Relationship Between Social Learning Theory And Partner Violence

In reading 17, Social Learning Theory and Partner Violence, Note states that social learning theory and partner violence are related. Violence within relationships have been studies thoroughly since the 1970s this type of aggressive includes, child abuse, elderly abuse, abuse of parents, abuse among siblings, aggression within same sex relationships, dating violence, and spousal abuse. However, partner violence can be studied using the theory of intergenerational transmission which argues that witnessing or experiencing household violence during childhood is likely to lead to future violence or victimization in adulthood as children learn to imitate aggression in their later intimate relationships. This theory is much like the theory of social
learning, which is the observation of activities and behavior that leads to the intimidation of the behaviors observed. Another theory Note linked to household violence is male peer support theory which stresses the influence of patriarchy within intimate male-female relationships, especially when the make partners perceives that his authority has been challenged.
This challenge of authority could be when his partner refuses him, argues with him, nags or berates him, or threatens to end the relationship. These theories demonstrate how violence can be learned and triggered. Each of these theories of partner violence shares common theoretical elements consistent with those of social learning processes, intergenerational transmission theory stressed imitation within the family across generations while male peer support theory stresses the transmission of group values. Social learning theory is consistent with imitation throughout families and friends, if someone experiences or witness abuse throughout their life then they are more likely to grow up and either become violent or become victims. Parents and other family members and even family friends are considered role models for younger people, if family members are abusive and violence towards others then children are watching this happen and believe that it is okay to be violent towards
others.

In reading 18, A Social Learning Theory Analysis of Computer Crime Among College Students, Skinner and Fream state that computer crime has the potential to affect virtually everyone in society and has become a major concern of policy makers, actors in the criminal justice system, and the general public. Skinner and Fream believe this is a topic of legal and social science research; Skinner and Fream test the ability of the social learning theory to better understand computer crime among college students. Specifically focusing on pirating software, attempts to get other peoples passwords without permission, accessing others computers without permission, changing information in others’ computers, and using viruses to destroy computerized data. Skinner and Fream use self-report measures of definitions such as positive and negative beliefs and attitudes about computer crime, differential association such as how many of your friends engage in carious computer crimes, differential reinforcement/punishment such as the focus on the perceived certainty and severity of punishments rather than rewards, and imitation such as how much they have learned about different computer crimes from various sources such as books, magazines, or television. There is also a tremendous variation in prevalence of different types of computer crimes, as well as variation in computer crimes across demographics such as gender and race and other measures relevant to college students such as their year in school. More importantly, Skinner and Fream found at least some support for each component of the social learning theory and overall strong support for the theory. One of the most interesting findings concerns the law, on one hand, perceptions concerning the likelihood or severity of legal consequences had little effect on computer crime commission, whereas the computer crime laws may be important in that they define certain activities as criminal, and at least come people will refrain from computer crime simply because it is illegal.

In reading 19, Liquor is Quicker – Gender and Social Learning Among College Students, Aker’s theory of social structure social learning is used to study the effects alcohol has on college students. Given different ages and gender variables researchers explore differential location in the social structure. The authors use feminist theory which is the theoretically defined structural variables to derive three hypothesis relating structural variables to their dependent variable, the use of alcohol prior to sexual activity among male and female college students, come in sororities and fraternities and other independents. The researchers use secondary data, which leads to relatively weak test of the theory as they could not design a questionnaire and thus relied on two measures of Aker’s concepts. Students were asked about positive aspects such as alcohol makes me sexier, and negative aspects such as risks associated with drinking and sexual activity of combining alcohol and sex. These can be seen as definitions favorable and unfavorable to combining alcohol and sex. All in all, Akers argues that social learning variables subsume other structural variable that is, they work through social learning theory. Alternatively, feminist theories would disagree, suggesting that some measure should not work entirely through the socialization process. The authors’ goal was to compare and contrast feminist perspective with social learning theory. However, some support for Akers is found, for example the effect of gender was meditated by the risk and rewards measured. Alternatively, the limited number of social learning variables did not mediate the “greek effect” supporting the feminist perspective.