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Social learning theory.

The purpose of this research paper is to provide an overview of Akers’s social learning theory with attention to its theoretical roots in Sutherland’s differential association theory and the behavioral psychology of Skinner and Bandura. Empirical research testing the utility of social learning theory for explaining variation in crime or deviance is then reviewed; this is followed by a discussion of recent macrolevel applications of the theory (i.e., social structure and social learning). (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Introduction
Origin and Overview of Social Learning Theory
Differential Association
Definitions
Differential Reinforcement
Testing Social Learning Theory
Social Structure and Social Learning
Future Directions

I. Introduction

The purpose of this research paper is to provide an overview of Akers’s social learning theory with attention to its theoretical roots in Sutherland’s differential association theory and the behavioral psychology of Skinner and Bandura. Empirical research testing the utility of social learning theory for explaining variation in crime or deviance is then reviewed; this is followed by a discussion of recent macrolevel applications of the theory (i.e., social structure and social learning). The research paper concludes with a brief offering of suggestions for future research and a summary of the importance of social learning theory as a general theory in the criminological literature.

II. Origin and Overview of Social Learning Theory

Burgess and akers’s (1966).

differential association-reinforcement theory was an effort to meld Sutherland’s (1947) sociological approach in his differential association theory and principles of behavioral psychology. This was the foundation for Akers’s (1968, 1973; Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979) further development of the theory, which he came more often to refer to as social learning theory. Sutherland’s differential association theory is contained in nine propositions:

Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.
The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.
When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple, and (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable.
A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law.
The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.
Although criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values, because noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.
Differential association varies in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. The most frequent, longest-running, earliest and closest influences will be most efficacious or determinant of learned behavior. (pp. 6–7)

Sutherland (1947)

referred to the sixth statement as the principle of differential association. According to Sutherland, an individual learns two types of definitions toward committing a particular behavior. He can either learn favorable definitions from others that would likely increase the probability that he will commit the behavior, or he can learn unfavorable definitions that would likely decrease the probability that he would engage in a particular behavior. Stated in terms of criminal involvement, when an individual learns favorable definitions toward violations of the law in excess of the definitions unfavorable to violations of the law, that individual is more likely to commit the criminal act(s).

Learning favorable versus unfavorable definitions can also be described as a process whereby individuals attempt to balance pro-criminal definitions against prosocial or conforming definitions. It is logical to assume that individuals learn favorable or pro-criminal definitions for committing crime from those involved in crime themselves (i.e., the criminals) and, in contrast, learn unfavorable definitions for committing crime from those individuals who are not involved in crime, and this assumption is supported empirically. It should be remembered, however, that it is possible for law-abiding persons to expose individuals to pro-criminal attitudes and definitions, just as it is possible for an individual to learn conforming definitions from criminals (see Cressey, 1960, p. 49).

According to Sutherland’s (1947) seventh principle, the theory does not merely state that being associated with criminals leads to crime or that being associated with law-abiding persons leads to conforming behavior. It is the nature, characteristics, and balance of the differential association that affect an individual’s likelihood of violating the law. More specifically, if a person is exposed to pro-criminal definitions first (priority), and these definitions increase in frequency and strength (intensity) and persist for some time (duration), the individual is more likely to demonstrate involvement in criminal and deviant acts.

Although Sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory began to accumulate a rather large amount of attention throughout the sociological and criminological literature in the years after its emergence, Burgess and Akers (1966) noted that the theory had still failed to receive considerable empirical support and had yet to be adequately modified in response to some of its shortcomings and criticisms.

Some of these issues included the inconsistency both within and between studies regarding the support for differential association and a common criticism among scholars on the difficulty of operationalizing the theory’s concepts. In response to these criticisms and the prior failure of differential association theorists in specifying the learning process of the theory, Burgess and Akers presented their reformulated version of the theory, that is, differential association-reinforcement theory.

To describe their revised version in terms of its modifications and derivations from the original theory (as exemplified in Sutherland’s [1947] nine principles), Burgess and Akers (1966) offered the following seven principles that illustrate the process wherein learning takes place:

Criminal behavior is learned according to the principles of operant conditioning (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principles 1 and 8).
Criminal behavior is learned both in nonsocial situations that are reinforcing or discriminative and through that social interaction in which the behavior of other persons is reinforcing or discriminative for criminal behavior (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 2).
The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs in those groups whi ch comprise the individual’s major source of reinforcements (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 3).
The learning of criminal behavior, including specific techniques, attitudes, and avoidance procedures, is a function of the effective and available reinforcers, and the existing reinforcement contingencies (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 4).
The specific class of behaviors which are learned and their frequency of occurrence are a function of the reinforcers which are effective and available, and the rules or norms by which these reinforcers are applied (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 5).
Criminal behavior is a function of norms which are discriminative for criminal behavior, the learning of which takes place when such behavior is more highly reinforced than noncriminal behavior (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 6).
The strength of criminal behavior is a direct function of the amount, frequency, and probability of its reinforcement (reformulation of Sutherland’s Principle 7). (pp. 132–145)1

Akers (1973, 1977, 1985, 1998)

has since discussed modifications to this original serial list and has further revised the theory in response to criticisms, theoretical and empirical developments in the literature, and to ease the interpretation and explanations of the key assumptions of social learning theory, but the central tenets remain the same. It is important to note here that, contrary to how social learning is often described in the literature, social learning is not a rival or competitor of Sutherland’s (1947) theory and his original propositions. Instead, it is offered as a broader theory that modifies and builds on Sutherland’s theory and integrates this theoretical perspective with aspects of other scholars’ principles explicated in behavioral learning theory, in particular behavioral acquisition, continuation, and cessation (see Akers, 1985, p. 41). Taken together, social learning theory is presented as a more comprehensive explanation for involvement in crime and deviance compared with Sutherland’s original theory; thus, any such support that it offered for differential association theory provides support for social learning theory, and findings that support social learning theory do not negate/discredit differential association theory.

The behavioral learning aspect of Akers’s social learning theory (as first proposed by Burgess and Akers, 1966) draws from the classical work of B. F. Skinner, yet, more recently, Akers (1998) commented on how his theory is more closely aligned with cognitive learning theories such as those associated with Albert Bandura (1977), among others. According to Burgess and Akers (1996) and, later, Akers (1973, 1977, 1985, 1998), the specific mechanisms by which the learning process takes place are primarily through operant conditioning or differential reinforcement. Stated more clearly, operant behavior, or voluntary actions taken by an individual, are affected by a system of rewards and punishments. These reinforcers and punishers (described later) ultimately influence an individual’s decision of whether to participate in conforming and/or nonconforming behavior.

Burgess and Akers (1966)

originally considered the imitation element of the behavioral learning process (or modeling) to be subsumed under the broad umbrella of operant conditioning; that is, imitation was itself seen as simply one kind of behavior that could be shaped through successive approximations and not a separate behavioral mechanism. However, Akers later began to accept the uniqueness of the learning mechanism of imitation from operant or instrumental learning and to discuss it in terms of observational learning or vicarious reinforcement. Burgess and Akers also recognized the importance of additional behavioral components and principles of learning theory, such as classical conditioning, discriminative stimuli, schedules of reinforcement, and other mechanisms.

Considering the brief overview of social learning theory as described earlier, the central assumption and proposition of social learning theory can be best summarized in the two following statements:

The basic assumption in social learning theory is that the same learning process in a context of social structure, interaction, and situation, produces both conforming and deviant behavior. The difference lies in the direction . . . [of] the balance of influences on behavior. The probability that persons will engage in criminal and deviant behavior is increased and the probability of their conforming to the norm is decreased when they differentially associate with others who commit criminal behavior and espouse definitions favorable to it, are relatively more exposed in-person or symbolically to salient criminal/deviant models, define it as desirable or justified in a situation discriminative for the behavior, and have received in the past and anticipate in the current or future situation relatively greater reward than punishment for the behavior. (Akers, 1998, p. 50)

It is worth emphasizing that social learning theory is a general theory in that it offers an explanation for why individuals first participate in crime and deviance, why they continue to offend, why they escalate/deescalate, why they specialize/generalize, and why they choose to desist from criminal/deviant involvement. Social learning theory also explains why individuals do not become involved in crime/deviance, instead opting to participate only in conforming behaviors. Thus, considering the generality of the theory as an explanation for an individual’s participation in (or lack thereof) prosocial and pro-criminal behaviors, more attention is devoted in the following paragraphs to fleshing out the four central concepts of Akers’s social learning theory that have received considerable (yet varying) amounts of attention and empirical support in the criminological literature: differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation (Akers, 1985, 1998; Akers et al., 1979).

III. Differential Association

The differential association component in Akers’s social learning theory is one of primary importance. Although its significance cannot simply be reduced to having “bad” friends, the individuals with whom a person decides to differentially associate and interact (either directly or indirectly) play an integral role in providing the social context wherein social learning occurs. An individual’s direct interaction with others who engage in certain kinds of behavior (criminal/deviant or conforming) and expose the individual to the norms, values, and attitudes supportive of these behaviors affects the decision of whether the individual opts to participate in a particular behavior.

Akers has indicated that family and friends (following Sutherland’s [1947] emphasis on “intimate face-to-face” groups) are typically the primary groups that are the most salient for exposing an individual to favorable/unfavorable definitions and exhibiting conforming and/or nonconforming behaviors. For the most part, learning through differential association occurs within the family in the early childhood years and by means of the associations formed in school, leisure, recreational, and peer groups during adolescence. In contrast, during young adulthood and later in life, the spouses, work groups, and friendship groups typically assume the status of the primary group that provides the social context for learning. Secondary or reference groups can also indirectly provide the context for learning if an individual differentially associates him or herself with the behaviors, norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs with groups of individuals, including neighbors, church leaders, schoolteachers, or even what Warr (2002) called virtual groups, such as the mass media, the Internet, and so on.

According to the theory, the associations that occur early (priority); last longer or occupy a disproportionate amount of one’s time (duration); happen the most frequently; and involve the intimate, closest, or most important partners/peer groups (intensity) will likely exert the greatest effect on an individual’s decision to participate in either conforming or nonconforming behavior. Taking these elements into consideration, the theory proposes that individuals are exposed to pro-criminal and prosocial norms, values, and definitions as well as patterns of reinforcement supportive of criminal or prosocial behavior. The more an individual is differentially associated and exposed to deviant behavior and attitudes transmitted by means of his or her primary and secondary peer groups, the greater his or her probability is for engaging in deviant or criminal behavior:

The groups with which one is in differential association provide the major social contexts in which all of the mechanisms of social learning operate. They not only expose one to definitions, but they also present one with models to imitate and differential reinforcement (source, schedule, value, and amount) for criminal or conforming behavior. (Akers & Sellers, 2004, pp. 85–86)

IV. Definitions

Definitions are one’s own orientations and attitudes toward a given behavior. These personal as opposed to peer and other group definitions (i.e., differential association) are influenced by an individual’s justifications, excuses, and attitudes that consider the commission of a particular act as being more right or wrong, good or bad, desirable or undesirable, justified or unjustified, appropriate or inappropriate. Akers considered these definitions to be expressed in two types: (1) general and (2) specific. General beliefs are one’s personal definitions that are based on religious, moral, and other conventional values. In comparison, specific beliefs are personal definitions that orient an individual either toward committing or away from participating in certain criminal or deviant acts. For example, an individual may believe that it is morally wrong to assault someone and choose not to partake in or condone this sort of violence. Yet, despite his belief toward violence, this same individual may not see any moral or legal wrong in smoking a little bit of marijuana here and there.

Akers also has discussed personal definitions as comprising either conventional beliefs or positive or neutralizing beliefs. Conventional beliefs are definitions that are negative or unfavorable toward committing criminal and deviant acts or favorable toward committing conforming behaviors. In contrast, positive or neutralizing beliefs are those that are supportive or favorable toward crime and deviance. A positive belief is a definition an individual holds that committing a criminal or deviant act is morally desirable or wholly permissible. For instance, if an individual believes that it is “cool” and wholly acceptable to get high on marijuana, then this is a positive belief favorable toward smoking marijuana. Not all who hold this attitude will necessarily indulge, but those who adhere to these definitions have a much higher probability of using marijuana than those who hold to conventional or negative definitions. A neutralizing belief also favors the commission of a criminal or deviant act, but this type of belief is influenced by an individual’s justifications or excuses for why a particular behavior is permissible. For instance, one may have an initially negative attitude toward smoking marijuana but through observation of using models and through associating with users come to accept it as not really bad, or not as harmful as using alcohol, or otherwise come to justify or excuse its use.

Akers’s conceptualization of neutralizing definitions incorporates notions of verbalizations, techniques of neutralization, and moral disengagement that are apparent in other behavioral and criminological literatures (see Bandura, 1990; Cressey, 1953; Sykes & Matza, 1957). Examples of these neutralizing definitions (i.e., justifications, rationalizations, etc.) include statements such as “I do not get paid enough, so I am going to take these office supplies”; “The restaurant makes enough money, so they can afford it if I want to give my friends some free drinks”; “I was under the influence of alcohol, so it is not my fault”; and “This individual deserves to get beat up because he is annoying.” These types of beliefs have both a cognitive and behavioral effect on an individual’s decision to engage in criminal or deviant behavior. Cognitively, these beliefs provide a readily accessible system of justifications that make an individual more likely to commit a criminal or deviant act. Behaviorally, they provide an internal discriminative stimulus that presents an individual with cues as to what kind of behavior is appropriate/justified in a particular situation. For example, if a minimum-wage employee who has been washing dishes full-time at the same restaurant for 5 years suddenly gets his or her hours reduced to part-time because the manager chose to hire another part-time dishwasher, then the long-time employee might decide to steal money from the register or steal food because she believes that she has been treated unjustly and “deserves” it.

Akers and Silverman (2004) went on to argue that some personal definitions are so intense and ingrained into an individual’s learned belief system, such as the radical ideologies of militant and/or terrorists groups, that these definitions alone exert a strong effect on an individual’s probability of committing a deviant or criminal act. Similarly, Anderson’s (1999) “code of the street” can serve as another example of a personal definition that is likely to have a significant role in motivating an individual to participate in crime or deviance. For example, if an urban inner-city youth is walking down the street and observes another youth (who resides in the same area) flaunting nice jewelry, then the urban juvenile might feel justified in “jumping” the kid and taking his jewelry because of the code of the street or the personal belief that “might makes right.” Despite these examples, Akers suggested that the majority of criminal and deviant acts are not motivated in this way; they are either weak conventional beliefs that offer little to no restraint for engaging in crime/deviance or they are positive or neutralizing beliefs that motivate an individual to commit the criminal/deviant act when faced with an opportunity or the right set of circumstances.

V. Differential Reinforcement

Similar to the mechanism of differential association, whereby an imbalance of norms, values, and attitudes favorable toward committing a deviant or criminal act increases the probability that an individual will engage in such behavior, an imbalance in differential reinforcement also increases the likelihood that an individual will commit a given behavior. Furthermore, the past, present, and future anticipated and/or experienced rewards and punishments affect the probability that an individual will participate in a behavior in the first place and whether he or she continues or refrains from the behavior in the future. The differential reinforcement process operates in four key modes: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.

Consider the following scenario. John is a quiet and shy boy who has difficulty making friends. Two of his classmates approach him on the playground and tell him that they will be his friend if he hits another boy because they do not like this particular child. John may know that hitting others is not right, but he decides to go along with their suggestion in order to gain their friendship. Immediately after he punches the boy, his classmates smile with approval and invite John to come over to their house after school to play with them. This peer approval serves as positive reinforcement for the assault. Positive reinforcement can also be provided when a behavior yields an increase in status, money, awards, or pleasant feelings.

Negative reinforcement can increase the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated if the act allows the individual to escape or avoid adverse or unpleasant stimuli. For example, Chris hates driving to and home from work because every day he has to drive through the same speed trap on the interstate. One day, Chris decides to come into work 1 hour early so he can in turn leave 1 hour early. Chris realizes that by coming in early and subsequently leaving early, he is able to avoid the speed trap because the officers are not posted on the interstate during his new travel times. He repeats this new travel schedule the following day, and once again he avoids the speed trap. His behavior (coming in an hour early and leaving an hour early) has now been negatively reinforced because he avoids the speed trap (i.e., the negative stimulus).

In contrast to reinforcers (positive and negative), there are positive and negative punishers that serve to increase or decrease the probability of a particular behavior being repeated. For example, Rachel has always had a designated driver when she decides to go out to the bar on Friday nights, but on one particular night she decides to drive herself to and from the local bar. On her way home, she gets pulled over for crossing the yellow line and is arrested for driving under the influence. Her decision and subsequent behavior to drink and drive resulted in a painful and unpleasant consequence: an arrest (a positive punishment).

This last scenario is an example of negative punishment. Mark’s mom decides to buy him a new car but tells him not to smoke cigarettes in the car. Despite his mom’s warning, Mark and his friends still decide to smoke cigarettes in the vehicle. His mom smells the odor when she chooses to drive his car to the grocery store one day and decides to take away Mark’s driving privileges for 2 months for not following her rules. Mark’s behavior (smoking cigarettes in the car) has now been negatively punished (removal of driving privileges).

Similar to differential association, there are modalities for differential reinforcement; more specifically, rewards that are higher in value and/or are greater in number are more likely to increase the chances that a behavior will occur and be repeated. Akers clarified that the reinforcement process does not necessarily occur in an either–or fashion but instead operates according to a quantitative law of effect wherein the behaviors that occur most frequently and are highly reinforced are chosen in favor of alternative behaviors.

VI. Imitation

Imitation is perhaps the least complex of the four dimensions of Akers’s social learning theory. Imitation occurs when an individual engages in a behavior that is modeled on or follows his or her observation of another individual’s behavior. An individual can observe the behavior of potential models either directly or indirectly (e.g., through the media). Furthermore, the characteristics of the models themselves, the behavior itself, and the observed consequences of the behavior all affect the probability that an individual will imitate the behavior. The process of imitation is often referred to as vicarious reinforcement (Bandura, 1977). Baldwin and Baldwin (1981) provided a concise summary of this process:

Observers tend to imitate modeled behavior if they like or respect the model, see the model receive reinforcement, see the model give off signs of pleasure, or are in an environment where imitating the model’s performance is reinforced. . . . Inverse imitation is common when an observer does not like the model, sees the model get punished, or is in an environment where conformity is being punished. (p. 187)

Although social learning theory maintains that the process of imitation occurs throughout an individual’s life, Akers has argued that imitation is most salient in the initial acquisition and performance of a novel or new behavior. Thus, an individual’s decision to engage in crime or deviance after watching a violent television show for the first time or observing his friends attack another peer for the first time provides the key social context in which imitation can occur. Nevertheless, the process of imitation is still assumed to exert an effect in maintaining or desisting from a given behavior.

VII. Testing Social Learning Theory

Although full empirical tests of all of the dimensions of Akers’s social learning theory did not emerge in the literature until the late 1970s, early research, such as Sutherland’s (1937) qualitative study of professional theft and Cressey’s (1953) well-known research on apprehended embezzlers, provided preliminary support for differential association (e.g., also offering support for social learning). Following these seminal studies, research now spanning more than five decades has continued to demonstrate varying levels of support for the various components of social learning theory, and the evidence is rather robust (see Akers & Jensen, 2006). There are far too many studies to make an attempt to list or discuss each individually; therefore, the following discussion is limited to noting the findings of some of the most recognizable and comprehensive tests of Akers’s social learning theory performed by Akers and his associates.

Akers has tested his own theory with a number of scholars over the years across a variety of samples and on a range of behaviors from minor deviance to serious criminal behavior, and this research can best be summarized in terms of four projects: (1) the Boys Town study, (2) the Iowa study, (3) the elderly drinking study, and (4) the rape and sexual coercion study. The first of these projects, and by far the most well-known and cited, is the Boys Town study (for a review, see Akers & Jensen, 2006). This research project involved primary collection of survey data from approximately 3,000 students in Grades 7 through 12 in eight communities in the Midwest. The majority of the survey questions focused on adolescent substance use and abuse, but it was also the first survey that included questions that permitted Akers and his associates (Akers et al., 1979) to fully test the four components of social learning theory.

The results of the studies relying on the Boys Town data provided overwhelming support for Akers’s social learning theory, including each of its four main sets of variables of differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation. The multivariate results indicated that greater than half of the total variance in the frequency of drinking alcohol (R2 = .54) and more than two thirds of the variance in marijuana use (R2 = .68) were explained by the social learning variables. The social learning variables also affected the probability that the adolescent who began to use substances would move on to more serious involvement in drugs and alcohol. Not only did the social learning variables yield a large cumulative effect on explaining substance use, but also each of the four elements exerted a substantial independent effect on the dependent variable (with the exception of imitation). The more modest results found for the effect of imitation on substance use was not surprising considering the hypothesized interrelationships among the social learning variables. Also, imitation is expected to play a more important role in initiating use (first use) versus having a strong effect on the frequency or maintenance of use. Lanza-Kaduce, Akers, Krohn, and Radosevich (1984) also demonstrated that the social learning variables were significantly correlated with the termination of alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use, with cessation being related to a preponderance of non-using associations, aversive drug experiences, negative social sanctions, exposure to abstinence models, and definitions unfavorable to continued use of each of these substances.

The second research project, the Iowa study, was a 5-year longitudinal examination of smoking among junior and senior high school students in Muscatine, Iowa (for a review, see Akers & Jensen, 2006). Spear and Akers (1988) provided the initial test of social learning theory on the first wave (year) of the Iowa data in an attempt to replicate the findings of the Boys Town study. The results of the cross-sectional analysis revealed nearly identical results among the youth in the Iowa study as was previously found in the Boys Town study. Once again, the social learning variables explained over half of the variance in self-reported smoking, and each of the social learning variables had a rather strong independent effect on the outcome (with the exception of imitation). Additional evidence provided by Akers (1998) illustrated the substantial influence of the adolescents’ parents and peers on their behavior. When neither of the parents or friends smoked, there was a very high probability that the adolescent abstained from smoking, and virtually none of these youth reported being regular smokers. In contrast, when the adolescent’s parents and peers smoked, more than 3 out of every 4 of these youth reported having smoked, and nearly half reported being regular smokers.

The longitudinal analysis of the Iowa data also provided support for social learning theory. Path models constructed using the first 3 years of data indicated that the direct and indirect effects of the social learning variables explained approximately 3% of the variance in predicting who would be a smoker in Year 3 if that individual had not reported being a smoker in either of the 2 prior years. Although this evidence was relatively weak, stronger results were found for the ability of the social learning variables to predict the continuation and the cessation of smoking by the third year (approximately 41% explained variance; Krohn, Skinner, Massey, & Akers, 1985). Akers and Lee (1996) also provided longitudinal support for the social learning variables’ capacity to predict the frequency of smoking using the complete 5 years of data from the Iowa study and revealed some reciprocal effects for smoking behavior on the social learning variables.

The third project was a 4-year longitudinal study of the frequency of alcohol use and problem drinking among a large sample of elderly respondents in four communities in Florida and New Jersey (for a review, see Akers & Jensen, 2006). Similar to the results of the Boys Town and Iowa studies, which examined substance use among adolescents, the multivariate results in this study of elderly individuals also demonstrated significant effects for the social learning variables as predictors of the frequency of alcohol use and problem drinking. The social learning process accounted for more than 50% of the explained variance in self-reported elderly alcohol use/abuse.

The last project by Akers and his associates reviewed here is a study of rape and sexual coercion among two samples of college men (Boeringer, Shehan, & Akers, 1991). The findings in these studies also mirrored the results of the previous studies by Akers and his associates, with the social learning variables exerting moderate to strong effects on self-reported use of nonphysical coercion in sex in addition to predicting rape and rape proclivity (i.e., the readiness to rape). Although Akers and his associates have continued to test social learning theory to various degrees using dependent variables such as adolescent alcohol and drug use (Hwang & Akers, 2003), cross-national homicide rates (Akers & Jensen, 2006), and even terrorism (Akers & Silverman, 2004), the findings from the classic studies just reviewed clearly identify the strength of the empirical status of social learning theory.

VIII. Social Structure and Social Learning: Theoretical Assumptions and Preliminary Evidence

Akers’s social learning theory has explained a considerable amount of the variation in criminal and deviant behavior at the individual level (see Akers & Jensen, 2006), and Akers (1998) recently extended it to posit an explanation for the variation in crime at the macrolevel. Akers’s social structure and social learning (SSSL) theory hypothesizes that there are social structural factors that have an indirect effect on individuals’ behavior. The indirect effect hypothesis is guided by the assumption that the effect of these social structural factors is operating through the social learning variables (i.e., differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation) that have a direct effect on individuals’ decisions to engage in crime or deviance. Akers (1998; Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 91) identified four specific domains of social structure wherein the social learning process can operate:

Differential social organization refers to the structural correlates of crime in the community or society that affect the rates of crime and delinquency, including age composition, population density, and other attributes that lean societies, communities, and other social systems “toward relatively high or relatively low crime rates” (Akers, 1998, p. 332).
Differential location in the social structure refers to sociodemographic characteristics of individuals and social groups that indicate their niches within the larger social structure. Class, gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, and age locate the positions and standing of persons and their roles, groups, or social categories in the overall social structure.
Theoretically defined structural variables refer to anomie, class oppression, social disorganization, group conflict, patriarchy, and other concepts that have been used in one or more theories to identify criminogenic conditions of societies, communities, or groups.
Differential social location refers to individuals’ membership in and relationship to primary, secondary, and reference groups such as the family, friendship/peer groups, leisure groups, colleagues, and work groups.

With attention to these social structural domains, Akers contended that the differential social organization of society and community and the differential locations of individuals within the social structure (i.e., individuals’ gender, race, class, religious affiliation, etc.) provide the context in which learning occurs (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 91). Individuals’ decisions to engage in crime/deviance are thus a function of the environment wherein the learning takes place and the individuals’ exposure to deviant peers and attitudes, possession of definitions favorable to the commission of criminal or deviant acts, and interactions with deviant models. Stated in terms of a causal process, if the social learning variables mediate social structural effects on crime as hypothesized, then (a) the social structural variables should exhibit direct effects on the social learning variables; (b) the social structural variables should exert direct effects on the dependent variable; and (c) once the social learning variables are included in the model, these variables should demonstrate strong independent effects on the dependent variable, and the social structural variables should no longer exhibit direct effects on the dependent variable, or at least their direct effects should be substantially reduced.

Considering the relative novelty of Akers’s proposed social structure and social learning theory, only a handful of studies thus far have attempted to examine its theoretical assumptions and/or its mediation hypothesis. However, the few preliminary studies to date have demonstrated positive findings in support of social structure and social learning for delinquency and substance use, elderly alcohol abuse, rape, violence, binge drinking by college students, and variation in cross-national homicide rates (Akers & Jensen, 2006). Yet, despite the consistency of positive preliminary findings in support of Akers’s social structure and social learning theory, there are some non-supportive findings, and it is still too soon to make a definitive statement that social learning is the primary mediating force in the association between social structure and crime/deviance. Nevertheless, these few studies provide a suitable benchmark against which future studies testing the theory can build upon and improve.

IX. Future Directions

The future of social learning theory lies along three paths. First, there will continue to be further and more accurate tests of social learning at the micro- or process level (i.e., at the level of differences across individuals), including measures of variables from other criminological theories, and these studies will use better measures of all of the central concepts of the theory. Having said this, it is not likely that the empirical findings will be much different from the research so far, but these future studies should continue to include more research on social leaning explanations of the most serious and violent criminal behavior as well as white-collar and corporate crime.

Second, there is need for continued development and testing of the SSSL model, again using better measures. A very promising direction that this could take would follow the lead of Jensen and Akers (2003, 2006) to extend the basic social learning principles and the SSSL model “globally” to the most macrolevel. Structural theories at that level are more apt to be valid the more they reference or incorporate the most valid principles found at the individual level, and those are social learning principles.

Third, social learning principles will continue to be applied in cognitive–behavioral (Cullen, Wright, Gendreau, &Andrews, 2003) prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and correctional programs and otherwise provide some theoretical underpinning for social policy. Research on the application and evaluations of such programs have thus far found them to be at least moderately effective (and usually more effective than alternative programs), but there are still many unanswered questions about the feasibility and effectiveness of programs designed around social learning theory.

Future research along all of these lines is also more likely to be in the form of longitudinal studies over the life course and to be cross-cultural studies of the empirical validity of the theory in different societies. If social learning is truly a general theory, then it should have applicability to the explanation and control of crime and deviance not only in American and Western societies but also societies around the world. There have already been some cross-cultural studies supporting the social learning theory (see, e.g., Hwang &Akers, 2003; Miller, Jennings, Alvarez-Rivera, & Miller, 2008), but much more research needs to examine both how well the theory holds up in different societies and on how much variation there is in the effects of the social learning variables in different cultures.

X. Conclusion

The purpose of this research paper was to provide a historical overview of the theoretical development of Akers’s social learning theory, review the seminal research testing the general theory, and discuss the recently proposed macrolevel version of social learning theory (i.e., social structure and social learning), as well as offer suggestions of where future research may wish to proceed in order to further advance the status of the theory. What is clear from the research evidence presented in this research paper, along with a number of studies that have not been specifically mentioned or discussed in this research paper (for a review, see Akers & Jensen, 2006), is that social learning has rightfully earned its place as a general theory of crime and deviance. One theorist has referred to it (along with control and strain theories) as constituting the “core” of contemporary criminological theory (Cullen, Wright, & Blevins, 2006). The theory has been rigorously tested a number of times, not only by the theorist himself but also by other influential criminologists and sociologists; it has been widely cited in the scholarly literature and in textbooks; it is a common topic covered in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses; and it provides a basis for sound policy and practice.

Ultimately, the task levied at any general theory of crime and deviance is that it should be able to explain crime/deviance across crime/deviance type, time, place, culture, and context. Therefore, if past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, then the expectation is that social learning theory will continue to demonstrate its generalizability across these various dimensions and that future tests of Akers’s SSSL theory will also garner support as a macrolevel explanation of crime. Yet these outcomes are indeed open to debate. No theory can account for all variations in criminal behavior. Only through the process of continuing to subject the theory and its macrolevel version to rigorous and sound empirical tests in sociology and criminology can it be determined how much the theory can account for on its own and in comparison to other theories.

In their reformulation of the theory, Burgess and Akers chose to omit Sutherland’s ninth principle.

References:

Akers, R. L. (1968). Problems in the sociology of deviance: Social definitions and behavior. Social Forces, 46, 455–465.
Akers, R. L. (1973). Deviant behavior: A social learning approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Akers, R. L. (1977). Deviant behavior: A social learning approach (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Akers, R. L. (1985). Deviant behavior: A social learning approach (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Akers, R. L. (1998). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Akers, R. L., & Jensen, G. F. (2006). The empirical status of social learning theory of crime and deviance: The past, present, and future. In. F. T. Cullen, J. P. Wright, & K. R. Blevins (Eds.), Taking stock: The status of criminological theory (pp. 37–76). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Akers, R. L., Krohn, M. D., Lanza-Kaduce, L., & Radosevich, M. (1979). Social learning and deviant behavior: A specific test of a general theory. American Sociological Review, 44, 636–655.
Akers, R. L., & Lee, G. (1996). A longitudinal test of social learning theory: Adolescent smoking. Journal of Drug Issues, 26, 317–343.
Akers, R. L., & Sellers, C. S. (2004). Criminological theories: Introduction, evaluation, and application (4th ed.) Los Angeles: Roxbury.
Akers, R. L., & Silverman, A. (2004).Toward a social learning model of violence and terrorism. In M. A. Zahn, H. H. Brownstein, & S. L. Jackson (Eds.), Violence: From theory to research (pp. 19–35). Cincinnati, OH: LexisNexis–Anderson.
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W. W. Norton. Baldwin, J. D., & Baldwin, J. I. (1981). Beyond sociobiology. New York: Elsevier.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New York: General Learning Press.
Bandura, A. (1990). Mechanisms of moral disengagement. In W. Reich (Ed.), Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies, theologies, and states of mind (pp. 161–191). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Boeringer, S., Shehan, C. L., & Akers, R. L. (1991). Social contexts and social learning in sexual coercion and aggression: Assessing the contribution of fraternity membership. Family Relations, 40, 558–564.
Burgess, R. L., & Akers, R. L. (1966). A differential association-reinforcement theory of criminal behavior. Social Problems, 14, 128–147.
Cressey,D.R. (1953).Other people’s money. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Cressey, D. R. (1960). Epidemiology and individual conduct: A case from criminology. Pacific Sociological Review, 3, 47–58.
Cullen, F. T., Wright, J. P., & Blevins, K. R. (Eds.). (2006). Taking stock: The status of criminological theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Cullen, F. T., Wright, J. P., Gendreau, P., &Andrews, D. A. (2003). What correctional treatment can tell us about criminological theory: Implications for social learning theory. In R. L. Akers & G. F. Jensen (Eds.), Advances in criminological theory: Vol. 11. Social learning theory and the explanation of crime: A guide for the new century (pp. 339–362). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Hwang, S., &Akers, R. L. (2003). Substance use by Korean adolescents: A cross-cultural test of social learning, social bonding, and self-control theories. In R. L. Akers & G. F. Jensen (Eds.), Advances in criminological theory: Vol. 11. Social learning theory and the explanation of crime: A guide for the new century (pp. 39–64). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Jensen, G. F. (2003). Gender variation in delinquency: Self-images, beliefs, and peers as mediating mechanisms. In R. L. Akers & G. F. Jensen (Eds.), Advances in criminological theory: Vol. 11. Social learning theory and the explanation of crime (pp. 151–178). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Krohn, M. D., Skinner, W. F., Massey, J. L., & Akers, R. L. (1985). Social learning theory and adolescent cigarette smoking. Social Problems, 32, 455–473.
Lanza-Kaduce, L., Akers, R. L., Krohn, M. D., & Radosevich, M. (1984). Cessation of alcohol and drug use among adolescents: A social learning model. Deviant Behavior, 5, 79–96.
Miller, H.V., Jennings, W. G., Alvarez-Rivera, L. L., &Miller, J.M. (2008). Explaining substance use among Puerto Rican adolescents: A partial test of social learning theory. Journal of Drug Issues, 38, 261–284.
Spear, S., & Akers, R. L. (1988). Social learning variables and the risk of habitual smoking among adolescents: The Muscatine study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 4, 336–348.
Sutherland, E. H. (1937). The professional thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Sykes, G., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Journal of Sociology, 22, 664–670.
Warr, M. (2002). Companions in crime: The social aspects of criminal conduct. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Social Learning Theory

Introduction, general treatments.

Differential Association
Social Learning
Social Structure and Social Learning
Critiques Against Social Learning Theory
The Role of Peers, Family, and Community in Social Learning
Social Learning–Based Intervention Strategies

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Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Education Programs in Prison
Juvenile Justice Professionals' Perceptions of Youth
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Social Learning Theory by Thomas Holt LAST REVIEWED: 14 December 2009 LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0002

Social learning theory has had a distinct and lasting impact on the field of criminology. This framework evolved from Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association in the 1940s, which argued that crime is learned through interactions with intimate peers where individuals acquire definitions that support or refute the violation of law. This theory was revised in Burgess and Akers 1966 (see Social Learning ) to become a Differential Association-Reinforcement model recognizing the impact of peer attitudes and reactions to delinquency. The theory was further revised in the 1970s and 1980s to become a social learning model developed by Ronald Akers. This model builds from the previous work by recognizing the significance of delinquent peers, differential definitions of and reinforcement for offending behaviors, and the influence of imitation of peer behavior. Finally, Akers adapted the model in 1998 to become a macro-level model of delinquency and crime by arguing that social learning mediates the influence of structural factors on offending. This perspective provides a distinct framework to understand the influence of human agency, social forces, and peers on behavior.

Akers and Jensen 2003 provides an excellent theoretical and empirical assessment of multiple facets of the micro and macro social learning models. Akers and Jensen 2006 provides a detailed overview of the research on social learning in 2006 and find that this theory is generally supported when various individual and aggregate-level variables are included in models with social learning constructs. These two works are appropriate for graduates and researchers, while Akers and Sellers 2008 provides a comprehensive and accessible chapter on social learning theory that would be appropriate for graduates and undergraduates alike. Other seminal texts on social learning theory are discussed in other sections of this bibliography.

Akers, Ronald L., and Gary F. Jensen, eds. 2003. Social learning theory and the explanation of crime: A guide for the new century . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Significant edited volume that provides a robust discussion of social learning theory from multiple authors, including empirical and theoretical discussions of a variety of components of both social learning and the larger social structure and social learning models.

Akers, Ronald L., and Gary F. Jensen. 2006. The empirical status of social learning theory of crime and deviance: The past, present, and future. In Taking stock: The status of criminological theory . Edited by Francis T. Cullen, John Paul Wright, and Kristie R. Blevins, 37–76. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Summary of the body of social learning research, including support for and critiques of this theory, as well as future areas of exploration.

Akers, Ronald L., and Christine S. Sellers. 2008. Criminological theories: Introduction, evaluation, and application . New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Provides a robust discussion of social learning theory and its evolution over time, along with a variety of other criminological theories.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

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Social Learning Theory in Criminology Research Paper

Introduction, introducing the theory, evolution of the theory, application of the theory.

Criminology as a distinct science evolves and acquires new approaches, research data, and theories. The numerous methods applicable to criminology clarify a lot of questions concerning the behavior of a criminal or the influence of diverse psychological and sociological factors on the crime rates. During the past several decades, there has been a significant advancement in the research of the field of criminology and its theoretical background.

Social learning theory is one of the most influential psychological theories; it is widely used for the identification of behavioral patterns of criminals. A correct substantial approach applied to a crime analysis might be a crucial tool for the detection of the roots of the problem and possible ways of preventing criminal behavior in others. The paper concentrates on the history of the introduction of the social learning theory to science, its evolution over the years, and its possible application to the analysis of a recent criminal event.

A social learning theory was introduced to criminology by Robert L. Burgess and Ronald L. Akers from the University of Washington in 1966. Their study entitled A differential association-reinforcement theory of criminal behavior was based on the previous advancement in the field, which Sutherland contributed to in 1947 (Burgess & Akers, 1966). Sutherland’s idea of a differential association theory was developed and supported by several scholars. However, Burges and Akers were the first who empirically studied the theory and connected the differential association theory with a sociological pattern.

Sutherland’s idea that “criminal behavior is learned as any behavior is learned” was elaborated on and applied to the analysis of the crime rates and their roots (Burgess & Akers, 1966, p. 128). Thus, the social learning theory grounds on the idea of differential association-reinforcement and attempts to explain criminal behavior not individually but in the connection to environmental influences.

The authors of the theory provide a broader view on the issue of behavioral association and ask specific questions to be answered by their contemporary criminology. Those questions concern the reasons why particular individuals being in the same environment as many others acquire delinquent behavior. To provide answers, the criminologists reformulated the primary points of Sutherland’s theory through the processes of conditioned reinforcement and stimulus discrimination (Burgess & Akers, 1966).

The main components of the approach constitute the following ideas: criminal behavior is learned, it is absorbed in nonsocial and social situations of reinforcement, criminal behavior patterns are acquired within the influential groups. Also, the frequency of the specific behaviors learned depends on the “reinforcers,” criminal behavior is learned when “such behavior is more highly reinforced” than a noncriminal one (Burgess & Akers, 1966, p. 134). Finally, deviant behavior learning relates to the frequency and amount of reinforcing influences.

The theory was developed and tested during the following years by other criminologists, as well as by the authors. Akers and colleagues later applied it to study the behavioral patterns among drug and alcohol users, the results of which proved the validity of the theory. This study provided prospects for further studies and the use of the social learning theory for other abnormal behaviors (Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979).

It remains relevant in the present and is widely used in criminology as one of the ideas most capable of identifying the connections between criminal inclinations and the environment in which a criminal exists. One of the latest studies applies social structure to the social learning theory and provides a broad overview of the preventive interventions (Nicholson & Higgins, 2017). Due to the contribution of many scholars investigating the issue since the 1960s, the theory evolved into a powerful tool enabling the productive work of criminologists.

The social learning theory may be applied to the criminal events in the USA. The massive shootings that shook several US cities have a wave character. A mass shooting incident that took place in Chicago on October 29 took the lives of five people and left a dozen hurt, according to CNN (Baldacci, 2018). The actions of a criminal might be analyzed according to the social learning theory based on the preceding events of the same character.

The occasions mass shooting periodically occur in Chicago during the past several years, increasing the crime rates in the city (Baldacci, 2018). The modern world of globalization, where an environment influencing an individual reaches far beyond his or her spatial location and embraces informational impacts, presents a broader perspective on the application of the theory. That is why the theory is incapable of introducing an effective preventive technique in such circumstances. A person aware of a crime incident might be influenced by it and learn the same behavior. However, the discussed theory does not give precise answers to the questions of why these crimes happen in particular time periods and what their frequency depends on.

Summarizing the discussion, it is essential to underline that appropriate application of a particular theory to a crime might provide numerous opportunities, as well as limitations, to understanding the driving forces of deviant behavior.

Such understanding allows retrieving the core relation between people’s behavioral patterns and their crime inclination. When applied to criminology, social learning theory determines basic components of deviant behavior, which is learned (as any other behavior is learned) through environmental influences and reinforcements. Although the method does not provide answers to all the questions concerning a crime, thus justifying the importance of other theories, it contributes to the development of preventive interventions capable of decreasing crime rates.

Akers, R. L., Krohn, M. D., Lanza-Kaduce, L., & Radosevich, M. (1979). Social learning and deviant behavior: A specific test of a general theory. American Sociological Review, 44 (4), 636-655. Web.

Baldacci, M. (2018). 5 die, dozens hurt in Chicago weekend shootings, police say . CNN. Web.

Burgess, R. L., & Akers, R. L. (1966). A differential association-reinforcement theory of criminal behavior. Social Problems, 14(2), 128-147. Web.

Nicholson, J., & Higgins, G. E. (2017). Social structure social learning theory: Preventing crime and violence. In B. Teasdale & M. S. Bradley (Eds.), Preventing crime and violence (pp. 11-20). New York, NY: Springer. Web.

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5.4 Social Learning and Motivational Theories of Crime

In Chapter 4 , we discussed social learning theory from a sociological perspective. In this section, we will examine social learning theory from a psychological perspective. This involves also diving deeper into what motivates a person to behave in a certain way. Crime prevention practices tend to center more on rational thought and the belief that people understand punishment is bad, so they will not complete the act. However, when criminal behavior occurs because the person committing the act thinks of it more in terms of the positive reinforcement they receive from committing the crime based on what they have seen through observation and action during the course of their lives, that goes against the way prevention had been planned.

5.4.1 Social Learning Theory

Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura (1974) defined observational learning as the process by which “people convert future consequences into motivations for behavior.” In other words, people learn by watching others and observing the results of their actions. The unique part of Bandura’s theory was that he argued observational learning did not require direct reinforcement. This is because humans are capable of learning vicariously through the experiences of others or even through their own imaginations.

Bandura centered his research on learning aggression. His famous Bobo Doll study involved children who watched an adult attack a plastic clown punching bag named “Bobo,” and then they were rewarded with sweets and drinks for their behavior. Later when the children were in the room with other toys, they chose to attack the doll in a similar fashion as the adults (figure 5.4).

social learning theory criminology essay

Culture & Social Learning

Given that this is a criminological theory class, I can’t reiterate the following enough. So, you’ll keep seeing the following:

Theory is a statement about how something affects something else.

Scientific theory states how something empirical (an independent variable) affects something else empirical (the dependent variable).

Something is empirical if you can hear, see, touch, smell, or taste it.

The reason it is good for theories to be empirical is they can be tested and falsified.

Indeed, whether a theory is good isn’t only about being valid. Also, a theory is better if it is simpler, more general, more original, and more useful.

Criminological theory states how something (an independent variable) affects crime (the dependent variable).

The vast majority of criminological theories make statements about why communities, individuals, and situations are more likely to have or commit crime.

Note that criminological theories rarely, if ever, only focus on empirical somethings, but let’s ignore that.

There are a lot of criminological theories that differ in a lot of ways. Mostly though, you should think of criminological theories as being based in one or more disciplines, such as economics, biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and so on.

Criminology, to be clear, is not a discipline. It’s a field of study; that is, the study of crime.

Current Course Section

After the introductory material, this course has seven sections reflecting major disciplinary approaches to the study of crime. However, because criminology is interdisciplinary, sometimes the lines between disciplines have become murky, so some of the sections have elements of multiple disciplines.

The current section focuses on sociological theories of crime.

As with “theory,” “criminology,” and many other words, “sociology” and “psychology” have different meanings. In this class, simply think of them as the study of society and the human mind, respectively.

For this section, you will read three works relating to a particular strand of such theories, namely that of “culture” and “social learning.”

Before briefly going over those works, I’m obliged to remind you that we won’t examine every criminological theory of this sort. But if you want to see further examples, you should either do a Wikipedia search or, maybe better yet, browse the Oxford Bibliography entries on Criminology .

Readings and Theories Therein

Usually in this course, I suggest that you read the community-level works first, then the individual- or situational-level theories. I’m not sure if that’s the best order for this particular section for reasons I’ll spare you of. Anyways, that’s just to say to feel free to start with the third and fourth readings, then work to the first and second ones. But for consistency, I’ll recommend beginning with the community-level works.

The first community-level reading is Wolfgang and Ferracuti's article. Therein, they describe a particular subculture of violence to explain the occurrence of violence, particularly homicide. They contend that within the subculture, violence is viewed as normal. This subculture was observed among predominately lower-class, minority communities. However, not all persons exposed to the subculture share values conducive to violence to the same extent. Their theory suggests that the subculture influences the use of violence through social learning and differential association.

The second community-level reading is Anderson’s article. He describes a particular subculture that he says emerges out of the social disadvantages faced in many poor inner-city communities. “The code of the streets,” as he calls it, is a set of informal rules that people use to gain status and protect themselves in such communities.

In addition to describing the various facets of this culture, he goes into detail about its causes; its effect on crime, especially violence, and other behaviors; and how it compares to “decent culture” also found in such communities.

The first individual-level reading is an excerpt from Sutherland’s Principles of Criminology. You may like this reading because it’s really short, but, of course, that’s not why you’re reading it.

After providing a definition of criminology and discussing the basics of scientific explanations, he presents a series of propositions about why people become involved, or not, in criminal behavior. These propositions make up what are known as his theory of differential association.

The basic tenants of Sutherland’s theory more or less align with what nowadays people refer to as social learning theory. The second individual-level reading is Akers’ article on differential association and social learning, including how they compare to cultural deviance theory (e.g., ideas like those of Wolfgang, Ferracuti, and Anderson).

This article does a really nice job of summarizing Sutherlands’ ideas, explaining how they form a less developed version of social learning theory (which Akers is famous for), and the connections between “social learning” and “culture.” In doing so, Akers goes to great length to dispel some of the mistaken criticisms of Sutherland’s theory and his own.

Wolfgang, Marvin E., and Franco Ferracuti. 1967. The Subculture of Violence: Toward an Integrated Theory in Criminology . Tavistock Publications. (Fair use of pp. 95-99, 140-163) Anderson, Elijah. 1994. The Code of the Streets. Atlantic Monthly 273(5):81-94. (Open access here .) Sutherland, Edwin H. 1947. Principles of Criminology , 4th ed. J.B. Lippincott Company. (Fair use of pp. 1-9) Akers, Ronald L. 1996. Is Differential Association/Social Learning Cultural Deviance Theory? Criminology 34:229-247. (Paywalled here .)

Study Guide

Theorist video annotation.

For this section, you’ll watch an interview with Ross Matsueda. He is one of the world’s top researchers on differential association and social control theories. Among other topics, he discusses what sparked his interest in that area of research.

Video Discussion & Gist of This Section

Recall that you’re doing video discussions to see whether you can apply the theories to the real world. Some theories can be complicated, but there fundamental points don’t need to be. People, including you, may disagree with me (this is what makes academia fun), but I think the gist – or essence – of the theories examined in this section is as follows:

The dependent variable is crime, meaning acts prohibited by law.

Crime is theorized to be affected by culture and social learning.

I’m leaving it to the readings to define those independent variables in an academic way.

In theory, a community is more likely to have crime to the extent its subculture promotes crime. In theory, an individual is more likely to have crime to the extent they learn to do so. Also, those theories could be thought of as operating at the situational-level of analysis.

An interaction is more likely to result in crime if in a community with a subculture that promotes crime.

An interaction is more likely to result in crime if it involves individuals who have learned to commit crime.

A small place, such as a bar, is more likely to have crime if in a community with a subculture that promotes crime.

A small place, such as a bar, is more likely to have crime if it involves individuals who have learned to commit crime.

If you truly understand the above, you’ll be able to do very well on the discussion post. If you don’t get it right now, don’t worry about it. The readings, video, study guide, and quizzes will get you where your knowledge where it needs to be – if you truly do your best on them.

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Social Structure Social Learning Theory: Preventing Crime and Violence

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The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of social learning theory. The overview presents the development of the theory from its early historical criminological roots to the contemporary presentations of the theory. These theoretical presentations are used to provide the foundation of prevention measures. Further, a review of the examination of the prevention programs based on social learning principles is examined.

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The Social Learning Theory of Crime and Deviance

A tale of two pandemics: evolutionary psychology, urbanism, and the biology of disease spread deepen sociopolitical divides in the U.S.

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Nicholson, J., Higgins, G.E. (2017). Social Structure Social Learning Theory: Preventing Crime and Violence. In: Teasdale, B., Bradley, M. (eds) Preventing Crime and Violence. Advances in Prevention Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44124-5_2

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The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory

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6 Social Learning and Crime

Emily J. Salisbury, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Published: 28 December 2012
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This article explores the link between social learning and crime by focusing on social learning theories developed by clinical psychologists based on correctional rehabilitation and developmental behavioral psychology. After providing an overview of Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory and its sociological extension to social learning theory by Ronald Akers, the article examines the contributions of Don Andrews and James Bonta—Canadian psychologists who use a social psychological framework to explain criminal behavior and provide a treatment model of correctional intervention on the basis of psychological principles. It also considers a second psychological perspective on the development and maintenance of childhood aggression, focusing on the work of Gerald Patterson and his colleagues at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Finally, the article argues that given the wide empirical support for psychologically-focused social learning perspectives, social learning theory offers a more plausible explanation for criminal behavior than currently assumed.

The general principle involved in an explanation of crime is that crime is always the joint product of an individual and a social factor, or, … of an attitude and a value. —Edwin H. Sutherland, Criminology , 1924, p. 111

To fully understand the origins of criminal behavior, it is necessary to know not only the characteristics of the offender but also the social settings and situations from which the offender comes. People live in dynamic cultures, contexts, and organizational systems that alone may facilitate their behavior, regardless of, or in conjunction with, their dispositional characteristics. Theories subsumed under a general social learning framework, developed from both sociological and social psychological perspectives, are particularly powerful in explaining the influence of contextual factors on individual behavior.

Although multiple variations of social learning theory have developed to explain antisocial behavior, most criminologists’ knowledge of social learning theory begins with Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory (Sutherland 1947 ; Sutherland and Cressey 1970 ) and ends with Ronald Akers’s social learning extension (Burgess and Akers 1966 ; Akers et al. 1979 ), with little understanding of the theoretical counterparts from social psychology. Such a truncated view is not entirely surprising, given that the foundation of modern criminology developed within sociology is due, in part, to Sutherland’s bias against psychological explanations (e.g., see the “Sutherland-Glueck debate” in Laub and Sampson 1991 )—a bias that existed despite Sutherland’s principles of differential association being strongly related to a psychology of criminal conduct (Andrews and Bonta 2010 ). Nevertheless, the narrow theoretical focus among most criminologists is concerning, particularly because the social psychological derivatives have gained tremendous empirical support through two substantial bodies of research in the areas of correctional treatment and behavioral psychology and have clear implications for reducing offending behavior.

This chapter primarily highlights the parallel development of social learning theories among clinical psychologists from the areas of correctional rehabilitation and developmental behavioral psychology. By illuminating the theoretical developments and empirical support beyond sociological perspectives, we can draw several conclusions:

Psychological social learning theories expand the criminological knowledge base of the development and maintenance of criminal behavior.

Psychological social learning theories go beyond sociological social learning theories by providing scientifically testable clinical interventions for disrupting antisocial behavior and increasing appropriate, conventional behavior.

Because of the vast empirical support for psychologically based social learning interventions that has yet to be fully synthesized into criminology, social learning theory as an explanation for criminal behavior is more widely supported than most criminologists may currently realize.

First, section I provides a brief overview of Sutherland’s differential association theory and its sociological extension to social learning theory by Ronald Akers. Section II presents the contributions of Donald Andrews and James Bonta—Canadian psychologists who explain criminal behavior from a social psychological framework and provide a strongly supported treatment model of correctional intervention based on psychological principles. A second psychological perspective on the development and maintenance of childhood aggression is presented in section III . Specifically, this involves the work of Gerald Patterson and his colleagues at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Finally, in section IV , I offer the conclusion that because psychologically focused social learning perspectives have wide empirical support, social learning theory is likely stronger as a broad explanation for criminal behavior than we currently realize.

I. Sociological Social Learning Theory

Many of the early criminological explanations were highly individualistic, exploring pathological sources of crime by comparing the physical and biological features (e.g., race, body physique, facial features, cranial size, effects of disease), mental capacities (e.g., intelligence, feeblemindedness, insanity), and personality traits (e.g., temperament) of criminals to those of noncriminals. This included the work of such scholars as Cesare Lombroso, Charles Goring, and Sigmund Freud and, subsequently, William H. Sheldon and Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. However, as the 20th century progressed, sociologists entered the criminological conversation to emphasize social, economic, and cultural forces as central causal factors in explaining crime. What resulted was the firm establishment of the Chicago and Mertonian Schools of criminology by the late 1930s, and, as a result, criminologists generally migrated away from explanations of crime that focused on internal sources or individual differences.

One of the major criminological contributions that resulted from the field’s shift to a sociological paradigm was Edwin H. Sutherland’s differential association theory, a precursor to modern sociological social learning theory. A member of the Chicago School of criminologists, Sutherland’s theory was originally influenced by Shaw and McKay’s ( 1942 ) social disorganization theory, particularly their ideas surrounding the culture and normative conflict indicative of socially disorganized, crime-ridden neighborhoods. That is, areas with ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, residential mobility, urbanism, and poverty create cultural and normative conflict that fuels social disorganization. Conventional behavior is attenuated in socially disorganized neighborhoods because people disagree about what should be normative, cannot communicate expected norms with one another as a result of language barriers, or view their residency as merely temporary, migrating from the neighborhood as soon as possible with little social investment while there. Because cultures will necessarily define criminal behavior in various ways, and some may be more tolerant of it than others, culture conflict arises, creating a society in which different subcultures have separate normative values of behavior (Warr 2001 ). These ideas contributed to Sutherland’s macro-level theory, differential social organization, where some group collectives are organized in support of criminal values and others are organized against it. Additionally, Sutherland’s belief that becoming a criminal meant first being accepted into a group of criminals, while adopting all the cultural and normative values of that group, also greatly enhanced his theoretical contribution (Matsueda 1988 ).

Sutherland ( 1947 ) finalized his micro-level differential association theory through nine propositions in his fourth edition of Principles of Criminology . Among the nine propositions, he stated that criminal behavior, like all behavior, is learned. It is not innate, inherent, or caused by some biological or psychopathological abnormality, as many criminologists before him proposed. Sutherland claimed that the learning occurred through communication with others, particularly within intimate groups. The learning consisted of both the skills necessary to commit crime and the motives, attitudes, and rationalizations that define the law as a rule either to be observed or broken. Most important, criminal behavior resulted when an individual possessed an “excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law” (Sutherland 1947 , p. 6). Individuals will inevitably differentially associate with procriminal definitions (i.e., attitudes) indicative of a criminal culture or value and with anti-criminal definitions indicative of a conventional culture. It is the ratio of these definitions that will dictate whether an individual internalizes criminal behavior as acceptable (Lilly, Cullen, and Ball 2011 ).

Because Sutherland’s theory emphasized that social interactions were the central cause of deviant behavior, as opposed to some internal deficiency, he was able to apply his theory not only to criminals who came from lower-class origins but also to those of an upper-class stature. Coining the term “white-collar crime,” Sutherland discovered that a widespread culture of nonconformity and legal violations was active among the corporate, political, and professional elite (Sutherland 1949 ).

Although Sutherland articulated that criminal behavior is learned through the process of differential association, he did not specify the mechanisms by which the actual learning occurs. Burgess and Akers ( 1966 ) extended the theory by identifying the learning mechanisms in their differential association-reinforcement theory, which over time would come to be known as a sociological version of social learning theory. At the heart of the theoretical extension were the concepts of differential reinforcement and imitation, which Burgess and Akers borrowed from behaviorist psychological principles. Differential reinforcement explained that an individual will continue or cease a behavior depending on the previous, present, and anticipated rewards and punishments for the behavior. Imitation referred to modeling the behavior of others and was most influential in the initial acquisition of behavior.

Akers ( 2001 ) himself noted that his theory “has much in common with, incorporates basic insights from, and has implications for policies and programs similar to general social/cognitive and behavioral learning theories as developed by Albert Bandura and other psychologists” (p. 192). However, most criminologists are unaware of how these psychological theories complement the sociological social learning framework, and how they contribute significant theoretical and practical advances in explaining, predicting, and reducing individual-level crime in applied settings. Thus, the remainder of this chapter aims to expand scholars’ breadth of knowledge on social learning theory by discussing two major contributions from clinical psychology. First, the contributions of Donald Andrews and James Bonta, Canadian correctional psychologists, are presented. Second, Gerald Patterson’s coercion theory is discussed, as well as his interventions as a behavioral psychologist working with families of aggressive and delinquent children at the Oregon Social Learning Center.

II. The Canadian School of Social Learning

In the 1970s, Canadian correctional psychologists Donald Andrews and James Bonta, along with graduate students from Carleton University and the Ontario Ministry of Correctional Services, began conducting a series of experimental studies testing Sutherland’s principles of differential association by manipulating the social contexts of short-term, structured programs with offenders. These studies represented the beginning of a vast research base laying the empirical foundation for modern correctional rehabilitation practice and a general psychology of criminal conduct. Indeed, the Canadians sought to advance a psychological theory of crime that stood apart from “the weak psychology represented in the mainstream sociological criminology and mainstream clinical/forensic psychology of the 1970s, 1980s, and even into the 1990s” (Andrews and Bonta 2010 , p. 7). Their academic goals were not to enhance sociological criminology but to explain criminal behavior from a social psychological framework and to develop a model of correctional treatment intervention based on this framework. Consequently, most criminologists who show little intellectual interest in rehabilitation (Cullen et al. 2003 ) and who are still primarily sociologically trained have little knowledge of what can now be deemed the Canadian School of Social Learning.

However, this lack of interest among criminologists should not suggest that Andrews and Bonta disregarded sociological criminology altogether—in fact, they embraced Sutherland’s and Akers’s theories because of their internal consistencies with the Canadians’ general personality and cognitive social learning (GPCSL) perspective on criminal behavior.

Admitting our bias from the start, we are favorably disposed to differential association (DA) theory…. In our opinion, there is much of immediate value within DA theory…. When a theory rings true and identifies powerful correlates of criminal conduct that are readily validated empirically, we believe it deserves serious attention. (Andrews and Bonta 2010 , p. 121)

According to Andrews and Bonta ( 2010 ), a general personality and social psychological explanation of criminal conduct should (1) organize a set of assumptions that is consistent with the empirically validated and most promising of psychological perspectives on human behavior and (2) be clinically relevant. Although there are several promising psychologies of human behavior (e.g., psychodynamic theory, phenomenology), Andrews and Bonta noted that some are superior to others in both explaining variation in behavior and in guiding the application of direct human services to reduce antisocial behavior. Specifically, learning theory and symbolic interactionism were most influential in their development of the GPCSL perspective.

Learning theory includes both (1) the radical behavioral approach, which focuses on direct learning, and (2) the social approach, which highlights the observational or vicarious processes in learning (Bandura 1977 ). Radical behaviorism, including the principles of classical and operant conditioning (Pavlov 1927 ; Skinner 1953 ), is an underlying foundation of the GPCSL perspective because it provides the mechanisms for directly learning and extinguishing behavior through the use of stimuli, rewards, and punishers. Recall that these behavioral mechanisms were integral to Ronald Akers’s enhancement of differential association theory. In addition, social learning processes are integrated in the GPCSL approach because they explain how individuals learn by observing other people’s behavior (i.e., models) in their immediate environment and the rewards or punishers this behavior brings. Thus, learning from a psychological framework occurs both directly through trial and error by the learner (i.e., radical behaviorism) and vicariously by watching how others are treated for their behavior (i.e., social learning).

Andrews and Bonta ( 2010 ) also described symbolic interactionism as a second useful psychology of criminal conduct because of its “emphasis on the cognitive control of behavior and the key causal significance assigned to attitudes, beliefs, and interpersonal interactions” (p. 134). Indeed, the sociological study of symbolic interactionism recognizes that individuals are conscious, self-aware beings who can intently control their behavior toward a particular goal, despite being punished or reinforced for it (Hewitt 2006 ). Although differential association is heavily guided by symbolic interactionism, Sutherland’s theory did not articulate the distal factors that contributed to certain persons being in certain situations, nor did it have much to contribute toward a clinical treatment intervention (Andrews and Bonta 2010 ). Thus, cognitive psychology and research studying the self-regulation of cognition became important in understanding and reshaping not just what offenders think (i.e., antisocial attitudes, values, and definitions) but also how offenders think (i.e., all or nothing/black or white thinking, catastrophizing thinking, external locus of control, lack of empathy, neutralizations).

A. From Principles of Differential Association to Principles of Behaviorism

The early experimental studies conducted by Don Andrews and his colleagues reformulated three of Sutherland’s sociological principles into their comparable behavioral components to test their validity. The first principle tested Sutherland’s assumption that criminal learning occurs as a result of differential exposure (association) to procriminal behavioral patterns over anti-criminal patterns. Behaviorally, this is known as the contingency principle—the acquisition, maintenance, and modification of human behavior are based on the behavioral patterns that are differentially modeled or demonstrated, as well as on the immediate contingencies or consequences received following actions (i.e., rewards or costs; Andrews and Bonta 2010 ).

Andrews ( 1980 ) manipulated study conditions by randomly assigning inmates and citizen volunteers to either (1) a structured community group designed to discuss current affairs with one another for one night a week for eight weeks or (2) a waitlist comparison group. Pre- and post-group assessments were administered to measure antisocial attitudes of both the volunteers and inmates. Inmates had significantly more negative attitudes toward authority and law enforcement at pre-group assignment than the citizen volunteers. After the community group sessions ended, post-group antisocial attitudes were significantly reduced for the inmates who participated in the group versus those on the waitlist. Moreover, the antisocial thinking of the citizen volunteers actually increased from pre- to post-test.

Thus, both the reduction in antisocial attitudes for inmates and the increase for citizens supported the behavioral contingency principle, or Sutherland’s differential association of learning crime. In fact, this characterized the Canadian social psychologists’ first observation of a reduction in inmates’ criminal thinking, despite inmates having previously participated in structured programs that demonstrated other positive outcome results but without decreasing antisocial attitudes. In short, altering antisocial attitudes required exposing inmates to alternative, conventional ways of thinking and patterns of behaving. Additional experimental manipulations also demonstrated that mere exposure to conventional others, without meaningful interactions and opportunities for the display of positive behavioral patterns, did not, in and of itself, diminish antisocial attitudes (Andrews 1980 ).

The second principle tested by Andrews ( 1980 ) is behaviorally defined as the relationship principle. According to Sutherland’s differential association theory, crime is learned in intimate groups, suggesting a level of interpersonal influence on learning. As Burgess and Akers ( 1966 ) posited, learning occurs largely though radical behavioral mechanisms (e.g., reinforcement, punishment, scaffolding) at high densities in such small interpersonal groups. When intimate groups include open communication among individuals who are warm, empathetic, sensitive, and respectful (i.e., high-quality relationships), the attitudes and behaviors being modeled and reinforced are more likely to be transferred among the group, regardless of whether those attitudes and behaviors are prosocial or antisocial. After random assignment into groups, open communication among inmate-only groups increased antisocial attitudes, whereas within inmate-community groups (those that included prosocial citizen volunteers), open communication decreased antisocial attitudes among inmates (Andrews 1980 ). Essentially, attitudes and behaviors (whether positive or negative) are more likely to be transferred and valued when the models in the group are well respected with good social and relational skills.

Third, the self-management principle reflects Sutherland’s central thesis that an individual’s decision to engage in crime results from an excess of definitions favorable to violation of the law in comparison to definitions unfavorable to violation of the law. In other words, once the learning of behavioral patterns and definitions from others occurs through the contingency and relationship principles, an individual’s antisocial behavior will be dictated by his or her own attitudinal imbalance of favorable over unfavorable definitions and his or her self-management of those attitudes through techniques such as self-observation and self-reinforcement (Andrews 1980 ). In a 2 × 2 factorial study, inmates who received self-management training and strong prosocial attitudinal training exhibited significantly lowered antisocial attitudes. Alternatively, inmates who received self-management training but weak prosocial attitudinal training demonstrated increased antisocial attitudes (Wormith 1977 ).

B. Personal, Interpersonal, and Community-Reinforcement Perspective

Within their preferred GPCSL framework, Andrews and Bonta explicated their Personal, Interpersonal, and Community-Reinforcement (PIC-R) perspective in their book, The Psychology of Criminal Conduct , originally published in 1994 and now in its fifth edition. Outlined in 13 principles, the PIC-R perspective represents a broad cognitive social learning framework to explain human behavior and integrates concepts from both motivational and control theories, in the sociological sense. From a behavioral psychology framework, the basic human desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain is integral in the use of reinforcement (i.e., introduction of rewards to increase the probability of a behavior recurring) and punishment (i.e., introduction of costs to decrease the probability of a behavior recurring) to drive behavior.

As the name suggests, PIC-R recognizes criminogenic influences from multiple levels of analysis—personally, interpersonally, structurally, and culturally. The criminogenic influences at each level are viewed as the contingencies that reward antisocial behavior and punish conventional behavior of individuals. For example, at the personal level, PIC-R incorporates personality patterns that are conducive to antisocial behavior (e.g., impulsivity, callousness, negative emotionality). In addition, antisocial versus prosocial cognition, as well as the techniques of self-reinforcement, self-punishment, and self-regulation, are subsumed under personal sources of rewards or costs. Interpersonal sources include the influence of antisocial or prosocial models (and how they are reinforced or punished), family-child relations, affection/supervision, and abuse/neglect, among others.

In addition, community sources encompass the broader historical, sociopolitical, and cultural factors that set the stage, or establish the context, for the rewards and costs of engaging in crime. According to Andrews and Bonta ( 2010 ), “Because [macro-social conditions] are constants, they are distal background contextual conditions that cannot account for variation in individual conduct within particular social arrangements” (p. 137). Essentially, political, social, economic, and cultural conditions do not explain individual differences in crime within larger macro units, such as neighborhoods. However, the tenth principle of the PIC-R perspective indicates that “historical, geographic, and political-economic factors influence individual behavior primarily by way of the contingencies that they produce within settings and communities” (Andrews and Bonta 2010 , p. 140).

As psychologists, Andrews and Bonta believed that any explanation of criminal conduct should provide a clinically relevant intervention for the behavior. Indeed, behavioral and cognitive social learning principles lend themselves to powerful, practical interventions for both discontinuing problematic social behavior and learning and maintaining conventional behavioral patterns. Thus, in addition to their PIC-R perspective, the Canadians are primarily known for their successful strategies of correctional rehabilitation, with a wealth of supportive primary and meta-analytic studies demonstrating their effectiveness in reducing recidivism across a wide variety of offenders (e.g., Andrews et al. 1990 ; Lipsey and Wilson 1998 ; Dowden and Andrews 1999a , 1999b ; Lipsey, Chapman, and Landenberger 2001 ; Lowenkamp, Latessa, and Holsinger 2006 ; Smith, Gendreau, and Swartz 2009 ; Andrews and Bonta 2010 ).

The correctional rehabilitation model is referred to as Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) and comes from a broader empirical knowledge base surrounding the “principles of effective intervention” with offenders (Gendreau 1996 ). RNR specifically identifies (1) who should receive the most intensive treatment services (i.e., high-risk and moderately high-risk offenders; this is known as the risk principle); (2) what risk factors to treat in an effort to reduce recidivism (i.e., factors that are most predictive of recidivism and that can change over time; this is known as the need principle); and (3) how to most effectively treat the appropriate risk factors with offenders in a general sense, but with recognition that each offender has unique needs (i.e., modalities based on psychological social learning and cognitive-behavioral strategies are the most effective with most offenders, but certain barriers to offenders’ success with these interventions must be addressed; these are known as the general and specific responsivity principles).

Because the risk, need, and general responsivity principles have garnered tremendous empirical support, some scholars suggest this is further evidence in support of differential association and other social learning perspectives because the principles are formulated within a social learning framework. For instance, Cullen et al. ( 2003 ) argued that correctional treatment research can “tell us” about the adequacy of criminological theories. In particular, program evaluations assessing the effectiveness of various modalities of intervention are useful in testing the underlying theoretical orientations of interventions. While not direct tests of criminological theories, program evaluations provide longitudinal, quasi-experimental data showing what strategies can significantly reduce recidivism over time (Cullen et al. 2003 ). Cognitive-behavioral/social learning interventions, when implemented with fidelity, are consistently among the strongest in reducing future offending, while interventions based on surveillance, control, or other “punishing smarter” strategies fare far worse in reducing continued antisocial conduct (Johnson Listwan et al. 2008 ).

Additionally, research testing the validity of various risk factors to predict future crime can also inform us about the applicability of criminological theories. The need principle from the RNR model makes clear that although offenders present with a number of life-skill deficits, some are more predictive of recidivism than others, and some are not predictive at all. Consequently, a distinction is made between criminogenic and non-criminogenic needs, with a prioritization on targeting criminogenic needs. Specifically, Andrews and Bonta ( 2010 ) distinguish four major and four moderate predictors of recidivism based on numerous longitudinal predictive validity studies (i.e., the “Big Four” and “Central Eight” risk factors, respectively).

The “Big Four” risk factors that consistently demonstrate predictive validity with recidivism across studies include a history of antisocial conduct, antisocial attitudes/cognition, antisocial associates/peers, and an antisocial personality pattern (e.g., impulsive, low self-control, callous, weak problem-solving skills) (Andrews and Bonta 2010 ). Because antisocial attitudes and antisocial peers are among the strongest predictors, while other risk factors are not (e.g., lower-class origins, fear of official punishment [deterrence], psychopathology), empirical evidence is generated for social learning theoretical perspectives. Moreover, because having antisocial associates is consistently a strong risk factor independent of antisocial attitudes, Andrews and Bonta ( 2010 ) supported the behavioral extensions of Burgess and Akers ( 1966 ) by suggesting that “a more powerful causal model [compared to Sutherland’s] is one that allows antisocial associates some direct causal significance unmediated by antisocial attitudes. With this model, antisocial attitudes and antisocial associates not only influence each other but may each contribute to the definitions of particular situations that are favorable to criminal activity” (p. 123).

Correctional treatment programs and the risk factor research are intended to inform efforts to reduce recidivism with offending populations. Thus, their results are largely relevant for understanding persistence and desistance from crime as opposed to the onset of antisocial behavior (Cullen et al. 2003 ). Within psychology, onset is more thoroughly explained by Albert Bandura’s ( 1977 ) statement on social learning, which highlighted imitation and punishment and reinforcement contingencies, each of which were hypothesized to be mediated by cognitive, learning processes.

Yet a second social learning perspective not typically understood within criminology also addresses the maintenance and reduction of antisocial behavior, particularly child-adolescent aggression. With a foundation in developmental behavioral psychology, Gerald Patterson and his team of researchers at the Oregon Social Learning Center assign fundamental etiological significance to improper parental skills to explain juvenile delinquency. This model is discussed next.

III. Social Learning, the Family, and Delinquency

In the early 1960s, Gerald Patterson and a research group at the University of Oregon’s Psychology Department became interested in developing techniques to change a variety of child behaviors, particularly aggression. The research that initially emerged highlighted the importance of reinforcement and behavioral contingency procedures in shaping children’s behavior, first in the laboratory setting and subsequently in moment-to-moment, natural observations in children’s family contexts. The highly detailed observation methods developed by Patterson and his team were largely responsible for the discovery of the specific mechanisms through which global risk factors such as poor parental discipline operate to create developmental pathways of antisocial behavior.

Formally outlined in his 1982 book, Coercive Family Process , Patterson described data from hundreds of home observations of parent-child interactions to put forward an extension of Bandura’s social learning theory—namely, coercion theory. Coercion theory provides a model of behavioral contingencies that explains the mutually reinforcing process between parents and children that fosters child aggression. Essentially, parents and children “coerce” each other to act in ways that increase the potential both for children to develop antisocial behavior and parents to decrease control over children’s antisocial behaviors (Patterson 1982 ). To illustrate, consider the following scenario, common to many Westernized households:

Mom yells to little Joey from the kitchen asking him to stop playing video games and to clean his bedroom. Joey ignores Mom and keeps playing. Mom says again, “Joey, that room needs to be clean before dinner!” Joey continues his game and says, “OK, I’ll clean it before dinner!” Mom screams, “No, it needs to be done now!” and Joey cuts back, “No way, I’m right in the middle of a game!” Mom is frustrated now, stomps over to Joey and says, “I’m done hearing about video games, get off and clean your room!” At this point Joey starts screaming, huffing, and throwing the video controller across the room. Mom walks away, trying to ignore him. After about a minute, Mom is so exhausted from dealing with yet another one of Joey’s tantrums so she says, “Fine, but you know what? If that room isn’t clean tomorrow, there are no more video games ever!” Joey calms down and continues his game.

In this scenario, coercion theory focuses on the connection between the child’s behavior and the mother’s reaction as well as on the subsequent reaction of the child to the mother’s surrender. From a behavioral perspective, Joey is negatively reinforced for his defiant behavior by escaping behavioral compliance and punishment—he is rewarded by escaping his responsibility of cleaning his room and any punishment for his tantrum, increasing the likelihood that he will behave similarly in the near future. Further, Mom is also reinforced by receiving some momentary peace from Joey, which increases her likelihood of withdrawing control of Joey in subsequent behavioral challenges. These dyadic reactions are mutually contingent microsocial exchanges that are the foundation of early childhood aggression.

Like other social learning perspectives, coercion theory is embedded within a social interactionist view, emphasizing that the child’s antisocial behavior is a reaction to other family members’ behaviors. According to Patterson, Reid, and Eddy ( 2002 ), “If we are to change aggressive childhood behavior, we must change the environment in which the child lives…. The problem lies in the social environment” (p. 21). In other words, coercion theory centers on altering stimuli in the environment (particularly the parental supervision strategies) rather than on internal attributes or personal deficits.

A. A Developmental Model of Antisocial Behavior

In 1983, Patterson’s team began a 2-year pilot study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health with fourth grade boys and their families in Eugene, Oregon. The pilot eventually became known as the longitudinal Oregon Youth Study (OYS). Using early stimulus control studies and the Oregon Youth Study, Patterson empirically demonstrated that microsocial coercive family interactions over time become the fundamental foundation through which aggression emerges and is maintained throughout child and adolescent development (Patterson 1982 ; Patterson, DeBaryshe, and Ramsey 1989 ; Patterson, Reid, and Dishion 1992 ). Chronic delinquency could be reliably predicted by a series of behavioral deficits across the developmental stages between early childhood through early adolescence.

Within the coercive perspective, ineffective parenting skills and techniques (poor parental monitoring, harsh and inconsistent discipline, excessive nagging, limited positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior) during early childhood are viewed as determining factors for childhood conduct disorders. It is among these interactions that children (and unskilled parents and siblings) learn the short-term effectiveness of their coercive behavior, gradually progressing the severity of coercive tactics from noncompliance, to temper tantrums, and finally to physical aggression (Patterson 1992 ). As the spectrum of learned antisocial behaviors widens for the child, the variety of prosocial problem-solving skills narrows. Together, these put the child at significant social disadvantage upon entry into the early school years.

Patterson’s model demonstrated the importance of peer rejection as a precursor to both deviant peer group membership and delinquency (Patterson, Reid, and Dishion 1992 ). To demonstrate the function of peers, Patterson and colleagues argued that an aggressive child’s selection of friends is dependent on the immediate rewards of the relationship. For instance, if kids reinforce a child for his or her aggression, they are much more likely to be chosen as friends than kids who do not reward that aggression. Calling this “shopping” for friends, Patterson, Reid, and Dishion ( 1992 ) explained that friends are chosen by using the least amount of social energy to gain the maximum amount of social reinforcement.

Patterson and Dishion ( 1985 ) introduced their developmental model to the readers of Criminology by demonstrating the direct and indirect contributions of both families and peers on delinquency. The study included 136 seventh and tenth grade boys representing 21 schools from a small metropolitan area. Structured face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with the boys and their parents measuring parental monitoring, students’ academic and social skills, and their association with deviant peers. The structural equation model revealed that a lack of parental monitoring coupled with social skills deficits directly increased the likelihood of the child’s association with deviant peers. Further, poor parental monitoring, deviant peers, and academic struggles directly increased the chances that these children would engage in self-reported and officially documented delinquency.

The behavioral interventions established from the coercive family model have been successfully supported in numerous evaluation studies. As one of the hallmark delinquency prevention programs developed by Patterson’s Oregon Social Learning Center, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) has demonstrated effectiveness in randomized evaluation studies for both boys (Chamberlain and Reid 1998 ) and for girls (Leve, Chamberlain, and Reid 2005 ; Chamberlain, Leve, and DeGarmo 2007 ; Leve and Chamberlain 2007 ). MFTC is a behavioral treatment alternative to residential placement for aggressive and antisocial children, and it seeks to foster the youth’s prosocial familial aspects. Youth are individually placed in treatment foster care homes with trained foster parents while their birth parents are given intense parental management strategies in an effort to reunite children with their families. According to the U.S. Office of Justice Programs (OJP), MFTC is rated as an “effective” program for reducing juvenile delinquency on the OJP CrimeSolutions.gov program database website. Given the evaluation evidence demonstrating MFTC’s effectiveness, further support is established in favor of social learning theory’s overall strength in explaining antisocial behavior.

B. Patterson’s Early and Late Starters

As Patterson and his fellow scientists continued to expand their developmental model of juvenile delinquency, they observed two distinct trajectories of delinquent behavior. “Early starters” comprised the first trajectory, whose antisocial behavior began during the preschool years, were arrested at an early age (prior to age 14), had chronic juvenile delinquency, followed by adult career offending. The second trajectory included “late starters” who did not have the early childhood training of antisocial behavior, whose first arrest was in mid to late adolescence (age 14 or older), whose delinquency patterns were transient rather than chronic, and who were no more likely to engage in adult criminal behavior than juvenile nonoffenders.

Although the two trajectories are distinct, the model assumes the same underlying process toward antisocial behavior, namely, the operant coercive and reinforcement process. Timing, level of disadvantage, and disruption among contextual variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, parental divorce), and level of social deficits are the distinguishing factors across the two trajectories. However, aggression and antisocial behavior for both groups are determined by the relative amount of reinforcement received from the social environment for engaging in such antisocial acts. Thus, Patterson’s coercion theory assumes that a single model can explain how the delinquency process begins, what maintains it, and what determines progression from one developmental stage to the next.

IV. Conclusion

All social learning theories have assumptions that fundamentally contrast with those of other criminological perspectives, particularly control theories. Control theories assume that individuals are naturally inclined to engage in antisocial behavior and therefore that control mechanisms (e.g., social bonds, self-control, informal social control) must be in place to reduce antisocial behavior and crime. Social learning perspectives, on the other hand, maintain that antisocial behavior is learned over time, similar to any other behavior. Therefore, interventions must disrupt the antisocial learning process and replace the behaviors learned through it with alternative prosocial skills. Herein lies one of the major strengths of the psychological social learning perspectives over the sociological social learning perspectives—the clear, practical interventions for disrupting antisocial behavior and teaching new prosocial skills and behaviors. For instance, poor parenting techniques and harsh discipline are primary treatment targets in the Oregon delinquency model. In fact, Gerald Patterson developed “time-out,” a now widely used punishment intervention strategy, specifically to disrupt child coercive behavior. Additionally, the coercive theoretical model has been crucial in the development of several highly effective delinquency prevention interventions including Scott Henggeler’s Multisystemic Therapy (MST) and the Oregon Social Learning Center’s Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care.

Finally, from a larger criminological context, a recent meta-analysis confirmed the placement of social learning theory among other well-supported explanations of crime and deviance. Pratt et al. ( 2010 ) demonstrated strong support for the theory across 133 empirical studies from 1966 to 2003, including a stability of effects across various methodological approaches. However, Pratt et al.’s ( 2010 ) meta-analysis only included studies that represented sociological social learning theories, or studies that tested Sutherland’s and Akers’s conceptualizations. Because of the wealth of research support for psychologically focused social learning approaches, it is reasonable to suspect that the actual empirical support for social learning as a broad explanation for crime is considerably stronger than we currently realize.

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Criminology: Social Learning Theory

Travis Dixon October 3, 2016 Criminology

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Social Learning Theory

Children that grow up in violent households might be more prone to violence not only because of the physiological effects of the trauma that may have altered their brain and/or cognitive development, they may have also learned to be violent from watching their parents. Stanford Psychologist Albert Bandura proposed the Social Learning in the 1960s…

Key Theory: Social Learning Theory

Background Information

In the 1960s and 1970s, Social Psychologist Albert Bandura devised a theory of learning called Social Learning Theory. As the name suggests, Bandura’s theory was a theory that explained how humans learn.

It’s no coincidence that it was during this time TV watching the United States was becoming more and more popular. Prior to the 1960s TVs were no in many households but as this changed TV exec’s rapidly realized the potential market in children. Animated shows (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Road Runner, Looney Tunes, etc.) became very popular with children. But these shows were also blamed for causing children to act violently.

Episode 9 of Season 2 of The Simpsons deals with this issue as Marge campaigns against the makers of “Itchy and Scratchy” after she realizes Maggie is learning all sorts of violent acts from this show (including hitting Homer over the head with a mallet). It’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.

What is Social Learning Theory (SLT)

According to Bandura’s theory, learning happens through:

Direct experience/s of the learner
Observing the behaviour of others ( modelling )

For the purposes of applying Bandura’s theory to an explanation of how the media can cause violence we will only focus on the role of learning through the observation of a model (b).

Learning Through Modelling

SLT is often over-simplified in its understanding and people think that just by watching someone else there is a chance that the behaviour will be copied and thus, learned. This is not the case. There are a few factors that increase the likelihood that the viewer will a) copy the behaviour and b) continue to copy the behavior (i.e. “learn” something).

Here are the four processes that SLT claims influence the likelihood that observation of a model’s behaviour will result in learning:

Attentional processes
Retention processes
Motor reproduction processes
Reinforcement and motivational processes
I) Attention Processes

Basically, if we’re not paying attention to the model there’s little chance we’ll learn from them.

II) Retention processes

Retention means to retain, or remember. If we can’t remember what we’ve observed there’s little chance we’ll learn the behaviour.

III) Motor reproduction processes

Motor skills refer to physical co-ordination. If someone doesn’t have the physical skills to copy the behaviour, this will influence learning. For instance, if a young child watches someone swing a golf club, they might not learn from this observation if they don’t have the physical coordination to replicate this behaviour.

IV) Reinforcement and motivational processes

Motivation is important in copying the observed behaviour. If we watch someone be rewarded (or punished) for their behavior, that will reinforce the likelihood of us wanting to do it. Also, if we copy the behavior and are then rewarded or punished, that always influences motivation to continue to do the behaviour Additional research has also shown that liking and identifying with the model are important motivational influences as well.

Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.

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The origin of Akers' social learning theory as it is discussed in the criminological literature today dates back to his early work with Robert Burgess in their re-formulation of Sutherland's differential association theory of criminal behavior (Burgess & Akers, 1966).Burgess and Akers' (1966) "differential association-reinforcement theory" fused Sutherland's sociological approach ...
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