Bandura 1961 Flashcards
What is the aim of Bandura 1961?
If children would copy an adults behaviour to a Bobo doll
What is the sample of Bandura 1961?
72 participants from the same nursery, split in equal groups of males and females
What is the procedure of Bandura 1961?
Original aggression levels measured
Watched non-aggressive model played with toys, watched aggressive model (experimental group) hit, kicked and punched Bobo doll (e.g. ‘sock em in the nose’), control group did not show any aggressive behaviours
Children played with toys (e.g. fire truck) but then told the toys were not for them, taken to a different room with Bobo doll and other aggressive toys
Covert observation where behaviour was recorded every 5 seconds for 20 minutes
What are the results of Bandura 1961?
Boys copied 25.8% aggressive acts when the model was male
Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls (25.6% vs 7.2%)
Non-aggressive acts showed less than no model condition (0.2% and 1.5% vs 2%)
Little difference in verbal aggression between boys and girls (13.7% vs 12.7%)
What is the conclusion of Bandura 1961?
Watching aggressive model leads to more aggressive acts being copied compared to watching a non-aggressive model
What is a strength of Bandura 1961 using a baseline aggression?
Matched pairs on baseline aggression so individual differences of natural aggression won’t impact the results about how the model affects aggression, increasing validity
What is a weakness of Bandura 1961 using a lab setting?
Lacks ecological validity so results about learning through imitation may not apply to real world set of behaviour
What is a strength of Bandura 1961 being conducted in a nursery?
High in ecological validity as it is a natural setting for children so results about how they reacted to seeing aggression will apply to real world behaviour
What is a weakness of Bandura using young children?
May have copied behaviours outside of the experiment from their own lives so raises questions about the validity of scores as researchers may have missed stuff they did later on, meaning we do not get a true picture of the influence the models had on the children
What is a strength of Bandura in regards to the procedure?
Standardised setting, steps and timings so we can repeat the study using different children to see if the results about their imitating the role models is reliable
What is a weakness of the children never seeing a Bobo doll before in Bandura 1961?
May have only hit the Bobo doll because that is what they thought they should do so experimenters weren’t measuring the effect of violent role models on children’s aggression in normal circumstances
