Differential Association
Definition
Sutherland's concept that criminal behaviour results from an excess of associations with pro-criminal definitions over anti-criminal definitions. The learning depends on the frequency, duration, priority, and intensity of contact with each set of associations.
- Originator
- Edwin Sutherland
- Core mechanism
- Excess of pro-criminal over anti-criminal definitions
- Learning factors
- Frequency, duration, priority, intensity
Common questions
How does differential association explain why crime clusters in certain social networks?+
The theory holds that criminal behaviour is learned through interaction with others, so a person surrounded by associates who model and approve of law-breaking, especially over a long duration or from an early age, absorbs favourable definitions of that behaviour, making its clustering within families, peer groups, or neighbourhoods a predictable outcome rather than coincidence.
What distinguishes differential association from differential reinforcement?+
Differential association explains how criminal definitions and attitudes are learned through social contact, while differential reinforcement, developed later by Burgess and Akers, adds the behavioural mechanism of reward and punishment that determines whether a learned behaviour is actually repeated once it has been acquired.
Related terms
- Definitions (Social Learning)
- Attitudes or rationalisations that frame a behaviour as acceptable, justified, or necessary. In Akers's model, a high ratio of favourable-to-unfavourable definitions toward...
- Differential Reinforcement
- The balance of rewards and punishments, anticipated or actual, that follow a behaviour. If the expected rewards outweigh expected costs, the behaviour...
- Imitation
- Modelling one's behaviour on observed actions of others, especially admired or high-status individuals. Akers added imitation to Sutherland's original framework, explaining initial...
- Pro-Criminal Definitions
- Attitudes, values, or verbal rationalisations that make law-breaking seem acceptable or desirable. Examples include neutralisation techniques (denying the victim, appealing to higher...
- Social Learning Theory (Akers)
- The reformulation of differential association in behavioural terms by Ronald Akers and Robert Burgess (1966). It integrates differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement,...