Understanding Resistance to Authority by Young Adults: A Social Learning Perspective

• In Event: New Directions in Social Learning Theory

Abstract

Using an integrated theoretical model centered on Akers’ social learning theory, this research dissects the social process involved with complying or resisting legal, familial, and other authority figures in young adults' lives. The central hypothesis of this research poses that young adults, aged 18 to 24, who are socialized with definitions favorable to the resistance of authority figures will be more likely to have also been socialized through peer association, differential reinforcement, and imitation/modeling, predicting self-report measures of delinquency and other acts of deviance. Furthermore, this research also predicts that when taken together those social learning processes will predict acts of resistance to authority, acts of delinquency, indicators of fear of crime, and perceptions of procedural justice and their sense of injustice. The sample is comprised of two thousand 18 to 24 year olds from an online nationwide database and data were collected using a self-report survey created in Qualtrics Online Software. Data are analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares Regression.

Authors

• Danielle A. Tolson, University of Florida

• Jennifer L. Klein, University of Texas at Tyler