Social- Differential association theory

What does this theory assume?

That crime is a learned behaviour and that people “learn” how to become an offender through associating with different people

What is learned in the differential association theory?

Pro-criminal attitudes at learned from social situations. When a person socialises into a particular group, they are exposed to that group’s values and attitudes towards the law. The group might also have its own defined set of morals and if these morals criminality attitude outweighs the anti-criminality attitude, the person will go on to offend.

Examples of how attitudes learned can influence how you act.

Attitude- my older brother says it’s fine to physically attack someone you don’t like

Physically start attacking people I do not like

Who are these behaviours learnt from?

Intimate personal groups such as family and/or peer group.

They’re also learned from the wider neighbourhood. The degree to which the local community supports or opposes criminal involvement determines the differences in crime rates from 1 area to another. The individuals or social groups may not be criminals themselves but they may still hold deviant attitudes or an acceptance of such attitudes

Strength- supporting evidence

Criminality appears to run in families. Eg: psychologists found where there was a father with a criminal conviction. 40% of sons had committed a crime by 18 compared to 13% of sons of non-criminal fathers. Such findings can of course be explained in terms of genetics as well. Other evidence included a study by a psychologist surveying 2500 males and female adolescents in the US to investigate drinking and drug behaviour. Akers et al found most important influence on this form of deviant behaviour was from peers and that differential association, differential reinforcement and imitation combined to account for 68% of the variance in marijuana use and 55% of alcohol use