Differential Association Theory Research Articles

Test of a Bonding/Association Theory of Adolescent Drug Use

A theoretical model of adolescent drug use is developed which integrates propositions derived from social control and differential association theories. The path model includes parental attachment, religious attachment, educational attachment, conventional values, and drug-using friends as precursors of drug use. For a sample of 2,626 adolescents from the southwestern United States, the model explains 34 percent of the variation in self-reported lifetime alcohol use, 27 percent in lifetime cigarette use, 42 percent in lifetime marijuana use, 26 percent in lifetime use of amphetamines and depressants, and 50 percent in overall lifetime drug use. The best single predictor of drug use is association with drug-using friends. The processes leading to involvement with drugs appear to be very similar across drug types. Adolescent drug use is widespread in America. Numerous recent authors suggest that involvement in such behavior has become a national concern, whether the substance is tobacco (Grunberg and Baum 1984; Humble et al. 1985; Lichtenstein 1982), alcohol (Barnes 1984; Pandina et al. 1984; Wechsler et al. 1984), marijuana (Hendin et al. 1981; Smith et al. 1982; Smith 1984), or other drugs (McDermott 1984; Marcos and Bahr 1985; Weidman 1983). Macdonald (1984) refers to adolescent drug use as a national disaster because of the high proportion of adolescents who use drugs and the negative consequences associated with use. By the time they are seniors in high school, over 90 percent of American adolescents have tried alcohol *Paper presented at the 1985 meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association. We acknowledge the cooperation of the schools that participated in this project, particularly the students who completed the questionnaires. We are grateful to Grant Rose and Tom Martin for computer assistance, to two anonymous referees for their suggestions, and to Norene Petersen and Brenda Johnson for clerical assistance. Address correspondence to Anastasios C. Marcos, Department of Sociology, 800 SWKT, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.

Offense-Specific Models of the Differential Association Process

This paper attempts to clarify ambiguities and assess the offense-specific nature of Sutherland's differential association theory. We employ two-stage least squares to estimate causal effects in structural equation models specific to six different crimes and two non-criminal deviant acts using data from a large-scale survey of adults. The findings indicate: (1) As Sutherland claimed, excess association with definitions favorable to crime and/or deviance tends to increase crime/deviance (measured here by self-predictions), but this effect is mainly indirect, through increasing motivation to engage in deviant acts; (2) The same differential association process holds for a range of crimes and also for the two non-criminal deviant acts, suggesting that Sutherland's theory is more widely applicable than he himself claimed. Our analysis also suggests one conclusion that is more speculative: Definitions (social messages) favorable to different forms of crime/deviance may form several independent domains rather than a single general domain referring to all crime/deviance.

Social influences and constraints on the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use.

This research examines the viability of a theoretical perspective which combines social bonding theory and differential association theory in explaining the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use. Three-year panel data collected from seventh- to twelfth-grade adolescents were analyzed using differences in means tests and discriminant analysis. The findings indicate overall support for the theoretical model in discriminating between (1) initiators and stable nonsmokers and (2) cessators and stable smokers. However, there were some differences in the variables found to be important at each stage of adolescent smoking. Commitment to education, attachment to father and mother, and association with female smoking friends were the most effective discriminators for the initiation stage, while attachment to father, beliefs, and association with both male and female smoking friends were important for the cessation stage. Findings are also discussed for males and females and for junior and senior high-school adolescents.

Social networks of street drug users: a comparison of two theories

Social control theory and differential association theory postulate different causal factors in the etiology of deviant behavior. The study described in this article examined the pretreatment social networks of 106 drug users in four residential treatment centers in light of competing propositions derived from these two theories.

Organizational Crime : Its Concept and Theoretical Analysis

Recently, it appears that the serious illegal acts committed by organizations, including pollution, briberies, unsafe products, false advertising, price fixing, and spying, have increased. In the sociology of crime, these acts have been studied through the concept of 'white-collar crime' which was introduced by Sutherland in 1941. However, this concept is inadequate for dealing with the illegal acts of organizations in terms of content and terminology. Further, it is problematic that most of the studies of 'white-collar crime' have employed Sutherland's theory of differential association as an explanation of the crime.By these reasons, it is desirable to use the concept of organizational crime for the analysis of illegal organizational acts, instead of white-collar crime.In the case of an organizational crime, the criminal agents are not individuals, but the organization itself, because an organization is more of a collection of positions than that of members. Therefore, organizational theory can provide the framework for an understanding of how the properties of organizations relate to their crimes. In this paper, organizational crime is considered by the multistrata system model of organizations, which is composed of three action systems (economic system, political system and construction-building system), mediated by two institutional systems (organizational program and organizational constitution). So, the organizational crime can be regarded as a kind of an organizational program from this viewpoint. Thus, by dividing the process of program adoption into four phases (disclosure, decision, implementation and institutionalization), how the organizational properties cause organizational crimes in each phase may be examined.

Unpleasant, aggressive, and abusive activities in courtship: A comparison of Mormon and nonMormon college students

Utilizing hypotheses derived from functionalist, conflict, social control, exchange, and differential association theories by Tittle and Welch (1983), a test of the religion/conformity nexus was effected by examining reported unpleasant, aggressive, and abusive activity in the courtship experiences of Mormon and nonMormon college student samples. Results were opposite to those reported by Tittle and Welch, who used a different methodological approach. Data were also obtained on childhood experiences of parental aggression and abuse, and on negative inter‐parental activities, and the connection between these behaviors and subsequent courtship activities examined. Additional antecedent variables were also investigated for possible effects on obtained associations. Unanticipated findings are discussed, along with possible explanations.

An assessment of the influence of peer association and identification on drug use among rural high school students.

Data were collected in 1981 from 4,859 junior and senior high school students living in two counties in southern Georgia to examine the relationship of peer group influence and psychosocial identification with the frequency of drug use. Information regarding the type and extent of drug use was collected from the students as well as peer group relationships and psychosocial identification with various groups. These data provided the opportunity to examine the merits of a theoretical perspective developed from selected components of differential association and differential identification theories. The regression analyses revealed that eighteen variables explained 72.2 percent of the variance in soft drug use (4 variables explained 68.4 percent) while nine variables explained 62.6 percent of the variance in hard drug use (4 variables explained 61.4 percent). The findings basically support the theoretical perspective as stated.

An empirical test of Hirschi's control theory of delinquency

Hirschi's control theory of delinquency (1969) contends that lack of attachment to peers, parents, and school leads to a lack of conventional attitudes, which ultimately leads to juvenile delinquency. In order to test this theory, data were collected from questionnaires administered to 724 students in four high schools and three juvenile correctional institutions in the Southwest. Findings from this study indicate that when subjected to path analysis, Hirschi's contention is only supported when delinquent companions is included; that is to say the extent of explained variation in delinquency is greatly enhanced when delinquent companions is introduced as an additional antecedent variable in Hirschi's causal scheme. In addition, the findings are more consistent with a social learning or differential association theory than the original theory proposed by Hirschi in Causes of Delinquency (1969).

‘Alcoholism in America’ Revisited

Reconsideration of a 1966 theory about the interplay between predisposed personalities and drinking groups in the genesis of alcoholism is presented. Observations about both sets of variables have been sustained and reinforced during the intervening years, and a new conceptualization of the nature of drinking groups is offered. The emergent perspective fits closely with differential association theory, and is then applied to job-based alcoholism programs to demonstrate the applicability of the perspective in the reversal of alcoholic behavior.

Friends' Use and Adult Drug and Drinking Behavior: A Further Test of Differential Association Theory

Past research on drug behavior, especially at testing peer group influences, has tended to concentrate on high school and college populations. purpose of this study is to find out the extent to which the theoretical and empirical findings are applicable to an adult population. This Note reports the findings of an analysis of self-reported drug use data representing a general Texas adult population. Zero-order correlation results provide strong support for extending the usefulness of differential association theory to the explanation of drug use within an adult population. most influential theory of cultural deviance is Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association.' third postulate of this theory states: The principal part of the learning of [deviant] behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.2 This study attempts to measure one's intimate personal groups in response to this postulate. Within intimate personal groups, value development and behavior learning, both deviant and nondeviant, take place. basic principle of differential association theory is that a person becomes deviant because of an excess of learned definitions favorable to the violation of norms.

Testing Control Theory and Differential Association: A Causal Modeling Approach

A number of strong theoretical statements have been based on analyses of delinquency data from the Richmond Youth Project. Hirschi (1969) and Jensen (1972), in particular, found that Hirschi's control theory was empirically supported over Sutherland's theory of differential association. This paper reanalyzes these data and reassesses this negative evidence pertaining to differential association theory. It is shown that the ratio of learned behavior patterns favorable and unfavorable to violation of legal codes, the critical variable in Sutherland's theory, can be operationalized by explicitly modeling its measurement error structure. In turn, this allows the testing of specific hypotheses derived from the theory. The analysis based on this strategy finds differential association theory supported over control theory. Specifically, the unobservable construct representing the ratio of learned behavior patterns successfully mediates the effects on delinquency of the model's other variables.

Role-Set Configuration and Opportunity as Predictors of Unethical Behavior in Organizations

Role-set configuration is examined as a predictor of ethical/unethical behavior among two random samples of advertisers [corporate clients and ad agency account executives]. The specific reported behaviors analyzed are intraorganizational behaviors available to most employees. The conceptual framework is based on differential association theory and role set configuration analysis. The three dimensions of role-set configuration used to predict ethical/unethical behavior are organizational location, relative authority and referent others' beliefs and behaviors as perceived by the focal person. The focal person's opportunity to participate in unethical behavior is also a predictor variable. Eighty-nine corporate clients and 136 agency advertisers responded to a questionnaire [a 33% return rate] consisting of a slightly revised version of Newstrom and Ruch's ethics scale. Seven types of predictors of ethical/unethical behavior, "What I do," are developed through principal component factor analysis. These seven variables include the beliefs and behaviors of referent others in various locations and authority positions which affect the focal person: [1] the focal person's beliefs, "What I believe"; 12] what the focal person thinks his/her peers believe, "Peer beliefs"; [31 what the focal person thinks his/her top management believes, "What top management believes"; [4] what the focal person thinks his/her peers do, "What my peers do"; [5] the opportunity the focal person thinks he/she has to become involved in ethical/unethical behavior, 'My opportunity"; [6] and [7] what the corporate client thinks the advertising agency believes, "What the agency believes" and what the ad agency thinks the corporate client believes, "What the corporate client believes. " Focal persons were asked to respond to either variable [6] or [7] depending on which was a referent. This research demonstrates the influence of role-set proximity in predicting the ethical/unethical behaviors of both the corporate clients and the ad agency account executives with intraorganizational relationships being more important than interorganizational relationships. Interorganizational role-set of corporate clients for ad agency account executives and vice versa is not a predictor of ethical/unethical behavior. Opportunity is a predictor of ethical/unethical behavior for both respondent types. The relative authority and attitude/behavior dimensions influence ethical/unethical behavior of both respondent types, although corporate advertiser's ethical/unethical behavior is predicted by top management's beliefs and the ad agency account executives' ethical/unethical behavior is predicted by the behaviors of peers.

Operant Conditioning and Differential Association:

The differential association theory of Edwin Sutherland is one of the most widely elaborated and debated theories of criminal behavior ever articulated. Even though it has been restated in several forms including the principles of operant conditioning, its empirical verification has been virtually impossible. Cressey has proposed a reverse process of differential association by which criminals can be taught noncriminal behavior. The objective of this paper is to restate Cressey's process of retroflexive reformation in terms of the much more precise principles of operant conditioning'as a means of increasing the feasibility of empirical verification.

Changes in Social and Attitudinal Dimensions of Marijuana Abstainers: 1969 to 1976

Data from two samples of university student non-users of marijuana, representing a seven-year period (1969–1976), were analyzed to ascertain whether abstainers changed on social and attitudinal dimensions of marijuana use during a period characterized by rapid increase in the incidence of use of that drug. Implementing differential association theory as a guide for analyses, results indicate that while abstainers' characteristics related to “social dimensions” of marijuana use changed dramatically, little change occurred in characteristics related to “attitudinal dimensions” of marijuana use. The data suggest that abstainers may be emerging as a new sub-culture within the social milieu of university students. Over time, absention from marijuana use has come to be viewed as “deviant” behavior within university settings, and, to preserve their self images, some abstainers have employed stigma management techniques utilized by others whose behavior has been conventionally defined as deviant.

ADOLESCENT MARIJUANA AND ALCOHOL USE

AbstractMost tests of differential association theory focus on the basic relationships rather than the causal process specified by the theory. This study provides a more thorough test of Sutherland's differential association hypothesis by deriving and testing a causal model of alcohol and marijuana use among adolescents. The findings provide strong support for the causal process specified by differential association theory. However, two unexpected findings suggest that the theory may have to be modified to account for the differential impact of peer pressure, independent of internalized definitions, on individual behavior and for the differential impact of specific primary groups on the formation of individual definitions.

Contemporary Theories of Deviance and Female Delinquency: an Empirical Test

A statewide sample of Iowa teenagers was used to test two hypotheses: (1) The strength of the relationship between the independent variables of traditional theories of criminal deviance and self-reported delinquency would be approximately the same for both males and females, and (2) the differences between the sexes in terms of self-reported delinquency could be accounted for by females' less adverse location in relation to these various independent variables. An attempt was made to operationalize key variables from anomie, labeling, control, and differential association theories. The two hypotheses were largely supported.

DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT THEORY EXAMINED

AbstractIt is argued that the attempts of Burgess and Akers and of Adams to formulate Sutherland's differential association theory in the language of operant conditioning theory fail to preserve Sutherland's interesting insights by reducing his theory to the mere claim that criminal behavior is operant conditioning behavior. Questions are then raised about the truth of even this claim. Some attention is also given to the question of the verification of both Sutherland's original theory and the operant Conditioning reformulations of it.

RESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION AND DELINQUENCY A Test of Shaw and McKay's Theory of Cultural Transmission

Abstract The impact of neighborhood cultural and institutional lye upon rates of delinquency among black male adolescents is examined. Focusing on three adjacent black neighborhoods at varying levels of black population change, this paper presents direct tests of three corollaries derived from a causal model adapted from Shaw and McKays cultural transmission theory of delinquency. The preliminary results are compatible with the model: the level of delinquency is higher in a racially changing than in two more racially stable neighborhoods. Other findings. however, fail to support the cultural transmission interpretation of these results. Contrary to Shaw and McKay, delinquency is lowest in the area where criminal influences are the most pronounced. This anomaly is discussed and interpreted in a manner consistent with De FIeur and Quinney's (1966) reformulation of differential association theory.

The attitudinal effects of structured discussions and recreational association between young criminal offenders and undergraduate volunteers

The conditions under which association with citizen volunteers will influence the attitudes of prison residents is a question of some general and applied interest. In this study, positive effects on offender attitudes were evident following association within a focused group discussion condition but not following group recreational association. Changes following recreational association were no different from those evident within a routine incarceration control condition. The results are discussed in terms of differential association theory.

Crime Causation Theories: Failures and Perspectives

All the general explanations of crime are, due to the heterogeneity of criminal behaviour, failures; among them-Lombroso's, Sutherland's and Freudian theories. Typological approach makes causal analysis feasible, provided that proper criteria of classification are adopted; the two suggested here are: external characteristics of criminal behaviour, and its meaning. Consequently, the proposed causal analysis implies finding out components of sufficient conditions for individual types of criminal behaviour. From the social policy viewpoint, components strategic for crime prevention are to be learned first. The multi-type components each of them essential for various types of criminal behaviour-are the most strategic. The adopted usage of 'cause', and the notion of the multi-type components, make it possible to restate and to specify the differential association, anomie, and Marxist theories of crime, and to reconsider the hypotheses of deterrent and of educative force of legal sanctions. The paper ends with a general questionwhether, and to what extent, comprehensiveness and universality of crime causation theories can possibly be achieved.