Lesson 7: Differential Association

Question 1

What is the Differential Association Theory?

Answer 1

• Offending depends on the norms/values of the offender’s social group
• Offending is more likely to occur where the social group values deviant behaviours

Question 2

What happens when a person is socialised into a social group?

Answer 2

• Exposed to group’s norms and values to the law
• Some groups will be pro and others will be anti crime
• If the no of pro-criminal attitudes outweigh the anti, the person will become an offender

Question 3

How is the learning process? (What are the 4 types)

Answer 3

• The same whether the person is learning criminality or conformity to the law
• The 4 types of learning are
  Imitation
  Vicarious Reinforcement
  Direct reinforcement
  Direct tuition

Question 4

How does this theory explain how crime spreads among specific social groups?

Answer 4

• Potential offender may learn particular techniques for committing crime.
• It is why so many prison inmates reoffend, as they learn specific offending from experienced criminals

Question 5

Evaluation (+)

Answer 5

• Accounts for all types of crime in all sectors of society e.g poorer places have burglaries and richer places have corporate crime
• Moved emphasis away from early biological explanations of crime (Lombroso). It draws attention to the role of dysfunction social circumstances and environments in criminality
• Offers a more desirable and realistic solution to offending behaviour than the biological or morality solution (eugenics/punishment)

Question 6

Evaluation (-)

Answer 6

• Difficult to test scientifically as it is correlational. The exposure to attitudes is hard to measure, so it will be hard to measure at what the urge to offend is triggered
• Not everyone who is exposed to criminal influence goes on to commit crime. This could stereotype individuals who come from impoverished backgrounds as ‘unavoidable criminal’. Ignores free will