Several weeks ago, Michael Vick and Peyton Hillis were making the rounds on ESPN. This always brings people back to Vick’s legal issues and the behavior that led to them. As I didn’t get a chance to weigh in at the time, I’d like to share a perspective on what led to his behavior. When a new member is being inducted into a particular society, they are socialized by the people around them. The begins with their significant others–the people who are important to them–but eventually move to the larger community and during the formative years, the peers become the most important agency of socialization. If an individual’s family, either buys into the same values and behaviors as a child’s peers or has not instilled opposing perspectives into the child, the child is likely to allow their peers to socialize them to the values of that sub- or counter-culture.
Additionally, the theory of differential association states that people learn criminal behavior from associating with people who participate in it. Not only do you learn the actual skills required to participate in criminal activities but you also learn the moral code that allows you justify the deviant acts. If one’s exposure to these alternative moralities is greater than the exposure to more conventional moralities, the individual is likely to participate in these types of activities. I don’t know enough about Vick’s family life to say definitively, but it would seem to me that a strong moral foundation would have made what he did almost impossible.
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