Learning Theories

CRM 512
 A Life of Crime?
Could you go out tomorrow and embark on
a life of crime? What would you do? How
would you do it?
 Learning Theory
Criminal behavior is learned in a social
context
Values, norms, motives, techniques
We become the company we keep
Criminals are the same as everyone else
The difference lies in what they have learned,
from whom, and in what contexts
A reaction against biological determinism
 Edwin Sutherlands
Differential Association Theory
1. Criminal behavior is learned

2. In interaction with other people

3. Particularly intimate groups (family

and peers)
Differential Association Theory
4. Learning includes
a. Techniques (important for some crimes)
b. Motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes

5. Criminals are people who learn to define

the legal code as unfavorable
 The Heart of Differential
Association Theory
6. Crime results from an excess of
definitions favorable to law violations
over definitions unfavorable to law
violations (a ratio)

- Depends, to a degree, on opportunities for

associations present in the larger context
Differential Association Theory
7. Differential associations vary in frequency,
duration, temporal priority, and intensity

8. Learning crime is the same as learning

anything else

9. Criminal and noncriminal behavior are the

result of learned needs and values (desire for
material success)
 Cheating on an Exam
Can we explain cheating on an exam using
differential association theory?
 Limits of Differential
Association Theory
Difficult to test empirically

Causal direction is difficult to show

Perhaps birds of a feather flock together?

Depicts people as passive

Tabula rasa, de-emphasizes free will
 Social Learning Theory
What makes differential association
work?
Sutherland: learned attitudes -> behavior
Not supported by War and Stafford (1991)
Akers answer: Social Learning Theory
Behavior is influenced by its consequences
Rewards and punishments determine crime
Soft behaviorism cognitive appraisal
 Four Principles of
Social Learning Theory
Differential association with others
We learn behaviors and norms
Definitions
We learn moral attitudes about right & wrong
Include neutralizations & rationalizations
Differential Reinforcement
Lifetime balance of anticipated or actual rewards and
punishments -> probability of behavior
Imitation
Explains onset of behavior, but not persistence
 Questions
How would social learning theory explain
white collar crime?

Street crime, drug dealing, robbery

Sex crimes, rape, child molestation

Minor crimes, shoplifting

 Policy Implications
Informal interventions
Spending time with children
Putting kids in activities with good kids
Formal interventions
Big brother / big sister
Behavioral modification quit smoking
Token economy prisons and psych hospitals