Social Evaluation - Differential Association Theory Flashcards
Evaluate major contribution…
Changed people’s views about the origins of criminal behaviour, which marled an important shift from ‘blaming’ individual factors to pointing to social factors, which has important ‘real-world’ implications
Sutherland introduced ‘white-collar crime’ highlighting transgressions against the law committed by responsible and high social status individuals, where non-violent crimes can be best explained by DAT
Evaluate supporting evidence…
Ostern and West (1979) found that 40% of sons whose father had a criminal conviction, committed a crime by the age of 18, compared to 13% of sons of fathers with no criminal convictions
Ronald Akers et al (1979) conducted a survey of 2,500 male/female adolescents in the US to investigate drug and drinking behaviour, where the most important influence was peers; differential association, differential reinforcement, and imitation combine to account for 68% and 55% of the variance respectively
Evaluate methodological issues…
Data collected is correlational and doesn’t show cause and effect
Cox et al (2014) stated that theory isn’t testable and that it is not clear what favourable : unfavourable influences would tip the balance
Evaluate how it can’t account for all kinds of crime…
Social learning influences are confined to ‘smaller’ crimes, meaning that differential association is only a partial account of offending behaviour
DAT also can’t explain why most offences are committed by younger people, with Tim Nowburn (2002) found that 40% of offences are committed by under 21s
Gisli Gudjonsson and Jon Sigurdsson (2007) stated that desire for risk was a key factor in crime