Evaluate the Social Learning Theory explanation for criminal behaviour (4/4 marks)

There is a lot of experimental evidence that supports the view that aggressive behaviour is imitated, such as the study of Huessmann and Eron (1986). The researchers looked at hours of television watched by children (both violent and non-violent). In the longitudinal study, they also looked at the children's behaviour as they grew up. They found that the children who watched the most television were more likely to be aggressive as adults and they were more likely to be arrested. This suggests that children were influenced by the media they were watching as children and they imitated the characters' violent actions when they were older. Therefore this study supports the Social Learning Theory because it suggests that the media participants…