William F. Skinner

Social Learning Theory and Adolescent Cigarette Smoking: A Longitudinal Study

We specify causal models of the learning process implied in Akers’ (1977) social learning theory for the initiation and maintenance of adolescent cigarette smoking. Path analyses of data from a three-year panel study of junior and senior high school students indicate that the theory is more effective in accounting for maintenance (or cessation) of cigarette smoking than in explaining initiation to cigarette smoking. Most important, our measures of social and nonsocial reinforcement mediate the effect of differential association on smoking as social learning theory predicts.

Social influences and constraints on the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use

This research examines the viability of a theoretical perspective which combines social bonding theory and differential association theory in explaining the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use. Three-year panel data collected from seventh- to twelfth-grade adolescents were analyzed using differences in means tests and discriminant analysis. The findings indicate overall support for the theoretical model in discriminating between (1) initiators and stable nonsmokers and (2) cessators and stable smokers. However, there were some differences in the variables found to be important at each stage of adolescent smoking. Commitment to education, attachment to father and mother, and association with female smoking friends were the most effective discriminators for the initiation stage, while attachment to father, beliefs, and association with both male and female smoking friends were important for the cessation stage. Findings are also discussed for males and females and for junior and senior high-school adolescents.

Elaborating the relationship between age and adolescent cigarette smoking

Previous research has found that the relationship between variables derived from a social control model of deviant behavior are conditional on the age of adolescents. We examine whether the observed age effect on adolescent cigarette use may be due to a cohort or period effect by using multiple cross‐sections from several cohorts of adolescents. We find that basing conclusions about some social control variables on cross‐sectional results may lead to erroneous interpretations concerning the age‐conditional effects of some of the variables in our model.

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF DIFFERENCES IN VIEWS OF FACTORS AFFECTING SEXUAL ORIENTATION FOR A SAMPLE OF LESBIANS AND GAY MEN

An exploratory study of lesbians (70) and gay men (118) from a rural state in the mid-South was conducted using a self-administered, mail-out survey. The nonrandom sample was drawn from organizational mailing lists, snowball sampling, and a convenience sample at a community event. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which each of the following affected sexual orientation: genetics, relationship between parents, relationship with parents, birth order, peers, growing up in a dysfunctional family, growing up in a single-parent family, negative experiences with the opposite sex, and positive experiences with the same sex. Similar to studies of heterosexual men and women, these gay men were more likely to view sexual orientation as a result of genetics than the lesbian respondents. Further, the lesbian group were more likely to view positive relationships with the same sex to have a great influence on sexual orientation. These data indicate there are sex differences in views on factors that affect sexual orientation.

A Sociological Theory of Crime and Delinquency

The sociological study of crime and delinquency has focused either on the social structural factors (e.g., poverty and social disorganization) believed to generate such behavior or on the arenas (e.g., family, school, and peer groups) in which socialization to conventional or criminal values and behavior are affected. Both approaches explicitly or implicitly recognize that some form of learning takes place. For the most part, however, these approaches have not explicated the social process nor the behavioral mechanisms by which criminal behavior is produced. A notable exception is the social learning theory first proposed by Burgess and Akers (1966a) and elaborated upon by Akers (1973, 1977). The theory was originally called the “differential association-reinforcement theory” to acknowledge the two traditions that were melded to form the revision. Burgess and Akers employed the principles and vocabulary of operant conditioning to specify the learning process alluded to in Edwin Sutherland’s influential theory of differential association.

Educational Social Climates and Delinquency in Iceland: An Integrated Perspective

This study tests the viability of an educational social climate model in explaining delinquency in Iceland. The model represents an integration of the conceptual ideas found in the educational environment literature and the literature on delinquency and the schools. The model specifies the relationships among perceptions of the schools social climate, school out comes, association with delinquent peers (differential association) and four types of delinquency. Using survey data from a sample (N = 578) of adolescents in Reykjavik, Iceland, the path analysis findings from this study offer modest support for the model School outcomes and differential association have the strongest direct effect on all types of delinquency. Perceptions of the schools social climate mainly have an effect on delin quency through their relationship with school outcomes and differential association.