Psychological Theories of Crime Similarities

Psychological Theories of Crime

Similarities between Gabriel Tarde's and Albert Bandura's versions of modeling theory

They both have processes where one step leads to the other i.e. In Gabriel's theory starts from invention to imitation and lastly to opposition while Bandura's theory starts from attention to retention to production and lastly to motivation.

Differences between Gabriel Tarde's and Bandura's versions of theory

Bandura sees the human personality as an interaction between the environment and a person's psychological process known as self-regulation while Tarde anticipated subsequent work on the effects of mass communication.

Tarde's theory has got three processes where by the last process (opposition) can stimulate the beginning of the threefold processes while Bandura's has got four processes of which the last process (motivation) may not necessarily lead to the beginning of the fourfold process.

Bandura believes that people acquire behaviors through the observation of others while Tarde codified his ideas in what he called the law of imitation, he thinks that many ideas are not immediately accepted hence the need to analyze the process of imitation through which certain creative ideas are diffused throughout the society.

Behavior theory

Positive Reinforcement / Reward; It's the process by which behavior is strengthened, if a behavior is followed closely by a motivating stimulus and this result into an increase in the future frequency of that behavior (Center for Autism and Related Behavior, 2011). It's the addition of a stimulus following an event that serves as reinforcement. For instance, a child performs well in the examination and the parent rewards him by buying an item he has longed for.

Negative reinforcement or reward; it is the removal of a stimulus following an event that is not desirable so as to serve as a negative motivation to the habit or event. For instance a child performs poorly in examination and the parent decides to withdraw his promise to take the child to the zoo during the holiday.

Positive punishment; it is a process by which stimulus is immediately added after a specific behavior so that future frequency of the behavior is decreased. A good example is of a pick pocket is taken to prison and subjected to learning of a given artwork so that when he comes out of prison he can make his own money through the artwork learned.

Negative punishment; it is a process by which stimulus is removed immediately after a given behavior so that future frequency of that behavior is decreased. Example is when a student performs poorly in class and the parent decides to cut down the student pocket money, the pocket money acts as the stimulant that has been removed hence a negative punishment.

The most effective behavior theory is positive punishment. This is because it helps in two different perspectives, first it helps rectify the undesired behavior of a person and again something new is instilled in the involved person that helps improve and completely change his undesired behavior.