Week 7 Flashcards
(34 cards)
Critical elements of socialisation
- Family relations
- Parental efficacy
- Collective Efficacy
- Abuse
- Media
- Peer relations
- Institutional involvement
- Religion
- Education
Social process theories
- Social process theories look to processes of individual socialisation to help explain why people commit criminal or deviant acts
- Social process theories suggest, contra social structural theories, that people of all social classes or hierarchies have the potential to become delinquent of commit criminal acts
Trait theories
- Trait theories are more positivistic, focusing on the use of scientific methodologies to uncover “pathology.”
- Trait theories, particularly behavioural theories, focus more on diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
- Both trait theories and social process theories look at socialising factors such as the family, peers, and schooling in relation to criminal behaviour.
Social Process Theories
- Social process theories focus more on the social construction of meaning between individuals and their socialising factors.
- Social process theories are not clinical; they do not engage in specific diagnosis or treatment.
- Social process theories often take a more critical view of socialising institutions changed with social control – police, teachers, judges, etc. – and their role in “creating” deviance and crime.
Three types of Social Process theories
- Social control
- Social learning
- Social reaction
Social learning theories
- suggests that while people may or may not experience strain, pathology, or other factors used to explain deviance, that participation in deviance itself is a “learned” activity
- In assuming that people “learn” deviance, this perspective is micro rather than macro functionalism (i.e. society as a system) or anomie (i.e. social strata), instead looking at groups of various sizes, such as peer groups, to explain why individuals learn and engage in deviance.
Origins of social learning theory
Gabriel Tarde (1843 – 1904)
- French social theorist who criticised Durkheim for his idea that society could be conceptualised as something separate from its members.
- Proposed a “theory of imitation” from which individuals learn deviance from others. This theory had three parts, including:
Law of close contact
Law of imitation of superiors
Law of insertion
Law of close contact
The closer one is to others than engage in deviant behavior, the more likely it is that they will engage in similar behaviour
Law of imitation of superiors
Those with more power, or those with higher social states, are more likely to be imitated than those with less social standing. They are also less likely to imitate others.
Law of insertion
We can call this the “shiny new toy” law, where Tarde believed that in his time newer fashions, customs and norms were more likely to win out over traditional or customary practices.
Differential association
- Developed most thoroughly in Sutherland and Cressy’s Principles of Criminology (1947)
- Sutherland’s research on WCC and professional thieves led him to “dispute the notion that crime was a function of inadequacy of people in lower classes. For Sutherland, criminality stemmed neither from individual traits [i.e. trait theory] not from socioeconomic position [i.e. social structure theory and Marxist theory]; instead, he believed it to be a function of a learning process that could affect any individual in any culture.”
Assumptions of differential association
- Deviant behaviour is learned
- Learning is a byproduct of interaction
- Principle learning occurs in intimate groups
- Deviant behaviour includes learned techniques and motives
- Deviance is a result of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of the law
What explains differences in associations
- Frequency
- Duration
- Priority
- Intensity
Frequency - differences in associations
Frequency of contact with others who engage in specific types of behaviours – in our case criminal or deviant behaviour (i.e. how often)
Duration - differences in associations
Duration means length of contact
i.e. how long
Priority - differences in associations
Priority refers to earliest age of contact and the “priority” placed in these interactions
This was one of Sutherland’s most fruitful concepts, and today research shows strong evidence for what is called “age on onset”
Intensity - differences in associations
Intensity means the degree to which “importance and prestige [is] attributed to the individual or groups from whom the definitions are learned” (Siegel 2004: 222).
Strength of differences in associations
In relation to these factors, Sutherland argued that the stronger the frequency, duration, priority, and intensity of such social interactions, the higher the likelihood that these interactions would result in emotional or intimate bonds with others who engage in criminal behaviour, and the more likely it would be that an individual would likewise engage in such behaviour.
Differential association implications
- Suggested that “deviants” were different than others only in relation to their exposure to external influences that normalised or favoured deviant behaviour.
- Offers the possibility that criminal justice solutions that incarcerate criminals in one place might be counterproductive.
- Suggested that redress to criminal activities must seek to counter interpersonal influences and intimate relationships.
Differential Identification - modifications to differential association
Differential Identification – Glaser has suggested that in modern society, “association” may be defined in a wide number of ways, including identification with people or groups that one has little direct contact with, but is influential just the same.
Examples of differential association
- The ubiquity and influence of mass media, for example, allows us to identify with characters, fashions, and trends in an “intimate” fashion.
- The fact that many people today spend more time online, watching television, or interacting with mass media than they do with friends and family suggests that such “associations” are becoming increasingly discursive - leading to the question of the actual influence of media as an agent of socialisation
Differential reinforcement - modifications to differential association
- DR theory stresses importance of positive and negative (i.e. reward or punishment) reinforcement in socialisation processes.
- While someone may spend a lot of time around deviant individuals, association itself does not always lead to deviant behaviour.
- Positive or negative reinforcement required
Example of differential reinforcement
- Imagine a prison guard, who spends a significant portion of his day with criminals, but who nevertheless is not positively rewarded for criminal behaviour.
- As Siegel (2004: 224) notes, “Whether deviant or criminal behaviour has been initiated or persists depends on the degree to which it has been rewarded or punished and the rewards and punishments attached to its alternatives.”
Neutralisation theory
Central to Sykes and Matza’s theory is the notion that most individuals drift back and forth to some degree between normative and “subterranean values.”
Recognising that all people generally strike a balance between these two cultural values, the question then becomes how some individuals learn to balance illegitimate and conventional behaviour in a way that legitimises or justifies deviant and criminal activity.
