Exam 7: Sociological Mainstream Theories

Which of the following pairs of criminologists is most strongly associated with helping us understand that forms of adaptation depend upon the availability of illegitimate opportunities to commit crime?

Which of the following modes of personality represents a rejection of both societally approved means and ends?

One weakness of Miller's theory of "focal concerns" is that it fails to explain middle- and upper-class criminal behavior.

Explain power-control theory. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this theory as an explanation of crime?

Which of the following theories indicates that individuals become predisposed toward criminality because of an excess of contacts that advocate criminal behavior?

List and explain two forms of adaptation from Merton's theory of anomie/strain.

A problem in which group rates are used in order to describe individual behavior is referred to as ______.

According to Park, natural areas are subcommunities that emerge to serve specific, specialized functions.

Albert Cohen suggested that lower-class delinquency is shaped by the availability of both illegitimate and legitimate opportunities.

In early criminological theories, the unit of analysis was the individual criminal.

Delinquency and drift are an example of hard determinism.

Differential association theory is a behavioristic theory.

Generally speaking, differential opportunity theories focus on crime as the result of ______.

Stark identified all of the following aspects of high-deviance areas except ______.

The looking-glass self is Cooley's theory of personality as a perceived perception of the reaction of others.

Émile Durkheim insisted on primacy of groups and social organizations in understanding human behavior.

Critique anomie theory, including a discussion of Merton, Cohen, and Cloward and Ohlin's theories.

Social process theories address the issue of how society maintains or elicits social control and the manner in which it obtains conformity or fails to obtain it in the form of deviance.

According to Émile Durkheim, the development of modern urban-industrial societies has resulted in changing norms, confusion, and lessened social control over the individual.

Which of the following modes of personality accepts the goal of success but rejects or sees illegitimate alternatives to the means of achieving these aims?