What is Social Fact?

social fact is a term of Sociologywhich refers to ways of acting of the people that make up a certain group or of society in general.

This concept was created by Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), founder of sociology. For him, social facts are the actions practiced by people that make it possible to identify the collective conscience that influences the individual's way of acting.

Thus, social facts are the tools that determine the subject's way of thinking, acting and feeling, forcing him to adapt to social rules.

We can cite as examples of social fact, values, rules, social norms and conventions that exist independent of the subject.

Characteristics of the social fact

Let's see some characteristics of the social fact:

• Generality: occurs when social facts affect the whole society;
• Exteriority: are the social facts that exist before the subject is born;
• Coercivity: it is the way standards are imposed on people, forcing them to follow norms that they do not agree with, but that exist despite it.

Examples of social fact

You examples of social fact they are:

• To work
• To have a bath
• Eat
• Pay the bills
• leisure time
• Education

We noticed that the social fact involves simple activities that happen in the individual's daily life.

All the cited actions influence the subject's way of being, therefore, they affect the whole of society. The example of education is proof of this, as it is present during a good part of a person's life, influencing and shaping their way of acting.

Learn more at:

• Social action
• social organization
• Social structure
• Social Darwinism