16.1.14

Differential Association Theory

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Sutherland's General Principles

The differential association theory believes criminal behaviour is learned by interacting with criminals. It was first proposed by Sutherland (1939).

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Sutherland

  • Sutherland examined how people learn criminal behaviour by associating with criminals.
  • He believed that people could not only learn methods of specific crimes but also the attitudes and motivations behind the crimes.
  • He came up with several general principles.
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General principles 1:

  • Criminal behaviour, like all behaviour, is learned behaviour.
  • Criminal behaviour comes from social interaction and communication with other people.
  • Criminal behaviour is more likely to be learnt when in a small group of individuals rather than a large group.
    • The reason for this is that small groups are when people have a larger influence.
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General principles 2:

  • Motivation and intent are learned alongside the actual techniques and methods of the crime itself.
  • Criminals decide whether an action or behaviour is favourable or unfavourable to them. Whereas the law tells the criminal what is legal or illegal.
    • For example, theft, while illegal, can be favourable if it can result in material gains.
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General principles 3:

  • The more a person is exposed to criminal behaviour, the more likely they are to commit criminal behaviour.
    • This is particularly true when the crime has a favourable outcome (like theft or drug dealing which both can result in monetary gain).
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General principles 4:

  • The intensity, frequency, priority and duration of these interactions between criminals and the learner affects how likely the learner will develop criminal behaviour.
    • Priority refers not to how important the interaction is but how early in their life the interaction happens.
      • For example, a child exposed at a young age to criminal behaviour is more likely to become a criminal than those exposed later.
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General principles 5:

  • People learn behaviour by association (operant and classical conditioning). This is also true of criminal behaviour.
  • Anyone has the potential to become a criminal, regardless of sex, wealth, age, background, ethnicity, etc.

Evaluation of Differential Association Theory

This theory has several strengths and weaknesses.

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Recidivism

  • This theory can explain recidivism.
    • This is how likely a person is to commit another crime.
  • People who commit minor offences (vandalism, petty theft, etc.) are more likely to commit another crime because they spend time with other criminals.
  • They are more likely to learn about new, more serious crimes, in the time spent in prison.
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Generalisability

  • This theory can explain why anyone, from any background can commit criminal behaviour.
  • All types of people commit crime and therefore, this theory is more valid because it accounts for this.
  • Comparatively, other theories of crime only examine juveniles (youth) and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
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Research support

  • Another strength is the theory has support from a study done by Short (1955) on 176 school aged children.
  • Short found a positive correlation between delinquent behaviour and association with delinquent individuals.
  • In other words, children were more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour (like theft) when they associated more with criminals.
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Individual differences

  • Individual differences are not taken into account.
    • For example, the theory does not explain why some siblings may do criminal acts and some not even if they are all raised in the same ‘criminal learning’ environment.
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Testing

  • The theory is challenging to test as there are differences in the attitudes towards crime and law.
  • Crime is difficult in general to define, therefore makes this theory hard to examine.

Jump to other topics

1Social Influence

2Memory

3Attachment

4Psychopathology

5Approaches in Psychology

6Biopsychology

7Research Methods

8Issues & Debates in Psychology (A2 only)

9Option 1: Relationships (A2 only)

10Option 1: Gender (A2 only)

11Option 1: Cognition & Development (A2 only)

12Option 2: Schizophrenia (A2 only)

13Option 2: Eating Behaviour (A2 only)

14Option 2: Stress (A2 only)

15Option 3: Aggression (A2 only)

16Option 3: Forensic Psychology (A2 only)

17Option 3: Addiction (A2 only)

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