Differential Association Theory The film “Blow” covers many different topics of differential association theories. The attitudes, the values, and the motives for criminal behavior as learned behavior. The film Blow, goes into the start of a young kid name George Jung, his parents want him to have values and live a wonderful life for himself. George is raised with father owning his own business, a stay home mother. A young boy gets older and even though they struggle financially his parents make sure they teach him the honest values of life. But in this film George Jung is a high school football star and wants to see other options and forget what values his parents have taught him. The young man from a small place gets millions from distributing cocaine and ends up losing it all. The behaviors of George Jung become intense with curiosity as he arrives in California to attend college with his friend Tuna. While George arrives in California he is companied by a young woman to introduce him to the drug world. This is where George is influenced by deviant behavior as this is not inheritance of genetic but is a learning behavior surrounding himself of …show more content…
George’s attitude changes from the admirable young man that didn’t have everything but grew up with caring parents to a deviance selfish millionaire. The film shows parts of how criminal behavior can be influenced by George Jung, he wants to use his deviant mind to get rich fast and does not really have to lift a finger. George has made his connections to have the trust of others and to persuade them to go with just him. He does provide an honest verbal communication between his people. George went from dealing small quantities of marijuana to individuals to where he is distributing planes full of 100% pure cocaine to high
Differential association theory was founded by Edwin H. Sutherland (Lilly, 2012, p. 43). This theory states that “any person will inevitably come into contact with definitions favorable to violation of the law and with definitions unfavorable to violation of the law” (Lilly, 2012, p. 44). Whichever definition is more prominent in a person’s mind, will lead to their decision of “whether the person embraces crime as an acceptable way of life” (Lilly, 2012, p. 44). Sutherland composed nine propositions that explained the theory. He explained that “crime is learned through the process of differential association” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). The nine propositions explained that “criminal behavior is learned” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). He explained that by communicating with others, especially those that are close to them they are more likely to pick up behaviors from those people. Differential association theory also explains that learning criminal behaviors “involves all the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning” (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). While learning a criminal behavior one not only learns “the techniques of committing the crime” but also the “specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes” involved with crime (Lilly, 2012, p. 45). This is theory is shown throughout the book when the young Mr. Moore was influenced by the life of crime that was present in his
Behind George’s impulsive enigma you can see just how much he wants to be accepted and make friends. Isolated and lonely, George bullied children who were smaller than him and appeared as ‘easy targets’ because deep down he didn't feel good about himself and wanted to be accepted due to his learning difficulties and other assorted problems. George readily agrees to the invitation to Sam’s birthday, seeing the trip as an opportunity to finally make friends. You see a glimpse of his caring nature when he gives Sam a birthday present, using all his savings to purchase him a water pistol, and ensuring he likes it. However, he was unaware of the true purpose of his invitation by the resentful Sam, forcing you to sympathise further on George and expressing his innocence and desperation to form friendships. This is further demonstrated later in the film where he lies and tells the group that he smokes cigarettes in hopes to be accepted in the group and appear as ‘cool’ by doing the things they
Differential Association Theory is defined as a theoretical perspective that examines how people learn to be deviant or a conformist based on the community they are a part of. For example, because students are sitting in class room they have learned to conform to gain rewards and now are able to achieve in society. Edwin Sutherland coined the term differential association to indicate this: from the different groups we associate with, we learn to deviate from or conform to society’s norm. (Handlin 2015, Smith 2017).
George also acts on violent impulses and kills someone out of rage that he feels for being picked on by everyone including his wife.
How to research or ideas fit in with the assigned reading. The study was able to illustrate the dynamics of Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory and Aker’s Social Learning Theory through the simple fact that the study focuses on social behaviors, particularly deviant behaviors that can be the result of society or interactions. These deviant behaviors are typically learned actions as a survival mechanism due to a deteriorating community. Allen and Lo constructed their study from Anderson’s (1999) study of black male behavior within poor neig...
George was motivated by the urge to do the right thing, and by helping everyone. When he was in depression he realized that his family, friends and town people were in dire in need of his help he wanted to live again.
As I watched the movie and observed George`s addictive behavior, I realized that it started as a child and the first obsession came in the form of money. George’s parents were not wealthy and always fought over money this is where as a young child George placed his values. George’s deviant behavior started with smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and smoking marijuana, as a direct result of the illegal possession of marijuana George was sent to prison where he fine-tuned his skills of trafficking marijuana to trafficking cocaine and changed the product from marijuana to cocaine.
Growing up, George had a wild childhood. His parents owned a tavern, which they lived above, and they were rarely around to give George the guidance a small child needs. George felt little love from his parents. He came from a poor family and sometimes didn't even know where his next meal was coming from.
Differential association theory best explains the burglary deviance. There are many principles associated with this type of learning theory. Edwin Sutherland’s theory discusses how crime is a learned behavior where one’s family, peers, and environment are of great influence. Differential association theory seeks to prove that criminal behavior is learned and this paper will evaluate the connection between the two.
Secondly, differential association varies based on the intensity, duration, frequency, priority, and timing of one’s process of learning. Through this notion, the individual’s self is disregarded and more emphasis is placed on the extrinsic factors. Furthermore, “it is an individual’s experiences and the ways in which the individual defines those experiences which constitute to the learning of criminality”. (Gongenvare & Dotter, 2007,
In this paper, I am going to going to examine the criminological theory of Differential Association theory by Edwin H. Sutherland. Also I am going to examine Kirk White from the film The Wild and Wonderful World of the Whites of West Virginia. Furthermore, I am going to apply Edwin H. Sutherland’s Differential Association theory to explain and understand the deviant actions of this character. I conclude that Differential association theory will explain why this character act in a deviant why.
Secondly, George experienced a depressive episode during his employment at the junior college once he found out that his assistant coach was leaving the track teams to pursue other opportunities. Throughout this episode, George exhibited symptoms of depression such as exhaustion, sleep issues, rumination, hopelessness, and guilt. He questioned his presence in the world and resorted to considering suicide as an option, which indicated the severity of his condition. Thirdly, George demonstrated manic symptoms during an important week for his track teams. He neglected his sleeping needs, talked egoistically and profusely about his reputable track teams to anyone around him, and engaged in risky behaviors, such as bringing a sword to a track meet. The climax of this episode occurred in an interview when George revealed that he would use the fundraiser money intended for the track sector of the college to go on a trip with of the female athletes to a meet in another state, which led to the department-wide search for George, a range of arguments, and delusions, where George claimed that he was given the
This relates to the movie because George was depressed for huge amount of time until the guardian angel came along. He came to the point before the guardian angel came along that he thought he was
His parents divorced early in his life. When his mom remarried, it didn’t last long. George came home to find all of his step-fathers stuff gone. Rameck’s mother was involved in the drinking and smoking pot scene.... ...
Nevertheless, almost all his wealth and freedom ended-which is was repercussion of his illegal business. In this respect, he did not only lose over three million dollars to the government but also imprisoned for at least fifteen years. In relation to this, George Jung pays dearly for indulging into illegal business. The movie therefore shows the way many individuals demand living good and comfort life at all cost; ranging from driving the best car to building the best house. The film has clarified the aspect of temporal ‘unlawful