differential association

• Sutherland (1939) was the first to propose the differential association (DA) theory, suggesting that offending behaviour can be explained entirely in terms of social learning, i.e. learning through observation or imitation.
• if someone was socialised around people who held pro-crime attitudes, they would accept these attitudes as the norm and would then take on the same attitudes and views.
• what is learned?

  Sutherland suggested that there were two prerequisites for a person to develop into an offender:

  1. learn a set of values and attitudes that support offending
  2. learn specific behaviours for committing crimes
• what is learned?

  • a child learns attitudes towards crime, whether it is desirable/undesirable - a potential criminal is someone who has learned pro-criminal attitudes.
  • children will learn which particular types of crimes are desirable.
  • a child may also learn about specific methods for committing crimes - some techniques are rather complicated whereas others are simple.
• who is it learned from?

  attitudes and behaviours are learnt from intimate personal groups, such as family or peer groups.

  the individuals or social groups may not be criminals themselves, but they still hold deviant attitudes or an acceptance of such attitudes.
• who is it learned from?

  Osborne and West (1982) found that where the father had a criminal conviction, 40% of sons also acquired one by the age of 18, compared with only 13% of the sons of non-criminal fathers.
• how is it learned?

  Sutherland suggested that the frequency, length and personal meanings of such associations will determine the degree of influence.
• how is it learned?

  1. operant conditioning - a child may be directly reinforced for deviant behaviours through praise, or may be punished for such behaviour by family and peers.
  2. social groups will also establish social norms by which we define behaviour - the social groups create a sense of what is "normal" for people to do.