Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models Flashcards
Aim
To see if children would imitate aggression that was role played by an observed adult. There was also a focus on if the sex of the child and/or role model mattered.
Procedure
36 boys and 36 girls between 37 and 69 months were divided into 8 groups of 6 children and a control group of 24 . The control group did not observe a model, however 4 groups observed an aggressive model and 4 were exposed to a non-aggressive model. These were further divided into male and female children and models. All the groups were equally matched in terms of aggression. The child and model were brought into the room individually with many toys ,including a bobo doll, and sat in different corners. The experimenter left the room and in the aggressive condition the model started to play aggressively with the bobo doll a minute after. During the assault, the model also repeated aggressive phrases such as “Pow”. After 10 minutes the model left the room and the child was taken to a different room with highly attractive toys for 2 minutes, This was to ensure that the children weren’t prevented from showing aggression because of that tendency. They were then taken to an adjacent room with non aggressive toys and the bobo doll. The child remained in the room for 20 minutes. They were observed and analysed at 5 second intervals where aggressive and non aggressive behaviour was recorded.
Results
Children who were exposed to the aggressive model, whether male or female, displayed more aggression than any other groups. This suggests that children imitate aggression. Children also displayed non-imitative aggression which suggested that they were devising new ways of being aggressive. Boys were more likely to copy same sex aggressive role models in terms of physical aggression but both boys and girls are equally as likely to imitate verbal aggression
Conclusion
Children learn through observation in the absence of reinforcement, and evidence was provided for social learning theory . Also children learn aggression from adult role models, especially if that role model is the same sex as the child. Aggression can also be imitated from an unknown aggressor to the child.
Strengths
The procedure was standardized and this adds reliability to the study
It used a matched pair design so all groups were equal in aggression. This increases the validity of the findings
Weaknesses
The study had demand characteristics as the children knew they were supposed to copy the adult so their behaviour was natural
There are ethical issues with the research as the young children are deliberately exposed to aggerssion
