Mass Shootings and Gun Violence as a Learned Behavior

The Social Learning Theory and Gun Violence

Mass shootings have become an unfortunate, yet common news topic. Whether it be at a college, primary school, concert or church, it seems as if shootings are occurring on a regular basis. Hours are spent examining the shooter’s motives and warning signs. This begs the question, in this day of constant access to video games and all varieties of videos on the internet, is gun violence a learned behavior.  The social learning theory was developed in 1977 by Albert Bandurra. He theorized that people learn by observing others and that environment affects behavior Social learning theory as it relates to mass shootings and gun violence would imply that shooters learn and copy their violent behavior. If gun violence was a learned behavior, societal changes would need to be deveopled to prevent continued mass shootings. 

Must submit a 15-20 page research paper on the topic, using scholarly sources previously identified in the literature review (annotated bibliography).  Students will summarize any relevant empirical evaluations of the issue and any historical events that help explain how the issue has been framed. Whatever your personal opinion is, you must present all perspectives on the topic.  You should keep your personal opinions out of the paper. The focus of this paper is to summarize relevant research, not to reflect on a social problem.

Please understand that in order to do well in this assignment, you need to do more than “google” your topic.

In terms of citations and references, you must use APA citation style.

Appropriate citations are a necessary and a required component of this paper.

Using scholarly sources previously identified in the annotated bibliography.  Students will summarize any relevant empirical evaluations of the issue and any historical events that help explain how the issue has been framed. Whatever your personal opinion is, you must present all perspectives on their topic.  The focus of this paper is to summarize relevant research. Only in the conclusion should students make a concise analysis of their own educated opinion.

• Overview of problem under consideration

Detailed discussion of criminal behavior or correlation under analysis

• Clear definition of criminal behavior (use MA General Laws)
• Statistics regarding behavior under consideration (who, what when, where?)

Detailed discussion of the crime theory to explain behavior/association

• Must be a criminological or sociological theory
• Essential principles of the theory
• Weaknesses and strengths of theory
• How does the theory apply to the criminal behavior? How effective is it in explaining the behavior?

Literature Review-this may be included in section 2 and 3 above

• What does other research in the field state about the criminal behavior and theory, or correlation under analysis?
• What have other studies/experiments determined regarding the theory and behavior/correlation?

Conclusion – go to crimesolutions.gov and find one policy or program that has been determined to be effective and one that is not effective:

For what populations? Geographic location?

Which policy is not effective and why?