Social Psychological Explanations Of Criminal Behaviours

Question 1

Differential association theory intro

Answer 1

• One social psychological explanation for criminal behaviour is the differential association theory.
• This suggests that crime is a learned behaviour through the association with different people.
• Sutherland wanted to predicted whether people would or would not become criminals
• to understand this, this theory is split up into 3 sections

Question 2

What is learned behaviour

Answer 2

• ‘what is learned behaviour is the idea that pro criminal attitudes are learned in social situations.
• when a person socialise with a particular group they are exposed to the groups values and attitudes
• for example, a group of friends might think that the legal age for drinking is too high, which leads to underage drinking.
• Sutherland argued that if the number of pro criminal attitudes outweighs the number of anti crimes attitudes then this leads to them offending
• this theory therefore suggests that it can be predicted how likely a individual will commit a crime if there’s knowledge on the frequency, intensity and duration of their social construct

Question 3

Who is it learned from

Answer 3

• this is the idea that attitudes or behaviours are learned from personal intimate groups such as family and/or peer groups (as explained in Sutherlands nine key principles)
  -attitudes could also be learned from a wider neighbourhood
• for example, it is the degree to which a local community supports or opposes criminal involvement (differential organisation) that determines the differences in crime rates from one area to another
• therefore suggesting that there are environmental factors to explain criminal behaviour as individuals hold deviant attitudes or/and an acceptance of such attitudes

Question 4

How is it learned

Answer 4

• how is it learned is another factor in differential association theory.
• Sutherland that frequency, duration and personal meanings of association will determine the degree of influence
• despite not specifying the mode learning, it is learning, it is likely to be a result of direct and indirect operant conditioning
• direct conditioning refers to reinforcement punishment e.g a child may be directly reinforced for deviant behaviours through praise or punished for such by family or peers
• indirect conditioning refers to vicarious reinforcement e.g a child observing and limiting role models when they’re successful in criminal activities
• therefore suggesting that one can be conditioned to adopt certain attitudes regardless if it’s their nature or not