Social Learning Theory

Social Learning Theory

Introduction

The origins of social learning theory extend to an effort by Robert Burgess and Akers to integrate Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory with principles drawn from behavioral learning in psychology. From these beginnings, Akers crafted a highly testable general theory of deviance and conformity, which has enjoyed immense empirical support, has been applied successfully to a variety of behaviors, and has fostered prevention programs that have been effective in reducing criminal and deviant behavior in the populations these programs serve (Akers, et. Al, 1989).

Born in 1939, Akers was raised in a working-class family of modest means in a small factory town on the banks of the Ohio River in southeastern Indiana. Typical of the Midwestern upbringing of that time, Akers was taught to work hard, value education, and love God. Perhaps inspired by his teachers throughout public school, he sought a college degree, the first in his family to do so, and a career as a high school social studies teacher. In 1960, he graduated from Indiana State University with a bachelor's degree in secondary education. Akers, however, turned down a high school teaching job to pursue a graduate education in sociology (Bandura, 1969).

As an undergraduate, Akers developed an intellectual interest in the link between social class and crime, an interest that he further cultivated in his master's thesis research at Kent State University. Even as a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky, Akers's work was not devoted specifically to criminological theory. With a broader emphasis on criminology and the sociology of law and with the guidance of his mentor, Richard Quinney, Akers's dissertation analyzed the role played by political power in the enactment of professional practice and licensure laws (Akers, et. Al, 1989).

Discussion

Social learning theory is an integration of differential association and behavioral learning theories. It wholly subsumes differential association theory by recasting it in the context of behavioral learning principles (Akers, et. Al, 1989).

In differential association theory, Sutherland drew upon symbolic interactionism to emphasize that both criminal and law-abiding behavior are learned in interaction with others. Sutherland acknowledged that in American society, one is likely to associate, to varying degrees, with individuals who define law violation as favorable as well as with individuals who define law violation as unfavorable. When exposure to people with behavioral patterns and attitudes favorable to crime exceeds exposure to people with behavioral patterns and attitudes unfavorable to crime, criminal behavior is likely to be learned. When the balance is struck in the opposite direction, law-abiding behavior is likely to be learned instead (Akers, et. Al, 1989).

The behavioral principles involved in the social learning of deviant behavior—and conforming behavior as well—include but are not limited to notions of operant conditioning, differential reinforcement, and discriminative stimuli. Among cognitive learning principles, Akers incorporated concepts such as imitation, anticipated reinforcement, and self-reinforcement into social learning theory. As Akers presented the theory, he discussed how these principles illuminate the specific mechanisms by which deviant behavior is learned through association with ...