Criminal Justice 201
Term Paper – Social Learning Theory (Q#5)
Carmina Janine Ibanez
December 9, 2013

Learning as found in the dictionary is the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill (dictionary.com, n.d.). Have you ever heard of the saying that states, “We learn something new everyday?” Now, that “something” can be anything from learning how to walk, learning how to write, learning the 50 states of America or even how to behave or act. Everything we do has been learned and observed. Social learning theory states that crime can also be learned. I believe that delinquency or criminal behavior is learned in early childhood by our environments. Learning criminal behavior can come from anywhere; it can come from your living/social environment, people you associate with or even things you see on television (TV). “Socialization is a continuing process whereby an individual acquires personal Identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position. (Dictionary.com, n.d.)” Socialization is a lifetime process and it influences who we are and who we can be. It begins when we’re born, we learn and conform to the norms of our family and then we move on to school, for some church, and as we get older, work. In school we are heavily influenced by our peers to wear certain clothes and act in various ways. When we begin to work, we have to learn how to act and look in ways that are appropriate to the company where we’re employed. Some may not have the luxuries of living in a house or working and end up in the streets or homeless shelters and others may end up in prison. In these places, they still have to learn the social norms and behaviors.
Where I come from, there are 3 different high schools in our District and the school I went to was seen as the most “ghetto” of the three and I would have to agree. The area in which I lived had a lot of people living in it that were affiliated with drugs, gangs and etc. So naturally, a lot of the people I went to school with were also affiliated with drugs and gangs. In the beginning of my middle and high school years it wasn’t uncommon to see fights after school, people stealing and I believe it was because that’s what we grew up with and it’s what we learned. Coming from a family who is very religious and church oriented, I never was influenced by drugs but I did see it’s effects on my friends and it helped me to be more cautious of whom I kept in my circle. Doing sports in high school helped me befriend people at the other schools in our district and I had friends that came from a “white neighborhood.” Their school was very preppy and we often called them “white wash” because they were so proper and their way of living was very different. They didn’t have drug dealers roaming around their streets and patrol cars out in their neighborhoods. They didn’t have to remember to lock their car or house doors when leaving. “What we learn and when and how we learn it depend on the society into which we are born (Handel, Cahil, Elkin, 2007).” Where you live definitely has an influence on your behavior or of those around you. Like I previously stated, when we’re born we first begin to learn the tendencies of our families. In a book written by Gerald Handel, Spencer E. Cahill and Fredrick Elkin, entitled “Children and Society,” they stated that: “As infants become aware of the activities going on around them, they become interested in these activities; and because these activities of people to whom infants are attached, they want to do what those around them do and, indeed, to be as they are (pg., 97)”
They continue with the example that when a child is being fed by his/her mother, the child will then try to also feed his/her mother as their mother does. This shows how we learn from what our family does. If our family behaves in a violent way, we tend to take up those tendencies too because it’s what we know. When I was growing up, I was spanked whenever I misbehaved and I assumed that every child gets disciplined in that way when they also misbehave but it wasn’t until I started middle school when I found out that that wasn’t true; I was a little shocked. Behaviors like this can influence our behaviors in the future. For example, in an article written by K. Daniel O’Leary found in the book entitled “Handbook of Family Violence” it was stated that 43% of battered women reported that they saw or heard their fathers hitting their mothers and 70% of men reported that they saw or heard their fathers hitting their mothers (pg., 42). As you can see, we take away more from our parents than we think. As children, when we’re exposed to this kind of aggression or violence, the more likely it’ll increase our chances of it in the future.
These days television/media in general, has a big influence on society behavior. In another book called “Social Learning in Childhood” written by Donna M. Gelfand, it talked about an experiment that was held that tested aggression that can be transmitted to children through exposure to aggressive adult models via real-life models and televised aggressive models. The first group of children witnessed an aggressive adult who showed physical and verbal aggression towards a plastic doll; the second group viewed the same model behave in a very subdued and inhibited manner, while children in a control group had no exposure to any models. Then they had a group of children view a movie with the same adults who showed aggressive behaviors in the previous group to the inflated doll. The next group of children was shown a cartoon version but this time it was of a woman that was dressed as a car and she then showed aggressive behavior against the doll. After the exposing the children to the aggressive behaviors, they were tested to see if they would imitate what they saw. In the graph as described in the book, the mean of aggressive responses in the real-life aggressive model group exhibited in 80-85% aggressive responses. The film aggressive model group of children displayed 90-95% in aggressive responses; the cartoon model group was nearly 100%. The control group and the non-aggressive group showed less than 50% of aggressive responses. As the data shows, the children that were exposed to the aggressive behavior, they showed almost twice as much aggression compared to the children in the controlled group. This experiment shows that when children are exposed to aggressive models it increases their aggressive responses. It also shows the different impacts that real-life models and televised-models have on the way children behave. To sum up, Social learning theory is correct and criminal behavior is learned. Whether it be from our families, living environments, or from what we see on television. I think learning is something that we tend to take for granted. Furthermore, we have to realize that even if they’re children, we have to really drill it into our minds that they’re so perceptive to everything around them and they’re a lot smarter than we come to understand. And when around children, we have to take extra precautions about what we do in their presence. Even what we allow them to watch on television, they’ll learn and copy from that even if it’s fictional. All in all, everything starts at the beginning. Criminal behavior is learned and observed when our minds are at its most perceptive stages and what goes on in our environments are the causes of future delinquent types of behaviors.

Bibliography
Gelfand, D. M., (1969)., Social Learning in Childhood. Belmont, California. Wadsworth Publishing Company Inc.
Handel, G., Cahil, S. E., Elkin, F., (2007). Children and Society: The Sociology of Children and Childhood Socialization. New York. Oxford University Press Inc.
Hasselt, V. B. V., Morrison, R. L., Bellack, Alan S., Michel, H., (1988). Handbook of Family Violence. New York. Plenum Press.
Learning. (n.d.). In Dictionary online. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/learning?s=t
Socialization. (n.d.) In Dictionary online. Retrieved from 22 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Socialization?s=t