Differential Identification
Definition
Glaser's theory that a person pursues criminal behaviour in proportion to their identification with real or imaginary people from whose perspective that behaviour appears acceptable.
Related terms
- Daniel Glaser
- American criminologist who proposed differential identification theory in a 1956 article, reframing criminal learning around identification rather than direct contact.
- Gabriel Tarde
- French sociologist and magistrate (1843 to 1904) who proposed that imitation is the basic unit of social life and that crime is...
- Law of Insertion
- Tarde's third law: a new imitation is inserted alongside an existing custom and either merges with it or displaces it once it...
- Laws of Imitation
- Tarde's three-part framework, set out in Les lois de l'imitation (1890), describing how imitation is patterned by contact, by the layering of...
- Law of Imitation of Superiors by Inferiors
- Tarde's second law: imitation moves downward from people of higher social standing to people of lower standing, so vices as well as...
- Law of Opposition
- A phase Tarde described where two competing imitations conflict before one displaces the other, closely tied to the logic of insertion.
- Reference Group
- The person or figure, real or imagined, that an individual identifies with and whose perspective they adopt when judging their own conduct.
- Symbolic Interactionism
- The sociological tradition holding that people act based on meanings built through social interaction, the broader current Glaser's identification concept draws on.
Explained in these topics
- Theory of Imitation and Differential IdentificationGlaser's claim that a person pursues crime to the extent they identify with real or imagined figures from whose perspective it seems acceptable.
- Tarde's Theory of Imitation and Differential Identification Theory