Psychological Explanations Of Offending Behaviour: Differential Association

Question 1

Major contribution:

Answer 1

it’s changed people’s views about the origins of criminal behaviour

this theory doesn’t blame the individual and instead points to social factors and experiences

this is important for real-world applications as learning environments can be changed whereas genes can’t

Sutherland also introduced white collar crime (committed by MC, businesses etc)

Question 2

Supporting evidence:
Osborne and West (1979)
Akers et. al (1979)

Answer 2

O&W: found that criminality runs in families. He found that 40% of sons who had a father with a criminal conviction, had committed a crime by 18 compared to 13% of sons without one

A: surveyed 2,500 males and females about drinking and drug behaviour. She found that the most important influence was from peers, differential association, differential reinforcement and imitation

Question 3

Methodological issues:

Cox et. al (2014)

Answer 3

the data collected is correlational and not cause and effect. It may be that offenders seek out other offenders which would explain why offenders have friends that are too

C: argue that this theory isn’t testable because of the difficulty in disentangling learned and inherited influence
it’s difficult to measure the effect and strength of different associations

Question 4

Can’t account for all kinds of crime:

Answer 4

.this theory probably applies to ‘smaller’ crimes rather than violent crimes such as murder and rape. Thus this theory is only a partial account of offending behaviour

also this theory can’t explain why most offences are committed by younger people. Whereas Eyesnecks theory may explain this (i.e. desire for risk-taking)