Bandura Flashcards
Background
At the time it was believed that children needed to see the adult behave one way multiple times before copying it themselves
Aim
To see whether children would imitate adult behaviour when given the opportunity, even if they saw these behaviours in a different environment and the original ‘model’ they observed performing the behaviour was no longer present. Specifically, it was aggressive behaviour that Bandura was interested in
Hypotheses
- Subjects exposed to aggressive models would reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of their models
- Observation of non-aggressive models would have a generalised inhibiting effect on a subjects’ subsequent behaviour
- Subjects would imitate the behaviour of a same sex model to a greater degree than a model of the other sex
- Boys should be more pre-disposed than girls towards imitating aggression
Sample
- 72 children
- All from Stanford University Nursery (USA)
- Aged 32-69m/2-5y
- Mean age 52m/4y
- Equal gender split
Sampling method
Opportunity - Researchers used children who were present at nursery on days of testing
Experimental design
Matched participants - Children matched on levels of aggression
Key Terms
Matched participants design
Each participant is paired with another participant with a shared characteristic (age, sex, IQ etc) before being put into different groups for the experiment
How were participants matched?
- Children were observed prior to the experiment by both the researcher and the nursery teacher
- 4 types of aggression measured:
- Physical aggression
- Verbal aggression
- Aggression towards inanimate objects
- Aggression inhibition
- Each type of aggression measured for each child on 5 point scale, giving them a total /20 to be matched on
IVs
- Model behaviour
- Sex of model
- Sex of child
Model conditions
- Aggressive male model
- Aggressive female model
- Non-aggressive male model
- Non-aggressive female model
- No model (control)
Procedure
Stage 1
- Child taken to a room with the model
- Child taken to table with high-interest actvities e.g. potato printing and stickers
- Model sat at other table with tinker toys, Bobo doll and mallet (child told these are model’s toys)
- Non-aggressive model played with tinker toys and ignore Bobo doll
- Aggressive model played for tinker toys for 1st minute, then was aggressive to Bobo doll for rest of the time
- Stage 1 lasted 10mins
Procedure
Stage 2
- Child taken to smaller room with attractive toys e.g. toy fire engine, jet plane, train, doll set w/ pram
- Allowed to play with toys for 2mins
- Experimenter said these are the best toys and must be saved for other children
Procedure
Stage 3
- New room had same toys as first room + more aggressive toys (e.g. dart guns, ball hanging from ceiling) and non-aggressive toys (e.g. crayons, farm animals)
- Allowed to play for 20mins
- Watched through one-way mirror
- Note was taken every 5 seconds on child’s behaviour based on categories
Procedure
Why did the models have distinct aggressive acts?
To ensure children were imitating the model and not just doing things they would anyway
Procedure
Why was stage 2 included?
To see if they would imitate the aggression in stage 3 or previous research was correct (in that watching aggression is cathartic)
Procedure
Why did they get a second observer for half the children?
To ensure the observer was being accurate in only counting imitation when the child was replicating the model’s acts
Findings
Quantitative data
- Boys watching an aggressive male model gave 25.8 aggressive acts vs only 2 for the children who watched no model (control)
- Boys watching a male non-aggressive model gave 1.5 aggressive acts vs 2 when given no model
- Boys watching a male model gave 25.8 aggressive acts vs only 12.4 when watching a female model
- Boys showed on average 38.2 imitative physical aggressive acts and girls only 12.7
Findings
Qualitative data
Quotes from children:
* “That ain’t no way for a lady to behave”
* “That girl was just acting like a man”
* “He’s a good fighter like daddy”
Evaluation
Ethnocentrism
High ethnocentrism - Only looked at children from one part of one country
Evaluation
Reliability
- Internal - Lab experiment, lots of controls, standardised procedure
- External - 72 is a large enough sample, but only 12 or 24 children per condition, not enough for consistent effect
- Inter-rater reliability - Pretest reliability was 0.89
Evaluation
Validity
- Ecological - Unrealistic scenario
- Population - Girls and boys but limited age range, all from same nursery (socio-economic background)
- Construct - Matched participants design reduced participant variables, children didn’t know situation was fake
