Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of Akers’ social learning theory including its theoretical foundations and four central explanatory concepts of differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation. Akers (Social learning and social structure: a general theory of crime and deviance. Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1998) has extended social learning theory to the macro-level, and thus we provide a look at the assumptions, concepts, and propositions of his social structure social learning model (SSSL). This discussion is followed by an examination of empirical research that has investigated the ability of social learning theory to account for variation in criminal and deviant behavior and a review of the evidence on the SSSL model pointing toward future directions for social learning and social structure. The chapter concludes with a look at the applications of social learning theory to programs and policies.
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- 1.
This version of social learning theory is an integration of Sutherland’s (1947) sociological theory of differential association and behavioral principles of conditioning and reinforcement from psychology originally formulated by Burgess and Akers (1966) as “differential association-reinforcement” theory and as it has been developed since then by Akers and others (see Akers, 1973, 1985, 1998; Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Akers et al., 2016; Akers & Sellers, 2004; Jennings, Higgins, Akers, Khey, & Dobrow, 2013; Jensen & Akers, 2003). It is this social learning theory of crime and deviance that is typically referred to in criminology and sociology of deviance. However, it should be noted that social learning principles have been used to explain criminal and delinquent behavior as well as applied to treatment and prevention by other social behaviorists working with explanatory models that are compatible with and similar to social learning theory as reviewed here (see Andrews & Bonta, 2003; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992).
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Akers, R.L., Jennings, W.G. (2019). The Social Learning Theory of Crime and Deviance. In: Krohn, M., Hendrix, N., Penly Hall, G., Lizotte, A. (eds) Handbook on Crime and Deviance. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20779-3_6
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