The Influence Of Social Learning Theory On College Students

Social learning theory and social bonding theory are two theories that may be compared and contrasted because they both overlap and differ. Although these theories have their similarities and differences, one theory may prove to be more convincing in terms of applying the theory to the understanding of crime and delinquency.

     To understand why alcohol is a problem for college students, I decided to survey a random sample of 26 students here at State U. I designed the survey to be a quick and effective way to obtain the drinking habits of college students in

There needs to be a complete saturation on the campuses, with the help of businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially accepted. A report from GSU seeks to explore all aspects of alcohol abuse related to college students through definitions and statistical problems of alcohol abuse in hopes of

Social control theory and social learning theory are two theories that suggest why deviant behavior is chosen to be acted upon by some individuals and not others. Both take a different stance on the issue. Social control theory suggests people’s behavior is based on their bonds to society, if they have strong bonds to society they conform and if not they have a tendency to act out or become involved in criminal or deviant behavior. Social learning theory suggest that through vicarious learning people learn from observing others and based on what the observe make the choice of whether to copy those actions to obtain desired results or chose not to if

The fundamentals of the social learning theory significantly describe offenders and their criminal behavior which is learned based on observation and imitation. A researcher by the name of Albert Bandura along with coworkers tested the social learning theory with several experiments on children and their imitation of aggression based on what they saw and were exposed to. Bandura’s focus was to prove that human behavior such as aggression is learned through social imitations and copying the actions of others. Walters (1966) gives details about the Bobo doll experiment and explains its purpose related to learning a violent behavior based on observation. In the experiment, the tested subjects were children of both sexes, ranging from the ages of three to six years. Some of the children were exposed to a non-aggressive adult, while the other children were placed in a room with an aggressive adult who would both physically and verbally attack the Bobo doll. The control group in the experiment was not exposed to any adult. During the second phase of the experiment, the children were left in a room by themselves with the toys, and watched to see if they would demonstrate the aggressive behavior like that of which they observed adults doing earlier. Walter (1966) describes the results as “children who had been exposed to an aggressive model showed more imitative physical and verbal

Trying to understand why crime happens if a very important concept. Throughout history, criminologist have debated on which theory of crime is most accurate. Currently, social bond and social learning theory are two of the leading theories in the criminological world. Between these two theories there are a variety of differences and similarities. In addition to these theories Gottfredson and Hirschi have published a book where they use the concept of self control to describe crime. Analyzing these three theories can be important to understanding the current criminological world.

Social learning theory, developed by Bandura, discusses how people learn from one another through observation, modeling, and imitation bridging an individual’s attention, memory and motivation. Social learning theory identifies the importance of cognition, observable behavior, individual self-efficacy, and the extent of how the events surrounding an individual affect them; their locus of control. Social learning theory also looks at individual problem behavior being influenced by positive or negative reinforcement (Ashford & LeCroy, 2012).

As many teenagers enter college, they begin to experiment with many things. Although not all students participate in underage drinking, it is evident that a vast majority do. Drinking is not the problem. The main problem occurs when students resort to binge drinking. In the

Unhealthy and irresponsible drinking taking place by college students is causing further issues in their lives. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the use of alcohol in a campus setting is a ‘ritual’ that the students consider an initiation to the start of their college careers. (par. 2). College drinking leads to other health and social problems including deaths, suicides, academic issues, drug use. Studies by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (2015) show that each year, “more than 600,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking, 95% of all violent crime on college campuses involves the use of alcohol by the assailant, victim or both, and 90% of acquaintance rape and sexual assault on college campuses involves the use of alcohol by the assailant, victim or both. (Par. 16). College students, especially the ones consuming alcohol, are the main stakeholders in this situation. Whether they are participating in the use of alcohol or not, it still affects them one way or another. Friends and family members are affected because if something happens to their loved one using alcohol they will be directly affected. Possible outcomes of careless drinking include car

In 1961, the infamous Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Albert Bandura, leading him to create social learning theory. This experiment entailed a group of adults beating up a Bobo doll while children watched. After the adults were finished, the children were let into the room with the Bobo doll. It was observed that the children were copying the adult's behavior beating the Bobo doll. SOURCE. This experiment that Bandura conducted shows that we humans learn social behaviors from observing others. This theory has been applied to criminal justice in that juvenals learn deviant behavior from others actions that they observe. According to Siegel &Welsh (2015). “Social learning theory suggests that adolescents learn the techniques and attitudes of crime from close and intimate relationships with the delinquent peers; delinquency is a learned behavior” (p. 155). This means that the Juvenal, depending on what behaviors of crime and delinquency that their friends and family have will

The consumption of alcohol as a habitual behavior has long been associated with the American collegiate experience, despite the many known negative consequences a student who partakes in drinking can encounter. Because of the danger drunken students pose to a college’s reputation and the safety of its surrounding areas, much research has been done concerning the collegiate party and drinking scenes. This research mostly studied the demographics of the student body, so strategies developed to curtail the illegal or overconsumption of alcohol could be targeted towards the specific groups that demonstrated the highest likelihood of participating in these acts. When the strategies were implemented, however, there was little decline in the number of college students who chose to party and drink (Vander Ven 2011). This failure did not point toward a flaw in the research data, but instead a lack of research into the benefits a collegiate drinker receives that are rewarding to the point he or she cannot resist. This is the topic of Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard by Thomas Vander Ven.

​Did you know 82-92% of college students consume alcohol? (Taylor) Did you drink while in college? Do you agree with alcohol on college campuses or do you disagree? Why? Restricting alcohol consumption on campuses sometimes is used to prevent alcohol abuse and alcohol-related problems. Dry campus policies, however, remain misunderstood. According to Dexter M. Taylor, “Drinking and alcohol-related problems found on dry campuses were similar to national trends on wet college campuses” (Taylor). Alcohol related problems that occur on college campuses include injuries, unprotected sex, date rape, poor academics, and health issues. If alcohol was aloud on college campuses how could this help improve these statistics? Demographic and Academic Trends in Drinking Patterns and Alcohol-Related problems on dry College Campuses an experiment of two western universities who surveyed students ages 18 and older. Due to this experiment “dry campuses were similar to national trends on wet college campuses” (Taylor). According to Frances W. Oblander, “Alcohol abuse has become a major concern on campuses. With this concern, a variety of alcohol education activities ranging from awareness days to full-blown peer counseling and education centers has emerged” (Oblander). It’s time for colleges to start educating their students about alcohol and how alcohol affects the human body. Alcohol should be allowed on college campuses. College is about finding who

Every year, approximately 6,000 to 22,000 students die on college and University campuses (qtd. in CintroÌn X), and thousands of these deaths can be attributed to alcohol over-consumption (A Sober Assessment of High-Risk Drinking on College Campuses). If there are not appropriate steps taken to address the situation, minors will continue to lose their lives as a result. As individuals enter college, it is likely that they will be exposed to alcohol, whether they meet the legal drinking age or do not. Many of these college students, specifically freshmen, are experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives and it can be relatively easy for them to get carried away, resulting in irresponsible decision making which often involves alcoholic

Since the early 1990s, substance-free housing has become an increasingly popular option for campuses across the nation. Substance-free housing has been implemented in universities and colleges in hopes of reducing rates of binge drinking among college students. Binge drinking can be defined as, “men drinking five or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting and for women four or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting.” (Feldman 271). Even though many know college binge drinking is a problem in our country, many are shocked when they hear that, “more than 75% of college students have consumed at least one alcoholic drink in the last 30 days. More than 40% say they’ve had 5 or more drinks with in the past 2 weeks, and some 16% drink 16 or more drinks per week. Nearly half of all male college students who drink are binge drinkers, and forty-one percent of female college students are binge drinkers” (Feldman 270). Statistics prove that college binge drinking is a problem to not only the students drinking but the ones that are staying sober, since “two-thirds of light drinkers reported having their sleep or studies disturbed by drunken students. Around a third had been insulted or humiliated, and 25% of women said a drunken classmate had made unwanted sexual advances” (Wechsler et al. 199). College binge drinking has many consequences associated with it such as poor academic performance, injury, assault, sexual abuse, property damage and drunk driving (Willenbring 238). The problem of

The data set our group chose to analyze looks at alcohol consumption for students in Portugal given a set of demographic, familial, academic and social characteristics. With this data set in particular, it is important to note that in Portugal, the legal drinking age is sixteen years old and most of the participants in the data set are of legal drinking age. One-hundred ninety-five participants out of one-thousand forty-four total participants, or 18.68%, are underage. The data set was extremely clean, as there were no missing values in the data set. Examples of the variables provided were: sex, age, address (urban v. rural), parental status (together v. apart), mother’s education, father’s education, guardianship, travel time to school, study time, number of classes failed, school support, extracurricular support, etc. Of all the provided variables, the three variables that our group chose to remove from our data set were school, reason and weekend alcohol consumption. The variable school only told the reader, whether the student attended Gabriel Pereira or Mousinho da Silveira. As a group, we justify removing this variable in order to make our findings more applicable to the general population, and not just those students who attended either of the two schools. The other variable we removed was reason. This variable represents the reason that the student attended the school that he or she did, whether it be reputation or the