Behaviourist assumptions of crime Flashcards
List 3 Behaviourist assumptions:
- Humans are born ‘tabula rasa’
- People are products of society
- All complex behaviours can be learned
What did Skinner (1948) hypothesise about operant conditioning?
Behaviour which is reinforced by reward tends to be repeated (i.e. strengthened); while behaviour which is punished or not reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished (i.e. weakened).
Name 2 ways operant conditioning can lead to criminality.
- Reinforcement- A consequence that strengthens the behaviour that preceded it
- Punishment- A consequence that weakens the behaviour that preceded it
Behaviour followed by desirable consequence can become more _______.
Behaviour followed by ___________ consequence can lead to behaviour becoming less frequent.
- frequent
- undesirable
Despite Bandura agreeing with the behaviourists that behaviour is learnt through experience, what different mechanism did he argue we learn through?
He argued that we learn through observation and imitation of others’ behaviour. This theory focuses not only on the behaviour itself but also on the mental processes involved in learning.
Describe the 4 Step Modelling Process of the Social learning theory.
Attention- A person pays attention to someone else’s behaviour.
Retention- How well they memorise the behaviour they have observed.
Reproduction- Are they able to practice the behaviour themselves.
Motivation- Influences to imitate the behaviour.
When is imitation of criminal behaviour more likely according to Bandura’s social learning theory?
- Imitation is more likely to occur due to vicarious reinforcement (if the model is positively reinforced).
- Imitation is also more likely if we identify with the model.
Describe the experiment that supports Bandura’s social learning theory?
The Bob Doll Experiment (1961-63) where he studied children’s behaviour after watching an adult model act aggressively towards a Bobo doll and found that children learn aggression through observation.
What are 3 sources of observational learning?
- IN THE FAMILY
- IN THE SUB-CULTURE (PEERS)
- THROUGH CULTURAL SYMBOLS (FILMS , VIDEO GAMES)
What is an example of a case where the offenders were said to have copied media?
It said that Robert Thompson and John Venables were acting out the events of Child’s Play 3 when they kidnapped and murdered Jamie Bulger.
What did SUTHERLAND ET AL (1939) suggest?
It proposed differential association theory: It suggests that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour through association and interaction with others who have more or less favourable attitudes towards crimes. These attitudes then influence their own criminal attitudes and behaviour.
According to SUTHERLAND ET AL (1939) what does offending depend on? Why is this?
Differential Association Theory- Supposedly it depends on the criminal norms/values of the offender’s social group – offending is more likely to occur where social groups value criminal behaviour. This is because offending behaviour is acquired in the same way as any other behaviour – through the processes of learning.
According to Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory, what 2 factors does criminality arise from?
1) Learning attitudes towards crime
2) The learning of specific criminal acts
How could Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory explain why so many convicted offenders who are released from prison re-offend?
They could have learned more through their criminal peers.
Based on behaviourist assumptions of crime, when will people go on to offend?
If the number of pro-criminal attitudes outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes that the person acquires.
