Since been brought to this world, we are taught to act in different ways depending on the scenario. Often many behaviors and lessons are learned through experiencing life. Sociology has become a way in understanding and theorizing how things usually come to be. There are ways in which the particular learned behavior plays out differently. For example, learning to tie your shoe compared to learning to rob someone. It is a fact that behaviors are learned. But, sometimes that learned behavior is committing a crime. Movies often display fiction stories that have a questionable reasoning for the way the characters acting. Movies play off stereotypes and prejudices. Precious is a movie in where the main character precious struggling to escape the realities of her life. The abused and …show more content…
Though Precious is a fiction movie adaptation, crime and torture is ever so present. As Akers and burgess illustrates that when someone is rewarded, they are most likely repeat that behavior. Precious’s mom, Mary psychically and emotionally locked precious inside herself. But, Mary was rewarded because she gets Precious doing whatever she get wanted, from getting a pack of cigarettes to cooking food. Another way in which Mary is rewarded is her welfare check. Precious is raped by her father multiple times, leading to her two pregnancies. Mary pretends to take care of them because she can get more money in her welfare check, but in reality one of Precious's son is being taken care of by someone else. Mar abusing precious is obviously horrible, but she doesn’t view it as that because she still receives her welfare checks. Akers and Burgess would argue that this reward is differential reinforcement. The reinforcement in where Mary receives what she wants gives her a positive reinforcement in the way she is acting towards precious. e years of abuse precious received wasn’t stopped by anybody until the social workers found out about it, leading to precious running away from her section 8