The Current State of Differential Association Theory

@article{Matsueda1988TheCS,
  title={The Current State of Differential Association Theory},
  author={Ross L. Matsueda},
  journal={Crime \& Delinquency},
  year={1988},
  volume={34},
  pages={277 - 306}
}
  • R. Matsueda
  • Published 1 July 1988
  • Psychology
  • Crime & Delinquency
With his theory of differential association, Sutherland attempted to identify universal mechanisms that explain the genesis of crime regardless of the specific concrete structural, social, and individual conditions involved. In this article, I discuss the development of the theory and then assess its strengths and weaknesses. After finding Kornhauser's (1978) influential critique of differential association theory to be oversimplified and misguided, I review recent empirical tests. I argue that… 
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270 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
14
Background Citations
91
Methods Citations
5
Results Citations
3

270 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

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`Cultural Deviance Theory':
Costello (1997) has attempted to defend Kornhauser's (1978) interpretation of Sutherland's differential association theory as a `cultural deviance theory.' In so doing, she claims that Matsueda…
IS DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION/SOCIAL LEARNING CULTURAL DEVIANCE THEORY?*
Sutherland's differential association theory has long been criticized as a “cultural deviance” theory, and the critics have continued to apply this same designation to the theory's social-learning…
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Empirical tests of the leading crime theories usually develop measures of the independent variables in a theory or set of theories, and then examine the effect of these measures on crime. This…
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Differential association theory, pioneered by Edwin Sutherland in a revision of his classic book Principles of criminology in 1939, has been one of the leading theories in criminology. Differential…
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This article extends earlier work (Ulmer 1994) in applying Johnson's (1991) threefold commitment framework to deviance and social control. The central individual-level theories of deviance…
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This paper examines the logical adequacy of cultural deviance theories, specifically Sutherland's differential association theory and Akers's social learning theory. There are four crucial questions…
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References

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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…
An Empirical Test of Differential Association Theory*
The main empirical question for this paper is whether boys in close friendship groups have the same specific patterns of delinquent behavior. The delinquent behavior of boys in close friendship…
Personality and Method in the Differential Association Theory Comments on "A Reformulation of Sutherland's Differential Association Theory and a Strategy for Empirical Verification"
The reformulation of Sutherland's differential association theory by De Fleur and Quinney into set theory statements has added considerably to its clarification and to facilitating the processes of…
Some Experimental Investigations of the Principles of Differential Association Through Deliberate Manipulations of the Structure of Service Systems
The paper reviews a series of examinations of three key principles of differential association: the contingency principle, the socioemotional principle, and the principle that criminal acts occur as…
Understanding Crime: Current Theory And Research
This title features eight articles that represent a variety of viewpoints on the causes of crime - from the social learning tradition to the multiple factor approach to sociobiology and the…
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…
Separate and Unequal Is Better
Some argue that the assumptions of strain, control, and differential association theories of delinquency are fundamentally incompatible (Hirschi, 1969; Kornhauser, 1978), while others deny that they…
Differential Association and Delinquency
An important task of research in the field of juvenile delinquency, and indeed in sociology and science generally, is the testing of theories set forth in the literature but not previously subjected…
A Critique of Criminology: Toward an Integrated Structural-Marxist Theory of Delinquency Production
TLDR
A new integrated theory of delinquency, grounded in Marxian insights on the role of productive relations in shaping other social relations, is developed and supported with empirical evidence from research representing a broad range of theoretical perspectives.
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