A boy watches a gangster film and walks out of the cinema differently. Another memorizes his idol's gestures until they become his own. Most stop there, in harmless fantasy. But some cross a line and act from the skin of the character they admire —they kill, harass, destroy, as they believe he would—. Daniel Glaser gave that leap a name: we do not offend only because of the bad company we keep, but because of the figures we identify with.
Differential identification at a glance
- Author
- Daniel Glaser
- Year
- 1956
- Family
- Processes · Social learning
- Idea
- We offend by identifying with models —real or imaginary— from whose perspective crime seems acceptable
Admired model (real or imaginary) → selective identification → adopting his perspective ⇒ the crime seems acceptable// OriginThe correction to Sutherland
Sutherland's differential association held that crime is learned in interaction with others: the more contacts with definitions favorable to crime, the more likely offending becomes. It was a powerful theory, but it had a gap. It explained the boy surrounded by criminals, but what about the one who offends without having been raised among criminals? The fan who imitates an idol he has never touched? Glaser, in 1956, closed that gap with a decisive nuance: what matters is not only whom you associate with, but whom you identify with.
His formula: "a person commits a crime when he identifies with people —real or imaginary— from whose perspective his criminal conduct seems acceptable". The key word is "imaginary". The criminal model need not be in your neighborhood: it can be on a screen, in a book, in a legend. It is enough that you adopt it as a reference figure, that you see yourself through its eyes. Thus a loner without a single criminal friend can turn criminal by identifying with a dark hero, a movie killer or a fallen idol.
Identifying is not just imitating
Identification runs deeper than imitation. To imitate is to copy a behavior; to identify is to adopt a perspective —to see the world, and to see oneself, as the model would—. That is why the criminal by identification does not feel he is doing something alien: he feels he is doing what his figure would do, what fits who he aspires to be. Glaser stressed that this identification is selective: from all possible models, we choose those that confirm what we already wish to be. The fan does not become violent "because of" his idol; he chooses an idol that legitimizes the violence already latent in him. The arrow runs both ways.
From admiration to crime, step by step
- 1ExposureAn attractive model appears: real, media-based or fictional —the idol, the movie gangster, the famous killer—
- 2Selective identificationThe subject chooses, among all models, the one that legitimizes what he already wished to be
- 3Adopting the perspectiveHe stops merely imitating: he sees the world, and sees himself, as the model would
- 4Acting outHe acts "from the skin" of the character, for whom that conduct seems acceptable —even admirable—
Identifying is not copying a behavior, it is adopting an identity: that is why the criminal does not feel he is doing something alien.
// In fictionFive identifications that turned into crime
No theory is as complicit with pop culture as this one, because pop culture is, precisely, the great factory of models to identify with. el rey por una noche is the pure case: a nobody who identifies to the point of delirium with a television idol, and kidnaps in order to become him —"better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime"—. el Enigma takes identification into modern territory: a loner who builds a persona —the Riddler— out of real killers and an online community that eggs him on, and from behind that mask commits what Edward Nashton would never have dared to commit. And Ghostface is the theory turned meta joke: a killer who has learned to kill from horror movies, who quotes their rules and sees himself as the villain of a slasher.
The other two show the poles of the phenomenon. el fan is the parasocial identification with a sports idol: an imaginary, one-sided and total relationship that, when it breaks, turns into possessive violence. And Red Mist is identification with fictional villains themselves: a rich kid who, unable to be the hero, decides to be the supervillain he has seen in comics, costume included. Fame, online persona, horror cinema, sports idol, comic book: five different mirrors, one same mechanism —becoming what you admire—.
Five identifications with an imaginary model, from fame to the supervillain. Click to open each case file.
// The mediaDo the media create criminals?
Differential identification lies at the heart of criminology's oldest and most manipulated debate: do violent media manufacture offenders? Glaser offers the nuanced answer that neither the alarmists nor the deniers want to hear. On one hand, yes: the media expand the catalogue of models to identify with, and for a vulnerable minority, a character can become the reference figure that legitimizes the acting out. On the other, not in the simplistic sense: watching violence does not "program" anyone —millions watch the same films and do not kill—. The key is selective identification: the medium does not create the desire, it offers a form and a justification to a desire that was already looking for a model. Billy Loomis puts it better than any manual: "movies don't create psychos; they make psychos more creative".
That line is the whole theory in a sentence. Cinema did not give Loomis the urge to kill; it gave him the script, the aesthetic and the alibi of being "inside a movie". Blaming the media for creating the killer is as false as denying they gave him his language. The uncomfortable truth is in between: pop culture does not sow the seed, but it does hand out, for free, all the models that seed can choose to grow into.
// The crackNeither moral panic, nor "idols are innocent"
The theory has two dangerous edges. The first is moral panic: using differential identification to blame a video game, a song or a film for every crime, censoring culture as if it were the cause. Glaser does not say that —identification is selective and rare, and the vast majority of fans do not offend—; turning the theory into a crusade against fiction is to betray it. The second edge is the opposite: denying all influence, as if cultural models did not matter at all. That is also false: for the vulnerable subject, the reference figure can indeed be the missing push.
And the usual caution, especially necessary here: identifying with a villain excuses nothing. That Pupkin believed himself a star or that Red Mist dressed as a supervillain does not lessen his responsibility; identification explains from where they acted, it does not absolve them of what they did. The model matters for understanding and prevention, not for handing out blame to the screenwriters.
The link between Sutherland and Bandura
Differential identification holds a pivotal place in the history of criminal learning. Glaser bridged Sutherland's differential association —which required direct contact with offenders— and Bandura's social learning theory, which would prove in the laboratory that merely observing a model is enough to imitate it. With that nuance, Glaser anticipated by two decades the contemporary debate on media effects and copycat crimes: his idea remains the most cited framework for thinking about why pop culture offers models without, by itself, manufacturing criminals.
- 1947Sutherland consolidates differential association: crime is learned in direct interaction.
- 1956Glaser publishes "Criminality Theories and Behavioral Images" and adds identification with imaginary models.
- 1961–63Bandura and the Bobo doll experiments: the model is imitated merely by observing it.
- 1977Bandura formalizes social learning theory, a direct heir of this line.
// Why it mattersOffering better mirrors
If crime can be born of an identification, prevention is not to ban the bad models —impossible and counterproductive—, but to compete with them: to offer real reference figures, bonds and a sense of belonging that make it unnecessary to seek identity in a destructive idol or in an online community that cheers on hatred. The isolated teenager who builds a persona out of killers almost always does so because he did not first find a more livable "self". The answer to toxic identification is to give better mirrors: mentors, causes, communities that offer status and identity without demanding blood in return.
Glaser's theory is, at bottom, a warning and a hope at once. Warning: in the age of screens and algorithms, there have never been so many models available to identify with, nor has it ever been so easy to find the community that celebrates the worst of them. Hope: if the problem is whom we identify with, the solution begins by broadening, and improving, the figures in which a lost young person can recognize himself.
Lights and shadows
- Closes a real gap in Sutherland: it explains the solitary offender, without criminal company, who identifies with a distant or fictional model.
- Anticipates Bandura's social learning and remains the most useful framework for the debate on violent media and copycat crimes.
- The idea of selective identification avoids determinism: the medium does not create the desire, it offers form and alibi to one that was already seeking a model.
- It has a concrete preventive reading: not to ban models, but to offer better mirrors —real reference figures, bonds and belonging—.
- It is hard to falsify: "he identified with a model" can explain almost anything after the fact without predicting anything.
- It does not say why some make the toxic selective identification and others, exposed to the same thing, do not: the mechanism of the acting out remains unquantified.
- It lends itself to moral panic: misused, it blames video games, songs or films for every crime and justifies censoring fiction.
- It leaves out the structural causes (poverty, exclusion) that explain why some young people are more exposed than others to seeking identity in destructive models.
Three key takeaways
- Glaser corrects Sutherland: we do not offend only because of the company we keep, but because of the figures —real or imaginary— we identify with and from whose perspective crime seems acceptable.
- To identify is to adopt a perspective, not merely to copy; and it is selective: we choose the idol that legitimizes what we already wished for. That is why the media do not "create" criminals, but they do offer models and alibis.
- The edges: moral panic (blaming fiction) and denying all influence. Identifying with a villain excuses nothing. Prevention is not banning models, but offering better mirrors: real reference figures and belonging.
Sources · further reading
- Glaser, D. (1956). «Criminality Theories and Behavioral Images». American Journal of Sociology, 61(5).
- Sutherland, E. H. & Cressey, D. R. (1978). Criminology. Lippincott.
- Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice-Hall.
- Surette, R. (2015). Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice. Cengage.