Midterm 3: deck 3 Flashcards
-learning theory
How do learning theorists believe hate is made?
- it is a learned phenomenon
- socialized from 1 generation to the next
- no racist gene
How does learning theory say to fix cultural deviance?
- because it is learned it can be unlearned
- and something else in its place can be relearned
What is a metatheory?
-somewhere between macro and micro
What do Downes and Rock refer to Merton’s strain theory as?
-Big bang theory
How is strain evident in other theories (because it was the first meta theory)?
-because norms dictate deviant behaviour
What are crime and deviance the result of?
-pure socialization
According to learning theorists, does deviance even exist?
- no
- because people follow what society tells them to do
What are the 5 neutralization techniques?
- Denial of responsibility
- Denial of injury
- Denial of victim
- Condemning the condemners
- Appeal to higher loyalties
What is neutralization?
-ways to rationalize the guilt away caused by a deviant act
Where is the principle part of deviant behaviour learned according to Sutherland and Cressey?
-within intimate groups
What does the learning include according to Sutherland and Cressey?
- techniques of committing the crime
- specific directions for motives, drives, rationalizations and attitudes
What is the first diagram?
-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>guilt–>no deviance
What is the second diagram?
-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>invokes techniques of neutralization–>deviance
What is the third diagram?
-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>deviance–>techniques of neutralizations
Who believes in the third diagram?
-control theorists
What are the main variables learning theorists use as validity for their approach?
- frequency
- duration
- priority
- intensity
What were Kornhauser’s criticisms?
- No such thing as human nature because learning theorists prioritize learning too much. Treat us like blank slates.
- Because there is no human nature all we are is social
- Critical that people form subcultures within the parent culture
Who was Kornhauser?
-wrote a book and criticized learning theory
What does Kornhauser suggest within his criticism?
- learning theory is flawed
- birds of a feather rather than monkey see monkey do
- all children see deviance yet not all children are deviant
What did Kornhauser say about the subculture of delinquency?
- argued that subcultures do not have such a major resocializing effect on people as to make them delinquent
- drift
- neutralization
What is drift?
-in and out of conformity
What are some plausible sanctions/punishment within learning theory?
- imitative control
- group unlearning
- operant psychology
- aversion therapy
What is deterministic learning?
-when people are exposed to someone/something delinquent and then they become delinquent themselves
What are the 4 problems with learning theory?
- deterministic learning
- no human nature?
- How do we learn (never explained this)
- Unlimited subcultures, how do we define them?
What is the problem with defining subcultures?
-what are the attributes of a subcultures as opposed to unhappy deviant people hanging out together?
Despite problems, what do sociologists still discover everyday?
-new subcultures
