Social Therory
Social Theory Examination Paper
Tremaine Iwundu
CJA/314
March 17, 2014
Carl M. Miedich
Social Theory Examination Paper The way individuals learn to interact with society as children tends to predict how they will interact with society and respond to its environments as adults. There are social theories that help the understanding of why individuals choose deviant behaviors and how they progress through life. Social process theories view criminal and deviant criminal behaviors as evolving mechanisms learned through societal interaction. Social development theories view deviant and criminal behaviors as part of a maturation process. Social theories are conclusions that have come about based on the response of individuals to their environments, what they have been taught, what they have learned through their experiences, and how they react to those experiences in society. Social process theories views criminality as s function of people’s interactions with various groups and institutions in society. A person’s behavior is greatly influenced by the positive and negative reinforcements of their behavior. This influence can be referred to as the differential reinforcement theory.
The differential theory states that the process of learning deviant behavior and the process of learning conventional behavior is the exact same process. The idea is that criminals are not taught to be completely bad and typical members of society are not taught to be completely good. No criminal breaks all of the rules and no member of society obeys all of the rules. Instead, some sense of balance is created and as time goes on a social group is adopted. The individual makes a choice to be a deviant or normal member of society based on what is reinforced. Negative reinforcement discourages a particular behavior. Positive reinforcement encourages a particular behavior. The rewards for a particular behavior often dictates which behavior the individual chooses to continue based
Tremaine Iwundu
CJA/314
March 17, 2014
Carl M. Miedich
Social Theory Examination Paper The way individuals learn to interact with society as children tends to predict how they will interact with society and respond to its environments as adults. There are social theories that help the understanding of why individuals choose deviant behaviors and how they progress through life. Social process theories view criminal and deviant criminal behaviors as evolving mechanisms learned through societal interaction. Social development theories view deviant and criminal behaviors as part of a maturation process. Social theories are conclusions that have come about based on the response of individuals to their environments, what they have been taught, what they have learned through their experiences, and how they react to those experiences in society. Social process theories views criminality as s function of people’s interactions with various groups and institutions in society. A person’s behavior is greatly influenced by the positive and negative reinforcements of their behavior. This influence can be referred to as the differential reinforcement theory.
The differential theory states that the process of learning deviant behavior and the process of learning conventional behavior is the exact same process. The idea is that criminals are not taught to be completely bad and typical members of society are not taught to be completely good. No criminal breaks all of the rules and no member of society obeys all of the rules. Instead, some sense of balance is created and as time goes on a social group is adopted. The individual makes a choice to be a deviant or normal member of society based on what is reinforced. Negative reinforcement discourages a particular behavior. Positive reinforcement encourages a particular behavior. The rewards for a particular behavior often dictates which behavior the individual chooses to continue based
References: Akers, R. (2006). Parental and peer influences on adolescent drug use in Korea. Asian Journal of Criminology. Schmalleger, F. (2012). Criminolgy today: An interactive introduction. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. www.icpd.org/development_theory/SocialDevTheory.htm “Pelican Bay State Prison: War Zone”