SOC 1500 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Edwin Sutherland, Frank Tannenbaum, Social Learning Theory

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1500
• Professor: Michelle Dumas

Document Summary

Important groups contributing to the process of socialization are family, peers, work groups and reference groups with which one identifies: instill values and norms in their members and communicate what are acceptable world views and patterns of behaviour. Hold that the process through which criminality is acquired, deviant self-concepts are established and criminal behaviour results is active, open-ended and ongoing throughout a person"s life. Offenders also learn the attitudes necessary to justify the behaviour: the specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable notions of right and wrong behaviour. The more often one interacts with a deviant group and the length of the interaction, the greater the likelihood of learning the behaviour. The learning of deviant norms from deviant groups produces criminal behaviour. Techniques of neutralization are learned justifications that can provide criminal offenders with the means to disavow responsibility for their behaviour.