Applying Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory

The first theory to look at is called Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, a portion of the psychological theory. Bandura’s theory focuses that by observing others, individuals learn to be aggressive and criminal. This could explain Cho’s case on wanting to shoot up his university as The Denver Post claimed that Cho idolized the Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Cho had done a video manifesto, much like Harris and Klebold did before their shootings (called the “Basement Tapes”). It is possible that he wanted to create a manifesto much like Klebold and Harris because that is what he learned by observing their actions. Additionally, in his manifesto he mentions that it was basically the world’s fault for pushing him to commit
Using Samuel Yochelson & Stanton Samenow’s criminal personality theory, Cho had some traits described by them such as strong anger and lacking empathy. However, at the hands of his peers for such things he was bully for his accent and shyness. The IQ and Crime theory is not applicable because Cho was smart but still committed a crime. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory would be the best theory to apply to Cho’s case as he probably learned from the Columbine shooters that to get respect, fame and an outlet for his anger would be to shoot up his school as they did. He also followed much of what the shooters did such as making a video manifesto before committing his crime, blaming society for his crime and stating similar concepts in his manifesto that Harris and Klebold did such as a hatred for “stuck up” kids. Using Cho as a model to answer the question “Can a person be born ‘criminal’?” a person can have traits a criminal personality such a lack of empathy and strong anger that can be the seeds of their criminality. However, they only mature if they are cultivated by watching others do criminal acts, especially ones that achieve things that the person wants, do their criminal behavior actually comes into full bloom. If this is avoided, a person has a less likelihood to be criminal. Therefore, a person cannot be born a criminal even if they have aspects of a criminal personality as a person learns through others how and what crime to