Bandura

Question 1

1. In the study by Bandura the observers classified the children’s aggressive behaviour as imitative or non-imitative.
   a) Give one example of imitative aggression and one example of non-imitative aggression in the study. (2)b)

Why did they look at both types of aggression? (2)

Answer 1

One example of imitative aggression was…
• Laying the doll on its side, sitting on it and repeatedly punching it on its nose
• Picking the doll up and striking it on the head with the mallet
• Throwing the doll in the air and kicking it about in the room
One example of non-imitative aggression was…
• Punches the bobo doll: strikes, slaps, pushes the doll
• Aggressive acts directed at the toys other than the bobo doll
• Aggressive gun play

• They looked at both types of aggression to test the principles of Social learning theory. If the children repeat imitated aggressive behaviours in a new setting then this shows that aggressive behaviour can be learned through observation and imitation.

Question 2

2. The study by Bandura was a well-controlled experiment.
   a) Identify two variables that were controlledb) Explain how each of these variables was controlled by the researchers. (2)

Answer 2

• Aggressiveness: on the basis of the ratings from the experimenter and teacher the Ps were arranged in triplets and assigned at random to one of the three groups.
• Conditions: Each condition carefully controlled by determining exactly what toys were to be played with and what the models would do and say during the experiment.

Question 3

3. In the study by Bandura the children were mildly provoked to arouse aggression.
   a) Outline how the children were subjected to mild arousal of aggression. (2)

b) Why was this necessary? (2)

Answer 3

• The children were taken to an anteroom in another building that contained some attractive toys. The children were allowed to play with the toys, but after about 2 minutes the experimenter said that she had decided to reserve the toys for the other children.

Any one of the two following answers:
• It was necessary to mildly provoke the children because observing aggressive behaviour may reduce the probability of behaving aggressively, making it less likely that those observing the aggressive model would behave aggressively.
• It was also done because the children the children who watched the non-aggressive model might be inhibited from behaving aggressively because of what they observed.

Question 4

4. Bandura concluded that aggression may be learned through imitations. Give two differences between the way the children witnessed the violence in the experiment and the way children witness violence in everyday life. (4)

Answer 4

• One difference is that children observe violence through various forms of media such as TV, films, video games and music rather than observe an adult who behaves aggressively unexpectedly.
• A second difference is that the children do not observe aggressive behaviour in highly controlled environments were extraneous variables are controlled. In real life situations many variables interplay in any given situation.

Question 5

5. a) Describe one of the predictions made at the beginning of the study by Bandura. (2)
   b) To what extent do the results support this conclusion? (2)

Answer 5

1. Observing an aggressive model will lead a subject to reproduce aggressive acts similar to their models, whereas this will not be true of subjects who observed non-aggressive models or who observed no model.
2. Observing an aggressive model will lead a subject to behave in a generally more aggressive manner, whereas those who observed a non-aggressive model would be inhibited from behaving aggressively.
3. Subjects will imitate the behaviour of same-sex model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex.
4. Boys will be more likely than girls to imitate aggressive behaviour because it is a highly masculine activity.
5. The results fully support this conclusion. Children in the aggressive condition imitated many of the models’ physical and verbal behaviours, both aggressive and non-aggressive. Whereas children in the non-aggressive condition displayed very few of behaviours.
6. The results support this conclusion to a small extent. The aggressive group displayed more non-imitative aggression than the non-aggressive group, the difference small.
7. The results support this conclusion to a very small extent for boys but do not support this in girls. For example, there was some evidence of a same-sex effect for boys but not for girls.
8. The results fully support this conclusion with regards to physical aggression between girls and boys. But the results do not support this conclusion with regards to verbal aggression between girls and boys as there was no difference there.

Question 6

6a) The children in the study were matched in terms of aggressiveness. Describe how this was done. (2)

Answer 6

• This was done by the experimenter and teacher rating the children on aggressiveness on a 5 point scale. On the basis of these ratings the children were arranged in triplets and assigned at random to one of three groups.

Question 7

b) Explain why it was necessary to match the children on aggressiveness. (2)

Answer 7

• It was necessary to do this because aggressiveness was a potential extraneous variable which could affect the results of the experiment. If it was not controlled then the aggressive behaviour displayed by the children in the aggressive condition could be explained because of their existing level of aggressiveness and not because of SLT.