BANDURA 1961

Question 1

What was the predominant thought at the time about effects in children of seeing adult behaviour?

Answer 1

It was believed children would imitate the way they’d seen an adult behave. It was however, believed that children needed to see the adult behave this way multiple times before copying it themselves. E.g getting rid of anger by showing it (kicking, punching etc.). - cathartic

Question 2

What was the general aim of banduras study?

Answer 2

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. It was the aggressive behaviour that Bandura was interested in

Question 3

What were the 4 specific hypotheses

Answer 3

1 = subject exposed to aggressive models would reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of their models
2 = observation of non- aggressive models have a generalised inhibiting effect on subjects subsequent behaviour
3= subjects would imitate the behaviour of a same sexual model to a gr3ater degree than a model of the opposite sex
4 = boys should be more pre-disposed than girls towards imitating aggression

Question 4

what was the sample like?

Answer 4

-72 children
- from standford university nursery
- mean age was 52 months
- aged 37-69 months (3-5 yrs)
- equal gender split (36 each)

Question 5

how were participants in this study obtained?

Answer 5

• opportunity
• researchers used children who were present at the nursery on the day of testing

Question 6

what is a matched participant design?

Answer 6

each participant is paired with another participant with shared characteristics (e.g. age, sex, IQ etc.) before being put into different groups for the experiment

Question 7

what were the children matched on?

Answer 7

physical aggression, verbal aggression, aggression inhibition, aggression towards inanimate objects

Question 8

how did the researchers know what the children’s prior levels of aggression were?

Answer 8

• observed prior by teacher and researcher who made judgement’s on how aggressive they were - the inter-rater reliability was 0.98

Question 9

what is inter-rater reliability?

Answer 9

the extent to which observers or researchers agree on what they’re looking for
- 0-1 scale

Question 10

how did the researchers allocate children to the different conditions of the experiment?

Answer 10

• each type of aggression was measured on a point scale for each child (20 points for each child)

Question 11

how did bandura group the children?

Answer 11

• children who have the same scores put in groups of 3, 1 in the aggressive group, 1 in the non aggressive group and the last in the control (no model)

Question 12

whats an advantage of using matched participants design in this experiment?

Answer 12

• they can see how kids with the same score react differently to aggressive/non-aggressive - which is accurate which means validity increases
• they’re also able to compare

Question 13

whats an disadvantage of using matched participants design in this experiment?

Answer 13

• time-consuming
• may not be possible to match everyone accurately

Question 14

what were the independent variables in this study?

Answer 14

1. model’s behaviour
2. sex of model
3. sex of child

Question 15

what were the model conditions?

Answer 15

1. aggressive male model
2. non-aggressive male model
3. aggressive female model
4. non-aggressive female model
5. no model (control)

Question 16

what was the first part of stage 1 of the experiment?

Answer 16

• each child was taken individually to a room and sat at a table, they’re given toys to play with like potato printing and stickers.
• the adult (model) sat at another table which had tinker toys, bobo doll and a mallet

Question 17

what was stage 1 in the aggressive model of the experiment?


Answer 17

the model plays with the tinker toy for 1 minute
the adult turned to the bobo doll and laid it on its side, sat on it, punched it repeatedly on the nose. The model then picked the bobo doll up and hit the doll on the head with a mallet, tossed the doll up in the air and kicked it out of the room.
this sequence was repeated 3 times

Question 18

what quotes did the model say?
“sock him in the nose”
“hit him down”
“throw him in the air”
“kick him”
“pow”
“he sure is a tough fella”

Answer 18

“sock him in the nose”
“hit him down”
“throw him in the air”
“kick him”
“pow”
“he sure is a tough fella”

Question 19

what was stage 1 in the non-aggressive model of the experiment?

Answer 19

the model played with the tinker toys and ignored the bobo doll

Question 20

what was stage 2 of the experiment?

Answer 20

children taken into smaller room with attractive toys (e.g. fire engine, doll set)
they were allowed to play for 2 minutes before experimenter said they were the best toys and must be saved for other children

Question 21

what was stage 3 of the experiment?

Answer 21

children taken back to experimental room and observed through a one way mirror
a record was made every 5 seconds of the behaviour being shown by each child

Question 22

what were the behaviors recorded?

Answer 22

imitative behaviour of physical or verbal aggression (repeating in exactly the same way)
partial imitative behaviour of aggression (generally imitating model but not exactly)
novel aggresive behaviour (showing aggression in ways model didnt show)

Question 23

why was it so important for the aggressive model to have such distinctive aggressive acts?

Answer 23

• so it’s clear to the child that the model was being aggressive
• see similar actions in child’s aggressive actions

Question 24

why was the mild aggression arousal stage included?

Answer 24

• to create a sense of anger within the child and frustration so the child would be more motivated to take it out on the doll

Question 25

why did the researchers bother getting a second observer in for half of the children?

Answer 25

compared for consistency = higher inter-rater reliability

Question 26

what was the mean number of physical aggressive acts in boys with an aggressive male model?

Answer 26

25.8

Question 27

what was the mean number of physical aggressive acts in boys with control (no model)?

Answer 27

2.0

Question 28

what was the mean number of verbal aggressive acts in girls with an aggressive female model?

Answer 28

13.7

Question 29

what was the mean number of verbal aggressive acts in girls with control (no model)?

Answer 29

0.7

Question 30

whats an example of a novel aggressive act that was seen in the study?

Answer 30

• gunplay - a boy hit and shot the bobo doll - model didnt do this

Question 31

what were the qualitative findings?

Answer 31

• “that ain’t no way for a lady to behave”
• “that girl was just fighting like a man”
• “he’s a good fighter like daddy”

Question 32

did the findings of this study support predominant thought about the affect of watching aggression at the time?

Answer 32

no, the children who had aggressive models imitated it right after they only saw the acts once

Question 33

what would bandura conclude about how children might learn aggressive behaviour?

Answer 33

children copied actions of models and people around them

Question 34

how does this study link to the behaviourist perspective?

Answer 34

links to social learning theory - observing + imitating.
- this children observed the model be aggressive to the toys and they imitated the actions

Question 35

what were the strengths of the bandura study?

Answer 35

• collected both qualitative + quantitative data
• clear procedure - reliable + valid

Question 36

what were the weaknesses of the bandura study?

Answer 36

• no right to withdraw
• no informed consent from parents
• no debrief
• deception
• no confidentiality (they were filmed)
• no protection from harm