Bandura - 1961

Question 1

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 1

• To investigate if children could learn aggression via imitation

Question 2

What was the hypotheses?

Answer 2

• children exposed to the aggressive models will reproduce aggressive acts resembling these of the models
• children exposed to the non-aggressive models will reproduce less aggressive behaviour acts
• children will imitate the behaviour of a same sex model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex
• Boys will be more predisposed than girls towards imitating aggression.

Question 3

What type of experiment was this?

Answer 3

• A lab experiment

Question 4

What three major conditions did the experiment have?

Answer 4

• the control group
• the group exposed to the aggressive model
• the group exposed to the passive model

Question 5

What were the independent variables?

Answer 5

• the condition the children were exposed to
• the gender of the role mode
• the gender of the child

Question 6

How were extraneous variables controlled?

Answer 6

• pre-testing the children for how aggressive they were
• they did this by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behaviour on for 5-point rating scales.

Question 7

What happened in Room One?

Answer 7

• Children were brought to the experimental room. The room set out for play. After settling the child was escorted to the opposite corner where there was a five foot inflatable Bobo Doll. After the model was seated the experiment left the experimental room.

Question 8

What happened in Room Two?

Answer 8

• The children were taken to a room with relatively attractive toys. As soon as the child started to play with the toys the experimenter told the child that these were the experimenter’s best toys and she had decided to reserve them for the other children/

Question 9

What happened in Room Three?

Answer 9

• Children were told they play with any of the toys in there. The experimenter stayed in the room. In this room, there was a variety of both non-aggressive and aggressive toys.

Question 10

What was the aggressive condition like in Room One?

Answer 10

• The model began by assembling the tinker-toys , but after one minute turned to the Bobo and was aggressive to the doll.
• Example of physical agggression; “raised the Bobo Doll and pumelled it on the head with a mallet”
• Example of verbal aggression was ‘pow’ and ‘sock him in the nose’

Question 11

What was the non-aggressive condition like in Room One?

Answer 11

• The model ignored Bobo and assembled the tinker-toys in a quiet, gentle manner.

Question 12

What happened in step two of Room Two?

Answer 12

• The child was subjected to mild aggression arousal.

Question 13

What happened in step two of Room Three?

Answer 13

• The aggressive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns and 3 foot Bobo Doll.
• The non-aggressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears and plastic farm animals.

Question 14

What were the dependent variables?

Answer 14

• Direct Imitation
• Indirect Imitation
• Not imitations of the adult model

Question 15

What were the results?

Answer 15

• The children in the aggressive model condition made more aggressive responses than the children in the non-aggressive model condition.
• Boys made more aggressive responses than girls.
• The boys in the aggressive model conditions showed more aggressive responses if the model was male than if the model was female.
• The girls in the aggressive model conditions also showed more physical aggressive responses if the model was male but more verbal aggressive responses if the model was female.

Question 16

What was concluded?

Answer 16

• Bandura concludes that behaviour can be learned by imitation even if it hasn’t been reinforced.
• The male role model was much more influential than the female and boys’ showed a much greater tendency to engage in physical aggression
• Verbal aggression was sex-typed, with girls imitating the female role model and boys imitating the male role model. This suggests that, if there are no strong cultural expectations, people will imitate the model they most identify with, even if the model is a stranger.