunity and a counter-control that does not deter.
- The evidence confirmed that imbalances matter, but not the six-type typology; in 2004 Tittle replaced it with a continuum of the “desirability” of acts.
Sources · further reading
- Tittle, C. R. (1995). Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance. Westview Press.
- Braithwaite, J. (1997). “Charles Tittle’s Control Balance and Criminological Theory.” Theoretical Criminology, 1(1).
- Piquero, A. R. & Hickman, M. (1999). “An Empirical Test of Tittle’s Control Balance Theory.” Criminology, 37(2).
- Tittle, C. R. (2004). “Refining Control Balance Theory.” Theoretical Criminology, 8(4).
- Piquero, N. L. & Piquero, A. R. (2006). “Control Balance and Exploitative Corporate Crime.” Criminology, 44(2).
- Fox, K. A., Nobles, M. R. & Lane, J. (2016). “Control Balance Behind Bars: Testing the Generality of Tittle’s Theory Among Incarcerated Men and Women.” Crime & Delinquency, 62(7).
// Test the theoryWhich of these villains does KRIMINIS analyse with Control balance?
Theory questionsFrequently asked questions
What is control balance theory?
Control balance theory holds that the likelihood of deviance depends on the ratio between the control a person exercises and the control they are subjected to: it rises with both control deficits and control surpluses. Charles R. Tittle formulated it in Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance (1995).
Who developed control balance theory, and when?
The American sociologist Charles R. Tittle, in 1995, in the book Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance (Westview Press). It was an integrated theory that borrowed pieces from social control, learning, anomie, conflict and routine activities theories. Tittle overhauled it in the article “Refining Control Balance Theory” (Theoretical Criminology, 2004).
Is control balance theory still accepted, and what is it criticized for?
It is still cited, but it remains under debate and has been tested little. The evidence partly confirms that imbalances are linked to deviance, but it contradicted the typology: deficits and surpluses predicted the same kinds of acts. Critics also fault its complexity. In 2004 Tittle himself dropped the six types and replaced them with a continuum, the “desirability” of an act for rebalancing control.
Which villain in the archive best illustrates control balance theory?
Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones embodies the maximum surplus: no one can contradict him, and his cruelty takes the form Tittle called decadence, capricious and unpredictable acts driven by nothing but whim. At the opposite end, William Foster in Falling Down shows a control deficit that a chain of humiliations turns into an explosion.