Bandura

Question 1

What did Bandura study?

Answer 1

Transmission of aggression.

Bobo doll

Question 2

What area of psychology is Banduras study?

Answer 2

Developmental area

Question 3

Give 1 of the 4 hypotheses Bandura created

Answer 3

1. Subjects exposed to an aggressive model would reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of their model
2. Observation of non-aggressive minerals would have a generalised inhibiting effect of the subjects subsequent behaviour
3. participants would imitate the behaviour of the same-sex model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex
4. Boys should be more pre-disposed than girls towards imitating aggression

Question 4

Describe the sample

Answer 4

72 children from Stanford university nursery
Ranged from 37 months to 69 months
Mean she was 52 months
Equal number of boys and girls

Question 5

Describe the groups of children

Answer 5

• 72 children split into three groups: aggressive Model, non aggressive model and control
• those first two groups are split into the sex of the model, male or female
• those models were then matched with either male or female children
• there was also a control group of 24 which just acted how they wanted with no model

Question 6

How were behaviours recorded?

Answer 6

In a structured observation of pre determined behaviours they were looking for, recorded every 5 seconds

Question 7

What behaviours were looked for?

Answer 7

Imitative behaviours- hitting the bobo doll with the mallet
Imitative verbal aggression- repeating “sock him, hit him down”
Partial aggression- subject strikes something other than the doll

Question 8

What were the findings?

Answer 8

• For all groups, those in the aggressive conditions had a higher number of aggressive behaviours
• the male non-aggressive model has an inhibiting effect on children
• boys showed more physical and verbal aggression

Question 9

Outline a strength of the method in this study

Answer 9

It is in high control, Bandura was able to control what toys the children played with, where the child was in the room
•able to control extraneous variables

Question 10

Give a weakness of the method used

Answer 10

It is low in ecological validity, the participants were in an unnatural environment, they may behave differently in their natural environments

Question 11

What kind of observation was used?

Answer 11

A structured observation

Question 12

Give ethical issues with the experiment

Answer 12

Deception-the study wasn’t explained to the children because they were too young
Debriefing-there is no written evidence of a debrief
Psychological effects- the event may have made the children more violent

Question 13

Give problems with the sample

Answer 13

They were all from the same university

Probably middle class