Chapter 6 Flashcards
What is Differential association theory? (Edwin Sutherland)
This theory explains how criminal behaviour is learned through interaction with others. This theory suggests that people become deviant not because of genetics or personality, but because they are socialized into crime by the people around them.
Edwin Sutherland, 7 key propositions:
- Sutherland’s first proposition suggests that deviant behaviour is learned and not inherited or the result of some biological trait.
- Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.
- The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. Much learning takes place between parents and children and between friends and acquaintances.
- When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple, and (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
- The direction of the motives and drives varies and is learned from exposure to definitions (statements, attitudes, and beliefs) that are favorable or unfavourable to engaging in particular behaviours.
- A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of the law.
- Differential associations vary in terms of frequency (how often exposed), duration (length of exposure), priority (how early in life one is exposed), and intensity (the respect or admiration one holds for the person providing the definitions).
What is a differential Association Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behaviour?
- a reformulation of differential association theory, and
- it attempted to introduce the psychological concepts of operant conditioning to the theory.
- The notion behind operant conditioning is that learning is enhanced by both social and non-social reinforcement.
What is reinforcement?
It is an act or thing that strengthens or encourages a behaviour.
What are the first 3 propositions of social learning theory?
- deviant behaviour is learned according to the principles of operant conditioning.
- deviant behaviour is learned both in nonsocial situations that are reinforcing or discriminating and through that social interaction in which the behaviour of other persons is reinforcing or discriminating for such behaviour.
- The principal part of the learning of deviant behaviour occurs in those groups that comprise or control the individual’s major source of reinforcement.
Development of Akers’s Social Learning Theory
1- Differential association: These are social interactions with deviant as opposed to conventional others.
2- Differential reinforcement: It is the balance of rewards and punishments that follow from deviant behaviours.
3- Imitation: It occurs by observing behaviour and reenacting modeled behaviour in actuality or in play.
4- Definition: Definitions are beliefs or attitudes that support or justify deviant behavior. The stronger these beliefs are, the more likely a person is to engage in such behaviour.
Definitions can be:
Favorable: School is a waste of time, and skipping school is cool!
Neutralizing: Skipping school doesn’t hurt anyone.
Reproachful: Skipping school hurts not only the deviant student but also other members of the class.
What are the 5 techniques of Neutralization to justify deviant behaviour?
1.The denial of responsibility.
2.The denial of injury.
3.The denial of victim.
4.The condemnation of the condemners.
5.The Appeal to Higher Loyalties.
The denial of responsibility:
- technique used by individuals to argue that they are not responsible for their behaviour.
“I didn’t mean it”
The denial of injury:
- technique that focuses on wether the deviance is perceived to cause injury or harm to anyone.
“but no one was hurt.”
The denial of victim:
- technique that focuses on the fact that the victim deserves to be harmed bc it is retaliation or punishment for some slight the victim has perpetrated on the deviant.
- while a victim might exist, that person deserves the harm.
“brought it on himself.”
The condemnation of the condemners:
- technique that shifts the focus/blame to the individuals who are pointing the finger at the deviant’s behaviour.
- tactic used to point out others’ behaviour that are also deviant.
“everybody’s picking on me”
The appeal to higher loyalties:
- individual sees him/herself as loyal to a group that demands behaviour that violates the rules of society, he or she might argue that that loyalty requires breaking rules for the good of the smaller group.
“I didn’t do it for myself”
Akers’s Social Structure and Social Learning:
- First theory focuses on individual-level factors influencing deviant behaviour.
- Recently, he expanded the theory to include social structure elements, calling it social structure and social learning (SSSL) theory.
Social structure and social learning key idea:
Akers argued that social structures shape the environments where people learn deviant or non-deviant behaviors. People don’t just learn crime randomly; they learn it based on their social environment.
4 key characteristics of the social structure that might affect social learning:
- Differential social organization
- Differential location in the social structure.
- Theoretically defined structural variables.
- Differential social location in groups.
Differential Social Organization:
These are ecological, community, or geographic differences across social systems.
Differential Location in the Social Structure:
- concerns social and demographic factors that influence an individual’s position/role in society (E.g. social class, race/ethnicity, gender, age).
Theoretically Defined Structural Variables:
- broader concepts like anomie, class oppression, social disorganization, and patriarchy.
Differential Social Location in Groups:
- refers to the influence of group membership, such as being in a family, peer group, or even a gang, which can shape an individual’s behaviour.
Using data from the Boys Town Study, what were the structural factors that were linked to alcohol and marijuana use?
age, gender, social class, family structure, and community size
Critiques of Differential Association and Social Learning Theories:
Forms of deviance unexplained by social learning theory:
There are various forms of deviance that social learning theory cannot explain.
We are bombarded by images of serial killers in the popular media, but it would be difficult to argue that serial killers learn the techniques and motivations to kill through communication with intimate others.
There is good evidence to suggest that social factors have a great deal to do with how mentally ill patients are treated.
However, the best evidence seems to suggest that the mentally ill are indeed mentally ill.
