Social problems are an integral part of social life. The term ‘social problem’ applies to social conditions, processes, societal arrangements or attitudes that are commonly perceived to be undesirable, negative, and threatening certain values or interests such as social cohesion, maintenance of law and order, moral standards, stability of social institutions, economic prosperity or individual freedoms. A social problem may also be experienced as a feeling of collective guilt created through an awareness of collective neglect to remove or alleviate certain undesirable social conditions that negatively affect some sections of society.

In this definition of social problems therefore there is no presumed value- or attitudinal-neutrality in perception, interpretation or intervention. This particular attribute differentiates social phenomena that are perceived to be social problems from other social or physical phenomena or conditions that are regarded as problems tout court, and that are perceived perhaps as not quite desirable or pleasant but without an element of threat. Furthermore, a social problem is also a condition ‘created’ by society that is, potentially at least, feasibly alleviated or solved by society. On the other hand, some physical phenomena or ‘natural disasters’ such as earthquakes, droughts or floods occur beyond social control, although the knowledge of their probability enables societies to take preventive or remedial actions. With such physical phenomena, the knowledge of the ability to take preventive or remedial actions but the failure to do so would then be perceived as a social problem.