Hirschi's Social Bond Theory

Social bond theory was originally constructed by Travis Hirschi in 1969. According to Hirschi (1969), "we are moral beings to the extent we are social beings." A social bond in essence would have to refer the the connection between what an individual and society are holding together. Social bond theory hypothesizes that deviance would occur when the social bond is weak or lacking in one of the four elements. According to Hirschi (1969) there are four elements of a social bond, attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Social bond theory is one of the most prominent theories on the subject of deviant behavior, and is more than likely one of the most frequently tested and discussed of all of the criminological theories about deviance. The first element to social bond is attachment. This refers to the ties that an individual has to significant others in their lives, and family members would be one of them. Attachment involves a connection the individual has to certain people for the purposes of affectional or emotional support. Those individuals would have expectations that matter to the main individual that is being studied. Also, social bond theory states that individuals with strong attachments are less likely to
These types of investments are stakeholders to the beginning of conformity (Akers 2011). Social bond theory proposes that individuals with strong commitments will not want to gamble with the connections made with commitment and thus makes the individual not wanting to engage in deviant behavior (Hirschi 1969). A great example of commitment would be college students, and by showing a type of commitment, the student would want to get a degree and better themselves educationally and