Psychological explanations: Differential association

Question 1

Why is this considered a sociological theory?

Answer 1

Sutherland (1939) suggests that we are socialised into a life of crime by learning the values, attitudes techniques, and motives for criminal behavior through association and interaction with different people

Question 2

What exactly is learnt?

Answer 2

• Learning attitudes towards crime (whether crime is desirable or undesirable)
• Learning specific acts

Question 3

Who is it learnt from?

Answer 3

• Primary socialization such as family
• Secondary socialization such as peer groups
• They are also learnt from the wider neighbourhood. The degree to which the local community supports or opposes criminal involvement determines the differences in crime rates from one area to another

Question 4

How is it learnt?

Answer 4

• Sutherland did not specify the actual mode of learning, but it is likely to be direct tuition from peers or observational learning and imitation
• A child may be directly reinforced for deviant behaviors through praise, or punished for such behavior by family or peers
• Role models would provide opportunity to model behavior, and if they are successful themselves in criminal activities, this would provide indirect vicarious reinforcement

Question 5

Strength: Shift of focus

Answer 5

• It was successful in moving the emphasis away from early biological accounts of crime, such as Lombroso’s atavistic theory
• It draws attention to the fact that dysfunctional social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for criminality than dysfunctional people
• This makes the approach more desirable because it offers a more realistic solution to the problem of crime instead of eugenics or punishment

Question 6

Weakness: Can’t account for all types of crime

Answer 6

• Confined to smaller crimes than violent and impulsive offences such as rape and murder
• Can’t explain why most offences are committed by younger people
• Newburn found out that 40% offences are committed by people under 21.
• Provides an incomplete explanation of offending behaviour

Question 7

Weakness: Difficulty of testing

Answer 7

• It’s hard to see how the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person has been exposed to could be measured
• The theory is built on the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-criminal values outnumber anti-criminal ones
• It is difficult to know what point the urge to offend is realised and the criminal career triggered
• Lacks scientific credibility

Question 8

Weaknesses: Does not consider biological factors

Answer 8

• Diathesis-stress model may offer a better account by combining social factors with vulnerability factors
• Vulnerability factors may be innate genetic ones, might be that early experiences acts as a vulnerability
• Social approach on its own may, therefore, be insufficient