Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) Flashcards
The first hypothesis they had was…
Child participants exposed to aggressive models would produce aggressive acts like they have seen from the models and would differ to those exposed to non aggressive models
The second hypothesis was…
Observation of nonaggressive would produce behaviour differing to control group
The third hypothesis was…
The sex of the model and subject have effect therefore subjects imitate behaviour of same sex model to greater degree than opposite sex
The fourth hypothesis was…
Aggression more by males as highly masculine-typed behaviour
How many participants used and where from?
36 boys and 36 girls aged 37-69months from Stanford University Nursery School
Who acted as role models?
2 adults, a male and a female and one female experimenter
How many were in the control group?
24 children
How many were in each experimental group?
6
What were the conditions?
> m ppt w m model AGG >f ppt w f model AGG
m ppt w f model AGG >f ppt w m model AGG
m ppt w m model N/A >f ppt w f model N/A
m ppt w f model N/A >f ppt w m model N/A
Participants were matched on what in the nursery?
Aggressiveness
In the N/A condition what happened?
The model played with tinker toys and ignored the bobo doll
In the Agg condition the model plays with
tinker toys for 1 min and then lays the bobo doll down and punches it’s nose while the experimenter is out the room
What does the model do to the bobo doll in the aggressive condition?
Punches it in the nose, sits on it, hits it with a mallet and kicks it whole saying “pow” “kick him”
How was aggression aroused after viewing the model?
The experimenter put the ppt in a room with attractive toys but were told the very best were reserved for other children
Controls?
All the toys were the same and put in the same place, all ppts had 20 minutes in the room, experimenter always avoided interaction
How was ppts behaviour observed?
Through a one way mirror and rated against categories in 5 second intervals, also scored independelty by another observer
inter rate reliability was….
0.90
All but two participants in the agg condition performed
the model’s behaviour
It was confirmed that exposure of participants to
aggressive models increases probability of aggressive behaviour
Non aggressive and control score did not
differ from one another
Females in n/a demonstrated significantly less mallet aggression than
control and agressive
approx. 1/3 aggressive condition repeated
the model’s verbal responses - no remarks made by other conditions
Boys demonstrated more
physical aggression than verbal aggression
There was no siginficant difference between the verbal aggression displayed
by boys and girls
ppts in non aggressive condition engaged in significantly more non aggressive play with
dolls than other groups
Those in non aggressive condition were 2 times more likely than those in aggressive condition to
sit quietly without playing
The results suggest that
participants who were given opportunity to observe aggressive models later reproduced physical and verbal aggression substantially identical to model
The results mean that
observation of cues produced by the behaviour of others is one effecrive means of producing certain forms of responses
Exposure to nonaggressive decreases probability of occurance of
aggressive behaviour and resticts the range of behaviour shown by partipants
This study sugests that imitation may shorten the process of aquiring new
behaviours which does not need reinforcement as suggested by Skinner (1953)
The study was carefully set up in a controlled lab envrionment, e.g care was taken to get the children into a similar emotional state before
the observation and to set up measurable acts that could be recorded meaning cause and effect conclusions can be drawn because variables were isolated
There was reliability through inter observer reliablity as two observers were used and they agreed with what they saw and
one judge did not know which condition the child has been allocated to to avoid bias, subjectivity reduced
The study lacked internal validity and the setting could be realistic as the rooms were set up like nursery rooms but
the situation was not valid because the adult either deliberatly punched and kicked the bobo doll or was deliberatly subdued - not natural
Can be criticised for ethics as no explanation of consent and exposure to aggression is not particularly ethical as
undesirbale behaviour was being encouraged
Generalisabilty questionned as maybe older or younger children wouldn’t act the same, not representative of older children who may
have a greater understanding of social norms meaning that the same results may not have been obtained
The study has application to real life as it provides support for SLT, leads to concerns about media violence and the possibilty of children
imitating aggressive role models on tv, hgihlights need for positive role models in the media and a limited exposure to aggresion within the media - 9PM watershed
