Assessing Two Social Process Theories Social process theories are driven by the social interactions that occur between individuals. These theories are not concerned with how society as a whole influences crime, but instead how individual interactions push people into deviance. Social process theories are made to be applicable to all genders, races, socioeconomic classes, and regions. This is unlike other criminological theories because they are not limited to explaining lower-class crime. Two very prominent social process theories are the general theory of crime and theory of differential association. Each one attempts to explain all criminal behavior, and some behaviors considered non-criminal. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory
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One can tell a child with low self-control based on six personality traits. The first, impulsiveness, explains how someone with low self-control ignores long-term consequences in exchange for immediate pleasure. Gottfredson and Hirschi developed this theory with the idea of the hedonistic calculus in mind (Brown et al., 2013). Those with lower levels of self-control will be less rational, therefore are at risk to commit more crimes. Simple tasks are preferred by individuals with low self-control due to little need for planning ahead, along with risk-seeking to eliminate boring activities. Other attributes include the desire for physical endeavors and self-centeredness. Lastly, losing their temper is common for people with low levels of control (Brown et al., 2013). All the traits focus on the immediate needs of the individual, he or she will do what it takes to satisfy their needs with as little planning and intellectual thought as …show more content…
The first three can be summarized by saying that criminal behavior is learned by interacting with others through communication within intimate personal groups (Brown et al., 2013). Parental influence is seen as the most influential group at first, but is soon replaced with friends as the individual matures (Brown et al., 2013). If the group is filled with delinquents, it is easier to learn ways of a criminal lifestyle than it would be by communicating with non-delinquents. Principles four through six discuss what is learned in the exchanges. Four states that one learns the techniques and motives toward criminal behavior through the personal groups (Brown et al., 2013). The mindset that influences the behavior is more important than the skillset because the criminal mind is the root cause of behavior (Brown et al., 2013). The fifth and sixth principles argue that motives are adopted through attitudes favorable or unfavorable towards laws, and that a person is determined criminal if the definitions favorable to law violation outweigh the unfavorable definitions (Brown et al., 2013). For example, if someone disagrees with the meaning of a law, he or she would be more willing to break the law than someone who
One can tell a child with low self-control based on six personality traits. The first, impulsiveness, explains how someone with low self-control ignores long-term consequences in exchange for immediate pleasure. Gottfredson and Hirschi developed this theory with the idea of the hedonistic calculus in mind (Brown et al., 2013). Those with lower levels of self-control will be less rational, therefore are at risk to commit more crimes. Simple tasks are preferred by individuals with low self-control due to little need for planning ahead, along with risk-seeking to eliminate boring activities. Other attributes include the desire for physical endeavors and self-centeredness. Lastly, losing their temper is common for people with low levels of control (Brown et al., 2013). All the traits focus on the immediate needs of the individual, he or she will do what it takes to satisfy their needs with as little planning and intellectual thought as …show more content…
The first three can be summarized by saying that criminal behavior is learned by interacting with others through communication within intimate personal groups (Brown et al., 2013). Parental influence is seen as the most influential group at first, but is soon replaced with friends as the individual matures (Brown et al., 2013). If the group is filled with delinquents, it is easier to learn ways of a criminal lifestyle than it would be by communicating with non-delinquents. Principles four through six discuss what is learned in the exchanges. Four states that one learns the techniques and motives toward criminal behavior through the personal groups (Brown et al., 2013). The mindset that influences the behavior is more important than the skillset because the criminal mind is the root cause of behavior (Brown et al., 2013). The fifth and sixth principles argue that motives are adopted through attitudes favorable or unfavorable towards laws, and that a person is determined criminal if the definitions favorable to law violation outweigh the unfavorable definitions (Brown et al., 2013). For example, if someone disagrees with the meaning of a law, he or she would be more willing to break the law than someone who