bandura ross & ross

Question 1

what were bandura ross and ross’ aims?

Answer 1

• wanted to see whether children would imitate behaviour based on social learning theory

Question 2

who were bandura’s participants?

Answer 2

• 36 boys and 36 girls aged from 37-39 months
• enrolled in stanford university nursery

Question 3

what were bandura’s participants protested for?

Answer 3

• physical aggression
• verbal aggression
• aggression towards objects
• aggressive inhibition

(these had high inter rater reliability)

Question 4

what was bandura’s procedure?

Answer 4

• room one: children in a room with aggressive/non aggressive model playing with the bobo doll
• room two: room where children were not allowed to play with attractive toys as the experimenter was ‘saving them’ this increased frustration
• room three: children were left in a room with toys and were observed via a two way mirror

Question 5

how long were bandura’s children left alone in the third room for?

Answer 5

• 20 minutes

Question 6

what were bandura’s results?

Answer 6

• male participants were more physically aggressive
• male and female participants were more aggressive when a male model was used
• females showed more verbal aggression than males

Question 7

what were bandura’s strengths?

Answer 7

• high inter-rater reliability particularly in the pretesting for aggression
• high reliability due to standardised procedure
• high applications for example reinforcement techniques and improving positive social behaviours through imitation of others
• controlled lab experiment meaning a clear cause and effect relationship and conclusions can be drawn

Question 8

what were bandura’s weaknesses?

Answer 8

• low validity as it was an unnatural lab experiment
• low generalisability as all of the children were from the same university nursery
• low ethics as they didn’t recondition the children afterwards - possibly making them more aggressive