of these two models of criminal behavior before moving on to describe and examine the implications of each theoretical system. It shall conclude with a discussion of the respective merits of these two different sets of explanations about the pervasive and intractable nature of criminal behavior.
The basic ideas expressed in social learning theory are relatively straightforward; however, scholars have spent a great deal of time in articulating exactly how people learn to respond to complicated social stimuli within the environment of complex social systems and have repeatedly refined their definitions of the terms of this model. This discussion begins by examining these complexities and refinements of contemporary social learning theory.
Learning theory has at its core the concept of conditioning or the idea that behavior is related to an individualÆs environment. Classical conditioning (also referred to as Pavlovian conditioning) refers to situations in which a stimulus (i.e. some environmental occurrence) produces a particular, predictable response. Because such responses tend not to be very complex ones, they have generally been of far less interest to social scientists than operant behaviors, which are behaviors emitted in the presence of a given stimulus and maintained by their consequences (Jeffery, 1965, p. 294). Stimuli can be aversive, which means that the response rate will decrease when a given stimulus is produced by a given response. Stimuli can also be reinforcing, which means that response rate increases when a given stimulus is produced by a given response. Reinforcements can be either positive (or rewarding) or negative (or punitive) (Jeffery, 1965, pp. 294-5). These definitions and in fact this entire model is commonsensical: They accord with rational, everyday ideas about human behavior that the great majority of individuals use quite automatically. In other words, it does not offer an explanation that is in ...