Experimental Evaluation of the Adequacy of Differential Association Theory and a Theoretical Formulation of a Learning Theory of Criminal Behavior

• NCJ Number: 69619
• Author(s): L R Adams
• Date Published: 1971
• Length: 233 pages
• Grant Number(s): NI-69-150; NI-71-081-GF-4
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice; US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Thesis/Dissertation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Florida State University doctoral dissertation

Annotation

This paper expands two attempts to specify, in current operant conditioning terms, the process of learning in Sutherland's differential association theory. Burgess and Akers' propositions are reformulated and the issue of nonsocial determinants of behavior, a variable missing from Sutherland's theory, is examined.

Abstract

Sutherland theorized (1939) that genetic differential association and structural differential social organization accounted for the known data on the full range of crimes, including conventional violations and white collar crimes. Burgess and Akers applied principles of modern behavior theory to Sutherland's theory in an attempt to simulltaneously deal with three aspects of deviant behavior: how an individual becomes delinquent, what sustains the delinquent behavior, and what sustains the pattern or contingency of reinforcement. In order to examine both the original theory and its variations, a randomized two-factor design experiment employ 99 subjects from a juvenile training school, using theft behavior as the dependent variable, delinquent peers as the social independent variable, and money as the nonsocial independent variable. The impact upon deviance (theft) to the two manipulated independent variables (money and a delinquent peer unobtrusively motivated by the experiment to socially reward theft behavior) revealed the nonsocial variable to be very strong, while the social variable provided a mild suppressing effect on the theft behavior. Using operant terms to describe constructs identified by differential association, this study proposed that criminal behavior is learned both in nonsocial situations that are reinforcing or discriminative and through social interaction in which the behavior of the other person is reinforcing or discriminative for criminal behavior. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs in situations which comprise the individual's major source of reinforcement. In addition, the learning of criminal behavior, including its frequency, specific techniques, stimulus and response chains, and avoidance procedures, is a function of the reinforcers and punishers, the existing reinforcement and punishment contingencies, and the discriminative stimulus. Criminal behavior occurs in situations where the stimuli have greater discriminative strength for criminal than for noncriminal behavior, and is learned when the balance of reinforcers and punishments favors such behavior over noncriminal behavior. Moreover, the strength of the criminal learning is a direct function of the amount, frequency, and probability of its reinforcement and punishment and the condition of its state variables. Survey instruments, tabular data, footnotes, and approximately 450 references are appended.