Main Tenets of the Theory in Criminal Justice Essay

Main Tenets of the Theory in Criminal Justice - Essay Example Social learning theories explain that people learn new behavior through overt reinforcement, punishment or observation. People learn through others’ behavior.   If people observe positive, desired outcomes in the observed behavior, they are more likely to model, imitate, and adopt the behavior themselves.   It also suggests that the environment can have an effect on the way people behave.   This theory believes that criminality is a function of individual socialization, how an individual has been influenced by his experiences or relationships with his family, peer groups, teachers, church, authority figures, and others.   Various theorists have attempted to develop concepts on how an individual within the social order learns. This has been an important topic because of the manner in which different people function within society. For example, the habitual criminal may not always learn from a jail sentence because of behavioral patterns learned in childhood. Yet, if this is the case, criminal justice entities, as well as psychological therapists have a method of understanding the behavior and treating it.     Learning is defined as the habits and knowledge that develop as a result of experiences with the environment, as opposed to instincts, drives, reflexes, and genetic predispositions. Associationism is the oldest learning theory.  It is based on the idea that the mind organizes sensory experiences in some way, and is called cognitive psychology today.  Behaviorism is the second oldest learning theory.  It is based on the idea that the mind requires a physical response by the body in order to organize sensory associations.  There are two types of learning in behavioral psychology: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Most social behavior is of an operant nature.  

Essay 1 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 18

1 - Essay Example Le Roman de Silence is story told by an anonymous author from the 13th Century Medieval times. It is a story about a protagonist who is naturally a female, but is trained by his parents to act like a man. The main reason that her parents decide to raise silence as a boy is to retain their wealth for their daughter, because according to law of the day there was no inheritance right for the women. Therefore, Silence is made to learn the crafts of a ministerial, and develop skills that would lead her to knighthood (de Cornuà ¤lle & Thorpe, 1972). At the age of twelve, the time of puberty, Silence has to decide, whether she should stick to the choice of her parents or accept what the nature has made her. At this point in time she comes across Dame Nature and Dame Nurture (de Cornuà ¤lle & Thorpe, 1972). She decides to stick with the choice of her parents, and invest her energies in becoming a respected male figure. Society is an important determinant in the development of human personality. Like nature it applies certain selection pressures that transform, rather modify the way a person thinks and make decisions. The involvement of social pressure is quite evident in the case of Silence’s choice to be a man (Bloch, 81-99). Assigning gender roles is an important element in inducing specific mentality into individuals belonging to a particular gender. There are several characteristics in males that are either different or completely absent in the females. For instance men are impatient, while women have patience; men are less emotional compared to women; Men are more aggressive than women, and so on and so forth. Silence is shown to be overwhelmed by the masculine characteristics that she gives up on her biology, and pretends to spend her days like a man. Apart from the natural differences between the two genders, there are several artificial features that are used as clichà © to separat e the two genders. Application of gender roles is nothing