Differential Association Theory
- Created by: grestabi
- Created on: 14-12-18 13:15
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- Differential Association Theory (uses Social learning ideas)
- Suggests that through interaction with others, individuals learn values, attitudes, techniques and motivation for criminality.
- Acts of criminals as learned behaviours
- Individuals influenced and shaped mainly by the family and friends, who the individual lives and grows up with, and also wider society.
- Our friendship groups can significantly affect our criminality, especially through adolescence
- Edwin Sutherland developed this in 1939
- Suggested it's learned through operant conditioning. Longer and more frequent associations, they are more likely to have an effect.
- Can either be directly reinforced or vicariously reinforced through role models and others.
- Learning isn't only done in childhood, any person who sees another person positively rewarded for negative behaviour is likely to replicate it.
- Osbourne and west (1979) - looked at relationship between fathers who'd been convicted + their sons.
- Found a 40% chance that the son of a convicted father would offend before age of 18, compared to 13% of sons with non-criminal fathers.
- Changed the way people view criminal behaviour. Introduced social factors and experiences.
- Real world application: learning environments could be changed through policy. Biological approach left little alternatives for society as genes can't be altered before this theory.
- Unable to account for people's individuals differences - not everyone exposed to criminal influences becomes criminal
- Difficulty in testing it as Sutherland couldn't provide a scientific and mathematical framework to predict future offending - couldn't prove his theory was the cause.
- Suggests that through interaction with others, individuals learn values, attitudes, techniques and motivation for criminality.
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