Learning Theories

Learning Theories

CULTURAL/SUBCULTURAL IDEAS & BELIEFS BEHAVIOR? -OR-

SOCIAL STRUCTURE CULTURE/BELIEFS BEHAVIOR?

– What crimes can be learned?– What behaviors that support crime can be learned?– How does this learning take place?– What cultural supports for this learning are present?– Link with strain theory: Structural conditions may set

the stage where learning takes place

Learning

• Habits and knowledge that develop from interaction with the environment: Not instinctual or biological

• Current learning theories based on association

– Classical conditioning – passive learning• Associating bell with meat ultimately produces salivation just

on sound of the bell

– Operant conditioning – active learning• Organism learns how to get what it wants• Press a lever to get food – associate lever with food

– Social Learning – active learning + cognition• Direct - reinforcement through rewards and punishments• Vicarious - reinforcement by observing what happens to others• Criminological Theories - Crime is a “normally learned

behavior”

Learning Crime through imitation - Tarde

• Crime is learned, just like other behaviors• People imitate each other depending on their

closeness to each other

– More imitation in cities - “fashion”– Slower in rural areas - “custom”– Inferior imitates the superior

• Vagrancy, drunkenness, murder began as crimes committed by royalty

• Crimes in rural areas imitate city behaviors• Newer fashions displace the old (shooting instead of knifing)

Learning Crime throughdifferential association (Sutherland)

• Crime is learned, just like other behaviors• Criminal behavior learned from persons who transmit ideas or

“definitions” that favor law-breaking• Two basic elements of the theory

– Content of what is learned• techniques of committing the crime• the underlying drives, rationalizations and attitudes

– Process by which learning takes place• Learning occurs in intimate groups

• Motives and drives for behavior originate in attitudes towards legal codes by a person’s social group– “Normative conflict” – social and group norms may be in conflict– “Definitions” can be favorable/unfavorable to lawbreaking– Delinquency is caused by an excess of definitions favorable to

lawbreaking

Views on differential association• Criticisms

– Focus on juvenile crime committed in groups (Gluecks)• Perhaps delinquents simply “flock together”• Not all who associate with delinquents become delinquent

– Testability• How to identify and count the definitions favorable and

unfavorable to law in each setting?– Cannot apply to all kinds of crime– Difficult to explain differences in crime rates

• Geographical• Demographic

• Defenses– Strength, intensity of associations vary– Cognitive component to learning– Juveniles with more delinquent friends commit more crimes– Juveniles who report more definitions favorable to law-breaking

commit more crime– CJ system controlled by upper classes

Cultural and Subcultural Theories

Walter B. Miller

Learning to be delinquent from a gang

• Lower and middle-class cultures are distinct

– Middle-class values achievement

– Lower-class has different concerns, which are a breeding ground for crime: toughness, smartness (street sense), excitement, fate, autonomy

– Male role models often absent, so an exaggerated sense of masculinity results

– Crowding and domestic conditions send boys to the street, where they form gangs

Wolfgang and FerracuttiLearning violence from a violent subculture

• Violence is a cultural expression for lower socioeconomic status males

• Many homicides result from very trivial events– Defending honor of relatives, neighborhood

• Significance of an event (e.g., a jostle) is differentially perceived by races and socioeconomic classes

– Persons who respond as socially expected are admired - those who do not are put down

– Causes of “passion” behavior are ideas - norms, values, expectations - that originate in social conditions

• Don’t focus on the origin of subculture– Worry instead about the ideas it generates– Remedy is to disperse and assimilate the subcultures

Elijah AndersonLearning violence in a black “street” subculture

• Criminogenic environment– High concentration of poverty, Declining legitimate, increasing

illegitimate jobs– Drug and gun availability, High crime and violence– Declining welfare payments, No hope for the future– Lack of faith in C.J. system

• Code of the street– Cultural adaptation to living in declining circumstances– “Respect”, “disrespect” and “manhood”– Spreads to “decent” children through contagion and necessity

• Theory is partly cultural, like Wolfgang & Ferracutti; partly structural, like Merton

Akers –Learning through differential reinforcement

• Behaviors can be learned as well as ideas• Differential association – Behaviors can be learned socially, from

others and from “reference groups” whose definitions are favorable or unfavorable to lawbreaking

• Differential reinforcement – Behaviors can be learned socially and no-socially, according to their actual or anticipated consequences (“differential reinforcement”)– Learned socially through approval/disapproval by others– Learned non-socially (e.g., getting sick/high on drugs)– Learned vicariously by observing consequences of behavior for

others• Once criminal behavior begins, it continues if reinforced either

socially or non-socially• Structural conditions (inequality, strain) affect a person’s differential

associations, definitions, models and reinforcements