Midterm 3: deck 3

Question 1

How do learning theorists believe hate is made?

Answer 1

• it is a learned phenomenon
• socialized from 1 generation to the next
• no racist gene

Question 2

How does learning theory say to fix cultural deviance?

Answer 2

• because it is learned it can be unlearned

- and something else in its place can be relearned

Question 3

What is a metatheory?

Answer 3

-somewhere between macro and micro

Question 4

What do Downes and Rock refer to Merton’s strain theory as?

Answer 4

-Big bang theory

Question 5

How is strain evident in other theories (because it was the first meta theory)?

Answer 5

-because norms dictate deviant behaviour

Question 6

What are crime and deviance the result of?

Answer 6

-pure socialization

Question 7

According to learning theorists, does deviance even exist?

Answer 7

• no

- because people follow what society tells them to do

Question 8

What are the 5 neutralization techniques?

Answer 8

1. Denial of responsibility
2. Denial of injury
3. Denial of victim
4. Condemning the condemners
5. Appeal to higher loyalties

Question 9

What is neutralization?

Answer 9

-ways to rationalize the guilt away caused by a deviant act

Question 10

Where is the principle part of deviant behaviour learned according to Sutherland and Cressey?

Answer 10

-within intimate groups

Question 11

What does the learning include according to Sutherland and Cressey?

Answer 11

• techniques of committing the crime

- specific directions for motives, drives, rationalizations and attitudes

Question 12

What is the first diagram?

Answer 12

-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>guilt–>no deviance

Question 13

What is the second diagram?

Answer 13

-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>invokes techniques of neutralization–>deviance

Question 14

What is the third diagram?

Answer 14

-motivated offender (learned deviant norms)–>deviance–>techniques of neutralizations

Question 15

Who believes in the third diagram?

Answer 15

-control theorists

Question 16

What are the main variables learning theorists use as validity for their approach?

Answer 16

• frequency
• duration
• priority
• intensity

Question 17

What were Kornhauser’s criticisms?

Answer 17

1. No such thing as human nature because learning theorists prioritize learning too much. Treat us like blank slates.
2. Because there is no human nature all we are is social
3. Critical that people form subcultures within the parent culture

Question 18

Who was Kornhauser?

Answer 18

-wrote a book and criticized learning theory

Question 19

What does Kornhauser suggest within his criticism?

Answer 19

• learning theory is flawed
• birds of a feather rather than monkey see monkey do
• all children see deviance yet not all children are deviant

Question 20

What did Kornhauser say about the subculture of delinquency?

Answer 20

• argued that subcultures do not have such a major resocializing effect on people as to make them delinquent
• drift
• neutralization

Question 21

What is drift?

Answer 21

-in and out of conformity

Question 22

What are some plausible sanctions/punishment within learning theory?

Answer 22

• imitative control
• group unlearning
• operant psychology
• aversion therapy

Question 23

What is deterministic learning?

Answer 23

-when people are exposed to someone/something delinquent and then they become delinquent themselves

Question 24

What are the 4 problems with learning theory?

Answer 24

• deterministic learning
• no human nature?
• How do we learn (never explained this)
• Unlimited subcultures, how do we define them?

Question 25

What is the problem with defining subcultures?

Answer 25

-what are the attributes of a subcultures as opposed to unhappy deviant people hanging out together?

Question 26

Despite problems, what do sociologists still discover everyday?

Answer 26

-new subcultures