Social Learning

Question 1

What is the key proposition of social learning theory? Make sure to list the 4 key theoretical constructs.

Answer 1

Most of crime/delinquency is learned through socialization; specifically differential association, definitions, reinforcement, and imitation (Akers, 1996).

Criminal behavior is learned through socialization (i.e., with peers).

Question 2

What is the key proposition of Sutherland (1939)? Out of his 9 tenants, what 2 were important for Akers?

Answer 2

Differential Association: A person becomes delinquent when an excess of definitions favorable to law violations exceed those definitions unfavorable to law violations. Definitions are learned through interactions with intimate personal groups.

When criminal behavior is learned, learning includes (1) techniques of committing the crime and (2) specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.

Question 3

What key extensions did Akers (1996) make building on Sutherland’s work?

Answer 3

Sutherland did not define causal mechanisms or processes.

Specifically added: Differential Reinforcement & Imitation.

Question 4

Define differential association with example (Akers, 1996).

Answer 4

differential association is the process by which one may interact with delinquent peers. It is through this process of socialization that a person may learn criminal techniques and rationalizations, thereby developing definitions favorable to law violation

Question 5

Define definitions (Akers, 1996).

Answer 5

definitions are personal beliefs, attitudes, and rationalizations that define the commission of a delinquent act as acceptable, wrong, moral, or immoral

Question 6

Define differential reinforcement with example (Akers, 1996).

Answer 6

Differential reinforcement is the balance of rewards and consequences (anticipated and actual) of a particular act.

Most reinforcements are social (i.e., peer support).

For example, if reward > punishment = criminal behavior is more likely.

Question 7

Define imitation (Akers, 1996).

Answer 7

imitation refers to the process of modeling behavior observed by others. One may observe the actions needed to commit an act to replicate it themselves

Question 8

What important contribution did the following make for social learning theory:

Warr, M., Stafford, M. (1991). The influence of delinquent peers: What they think or what they do? Criminology, 29(4): 851-865.

Did they find supportive/contradictory evidence?

Answer 8

Warr and Stafford (1991) found that peer actions—in delinquency—are more substantial forms of reinforcement than peer attitudes. This indicates that situations conducive to the observation and commission of delinquent acts will be more likely to facilitate the learning process favorable to delinquency (i.e., unstructured socializing with peers, see e.g., Haynie & Osgood, 2005; Osgood et al., 1996).

Question 9

What importance did Akers, Krohn, Kaduce, and Rodosevich (1979) make for social learning theory? Did they find supportive/contradictory evidence?

Answer 9

Most comprehensive tests of social learning, systematically measuring 16 components of the theory.

N=3,065 adolescents (Grades 7–12)

Learning variables explained 54.5% of the variation in alcohol use and 68.3% of the variation in marijuana use.
-Especially delinquent peer socializing.
-Large R-squared is pretty good.

Question 10

What was Hirschi’s (1969) core proposition?

Answer 10

Hirschi’s (1969) Social Bonds theory, which posited that delinquency arises when one’s social bonds to conventional society are attenuated

Question 11

What are the four types of bonds? (Hirschi, 1969)

Answer 11

(1) attachment (i.e., emotional closeness, especially to parents),

(2) commitment (i.e., high educational/occupational aspirations),

(3) involvement (i.e., participation in conventional activities including recreational pursuits),

(4) belief (i.e., embraces conventional norms and laws).

Question 12

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) General Theory of Crime.

What was self-control? What caused it? When did it become stable?

Answer 12

Self-control was defined as a unidimensional, permanent, internal state determined by age 8-10 and remains stable throughout the life course. As a sociological theory, self-control is directly impacted by (in)effective parenting management (Hirschi, 2004; Grasmick et al., 1993; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

Question 13

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) General Theory of Crime.

What was self-control? What caused it? When did it become stable?

Answer 13

Self-control was defined as a unidimensional, permanent, internal state determined by age 8-10 and remains stable throughout the life course. As a sociological theory, self-control is directly impacted by (in)effective parenting management (Hirschi, 2004; Grasmick et al., 1993; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

Question 14

What important contribution did Grasmick et al. (1993) make?

Answer 14

Created a 6-item self-control measurement.

Question 15

Finish the sentence:

Parenting management has a direct effect on a child’s self-control through the (in)effectiveness of their……? (Hint: 3 things)

Answer 15

(1) monitoring of the child

(2) recognizing deviant behavior early

(3) punishing/correcting the misconduct to encourage prosocial behavior (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

Question 16

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) General Theory of Crime. What was the core proposition?

Answer 16

If early childhood parenting were ineffective in these three mechanisms, a child would likely develop low self-control. The takeaway is that Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) posit that low self-control is associated with an increased likelihood of committing criminal/delinquent acts (see also Hirschi, 2004).

Question 17

What were key arguments in Hirschi (2004)?

Answer 17

Reaffirmed that self-control was uni-dimensional and stable by ages 8-10.

Question 18

What contribution did the following make to social learning theory:

Matsueda, R. (1988). The current state of differential association theory. Crime and
Delinquency, 34(3): 277-306.

Answer 18

Review’s literature and finds support for DA.

He argues that social learning is NOT a cultural deviance theory; it is a differential socialization theory (in refutation to Kornhauser, 1978).

Question 19

What did the following find for social learning & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:
Matsueda, R. (1982). Testing control and differential association: A causal modeling approach

Answer 19

Differential association measures were supported over control measures.

Question 20

What did the following find for social learning & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Young, J. (2011). How do they ‘end up together’? A social network analysis of self-control, homophily, and adolescent relationships. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 27(3), 251-273.

Answer 20

This study employs exponential random graph modeling to test hypotheses derived from self-control theory using approximately 63,000 respondents from 59 schools from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

In contrast to the predictions made by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) and the conclusions drawn from prior research, there is little evidence that self-control influences friendship selection.

Question 21

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Haynie, D., Doogan, N., Soller, B. (2014). Gender, friendship networks, and delinquency: A dynamic network approach.

Answer 21

AddHealth; (N = 1,857)

Girls are more likely than boys to be influenced by their friends’ involvement in violence.

Partial Support.

Question 22

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Haynie, D. (2001). Delinquent peers revisited: Does network structure matter?
American Journal of Sociology, 106(4): 1013-1057.

Answer 22

Used social network analyses in which youth reported their own delinquent behavior, and the findings show that peers still matter even after controlling for the response effect.

Question 23

What did the following find for social learning & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Pratt, T., Cullen, F., Sellers, C., Winfree, L., Jr., Madensen, T., Daigle, L., Fearn, N., & Gau, J. (2010). The empirical status of social learning theory: A meta-analysis. Justice Quarterly, 27(6): 765-802.

Answer 23

Meta-analysis of 133 studies.

Reported that in terms of predicting crime or analogous behaviors (i.e., drug use), the social learning variables of differential association and delinquent definitions had effect sizes that rivaled effect size for self-control.
–less robust support was found for Reinforcement and Imitation.

Question 24

How do Control Theorists argue that differential association is incorporated in their theory?

Answer 24

Differential association is captured in a control context.
–Differential Association = attenuated bonds with prosocial figures (i.e., parental attachment) = increased socialization with delinquent peers in unstructured contexts (see also Haynie & Osgood, 2005).

Question 25

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Weerman, F. (2011). Delinquent peers in context: A longitudinal network analysis of selection and influence effects.

Answer 25

Using advanced statistical modeling (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses) to distinguish between selection and influence processes, found that selection of friendships is the product of general mechanisms in social networks (i.e., proximity selection), rather than self-control/delinquent behaviors or attitudes

Question 26

What did the following find for Social Learning & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Haynie, D., Osgood, W. (2005). Reconsidering peers and delinquency: How do peers matter?

Answer 26

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

Socialization/normative influence and opportunity both matter in that unstructured socializing with friends is a key predictor from the opportunity structures, and from the socialization perspective, social control processes such as family and school still matter.

Yet these influences from the peer domain are no more or less important than social control processes in the realms of family and school.

Question 27

List strengths of Social Learning Theory (3)

Answer 27

(1) Direct theoretical tests with huge R^2 (Akers et al., 1979).

(2) Broad evidentiary support (Haynie et al., 2014; Matsueda, 1982; partial, Haynie & Osgood, 2005)

(3) Evidence directly contradicts self-selection (Haynie, 2001; Matsueda, 1982; Weerman, 2011; Young, 2011)

Question 28

What is a weakness of social learning theory?

Answer 28

Second, one of social learning theory’s most withering weaknesses lies in its most significant criticism—that the association between peers and delinquency is due to self-selection and, therefore, spurious (Hirschi, 2004; Gottfredson, 2006). In other words, self-control theorists would argue that individuals with low self-control will self-select into social groups with others characterized by low self-control (Hirschi, 2004; Gottfredson, 2006). Therefore, the association between peers and delinquency is a spurious—not causal—relationship. However, robust studies using advanced statistical methodologies for accounting for self-selection still find that peers are associated with desistance (Akers et al., 1979; Haynie et al., 20142001; Haynie & Osgood, 2005; Matsueda, 1982; Young, 2011; Weerman, 2011). Furthermore, social learning theories have a strength in that there have been robust studies (Matsueda, 1988; Warr & Stafford, 1991) and meta-analyses (Pratt et al., 2010) that have demonstrated strong empirical support for learning theories, generally.

Question 29

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Giordano, P., Cernkovich, S., & Pugh, M. (1986). Friendships and delinquency. American Journal of Sociology, 91(5): 1170-1202.

Answer 29

Hirschi argued that delinquent peers have weak bonds and, therefore will only have cold and brittle relationships. Using interviews with delinquents and non-delinquents, the authors found that the relationships are similar (i.e., not cold and brittle).

Found no evidence for cold and brittle friendships among delinquent peers.

Found support for social learning.

Question 30

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Kreager, D., Rulison, K., Moody, J. (2011). Delinquency and the Structure of Adolescent Peer Groups. Criminology, 49: 95-127.

Answer 30

Quant. paper that found no evidence for Hirschi’s (1969; G&H 1990) cold & brittle argument for peers.

Found support for social learning.

Question 31

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Haynie, D., Giordano, P., Manning, W. (2005). Adolescent romantic relationships and delinquency involvement. Criminology, 43(1): 177-210.

Answer 31

Add Health

Romantic partners matter, but not as much as peers for adolescents. Support for social learning.

Question 32

What did the following find for peers and crime & did they find supportive/contradictory evidence:

Matsueda, R., & Anderson, K. (1998). The dynamics of delinquent peers and delinquent behavior. Criminology, 36(2): 269-308.

Answer 32

Ignore me.