Social learning theory

• Nurture side of the debate

  Ignores nature. We are born a blank slate and out personality characteristics are developed through experiences and interactions with our environment and people around us.
• Reductionist

  doesn’t take a holistic stance. Ignore heredity (down to genetic factors).
• The social learning Theory states that we learn all of our behaviours from others. This means that we can explain our criminal behaviour from our observations of others.
• The theory says this process starts from role models. These are people we look up to and respect (e.g. older siblings, people in the media).
• We go through a process of identification, where we decide we want to be like these role models. In order to do this we watch what they do through a process of observation and then copy these behaviours through imitation.
• According to SLT, we observing individuals commit criminal behaviours being vicariously reinforced – that is being rewarded for their behaviour. We then decide that we want the same reward and thus believe that if we imitate the same criminal behaviour that we observed in our role models then we will receive the same outcome.
• If the individual is directly reinforced – that is when a behaviour is strengthened and likely to be rewarded because of a positive outcome for the individual – they have a further incentive to continue their behaviour.
• Finally, according to SLT if a behaviour is strengthened through continual reinforcement then there is a point in which the behaviour becomes internalised. This means that the criminal behaviour that an individual observes and imitates becomes ‘part of the person’.
• When the criminal behaviour has been internalised they do not need to receive any reinforcement for the behaviour to continue. The behaviour become habitual – people engage in criminal behaviour regardless of the consequences.
• Only focuses on the role of nurture, ignoring the role of nature in explaining criminal behaviour. 


  It has been argued that there is a crime gene, and that without an inherited tendency to commit crime, people cannot learn to be criminals. It might be that nature and nurture have to interact before someone becomes a criminal.
• It doesn't explain how criminal behaviour starts in the first place.

  Even if we accept the social learning theory as an explanation for criminal behaviour from the previous generation, there has to be a point at which the criminal behaviour first began. Social learning theory does not tell us about the origins of criminal behaviour.
• It doesn't account for people who turn to crime, even though they have not been exposed to criminal role models. 


  There are individuals from law binding families who have had good upbringings who unexpectedly commit crimes. In some cases this can be better explained by nature; some of these offenders may have parts of the brain that do not function normally.
• If Social Learning Theory is correct then it should be easier to reduce crime.

  If criminal behaviour is strengthened through reinforcement, then it should be reduced by receiving punishment and seeing others being punished – going to prison, community service. Many people still commit crime, or reoffend after having been punished. This seems to suggest that whether or not you will commit a crime or not, is due to nature and not nurture. With criminal behaviour something that cannot be changed and therefore not learned.
• Just because someone witnesses a crime they may not copy it. 


  There are a number of factors involved such as upbringing and personal experience which may affect whether or not behaviour is imitated.