Forensics - differential association theory

• Differential Association Theory


  Psychological explanation of offending behaviour - Individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour through association and interaction with different people
• Differential Association Theory


  • Proposed by Edwin Sutherland in 1939
  • Offending behaviour is learned in the same way as any other behaviour - relationships and associations we form with the people around us
• Phrase "Got in with a bad crowd" - friendship groups can profoundly affect criminality especially during adolescence
• Differential associations


  Number of contacts with criminals over non-criminals, which may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity
• Learning criminal behaviour by association

  1. Involves all the mechanisms of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning theory

  2. Occurs most often through interactions with significant others like family and peer group
• Sutherland set himself the task of developing scientific principles to explain all types of offending
• Differential Association Theory is designed to discriminate between individuals who become criminals and those who do not, whatever their race, class or ethnic background
• Offending behaviour


  Depends on the norms/values of the offender's social group, and is more likely to occur where social group values deviant behaviour
• Criminality arises from


  Learned attitudes towards crime, and the learning of specific criminal acts
• Pro-criminal attitudes


  If the number of pro-criminal attitudes the person acquires outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend
• Learning criminal acts


  Offenders may learn particular techniques for committing crime, e.g. how to break into a house or disable a car stereo
• Offending often seems to run in families, as the family's response is crucial in determining whether the individual is likely to engage in offending behaviour
• Differential Association Theory


  • Able to account for crime within all sectors of society, not just violent crimes but also white collar/corporate crimes
  • Moves the emphasis from early biological accounts of crime to more social explanations
• Differential Association Theory does not account for individual differences in susceptibility to the influence of others
• It is difficult to test Differential Association Theory despite Sutherland's promise of a scientific, mathematical framework, as it is hard to measure the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person has been exposed to
• Differential Association Theory has raised the concept of family influence on offending behaviour, which has influenced subsequent research
• Adoption studies have provided supporting evidence that the family (rather than genes) is a factor causing criminality
• Exam questions on Differential Association Theory

  • Outline Differential Association Theory and explain one limitation (6 marks)
  • Outline one study investigating Differential Association Theory (4 marks)
  • Evaluate Differential Association Theory (6 marks)
  • Discuss Differential Association Theory, referring to evidence (16 marks)
• Video explaining Differential Association Theory


  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbaTH-rMpJU