Differential Association Theory: Edwin Sutherland And Ronald Aker

Social Learning Theory and Differential Association Theory Edwin Sutherland and Ronald Aker were important sociologist because of their significant theories that relate to crime and deviance. Sutherland’s differential association theory provided a solid sociological approach to understanding crime, deviance, and challenged many mainstream criminologists who focused exclusively on street crimes. The differential association theory refers to the social interactions with deviant as opposed to conventional others such as, values, attitudes, and techniques of criminal behavior. In 1966 Ronald Aker reformed Sutherland’s idea of differential association to his own theory of social learning, which attempted to introduce the psychological concepts of operant conditioning to the theory. The social learning theory refers to learning as a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation. Throughout this paper differential association and social learning theory will be explored by how each theory relates to the other

The social learning theory refers to learning as a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation. An example of social learning theory is a child who rides in the car with their parents everyday and views the road rage they have during traffic, the mother screams curse words and other comments that are not fit for a child to repeat, however the child is absorbing every single thing the mother says and does, later in school the mother gets a phone call from her child’s teacher stating that the child had been yelling curse words at other students and using body language that was aggressive. This child is a prime example of just how simple the social learning theory is and just how easy a child can learn deviant or bad behavior (Inderbitzin,