Bandura's study

Question 1

What are the three aspects of behaviourist learning theory?

Answer 1

Classical conditioning
operant conditioning
social learning theory

Question 2

What it classical conditioning?

Answer 2

Learning through association, e.g learning that the sound of a bell means food

Question 3

What is Operant conditioning?

Answer 3

Learning as a result of consequence and reinforcement
Positive and negative reinforcement

Question 4

What is social learning theory?

Answer 4

Learning behaviours through observation and imitation of people they watch (usually role models)

Question 5

What was the aim of Bandura’s study?

Answer 5

to see whether children would imitate aggressive behaviour when given the opportunity, even if they saw these behaviours in a different environment and the original model they observed performing the aggressive act was no longer present.

Question 6

What were the four hypotheses of Bandura’s study?

Answer 6

1. subjects exposed to aggressive models would reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of their models
2. Observation of non aggressive models would have a generalised inhibiting effect on the subject’s subsequent behaviours
3. Subjects would imitate the behaviour of a same sex role model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex
4. Boys should be more pre-disposed than girls toward imitating aggression

Question 7

What research method was Bandura’s study?

Answer 7

A lab experiment

Question 8

What was the sample in Bandura’s study?

Answer 8

72 children from Stanford nursery school aged 3-5 (average 52 months). 36 boys, 36 girls

Question 9

Which sampling method was used in Bandura’s study?

Answer 9

random

Question 10

How did Bandura control for inherited aggression?

Answer 10

By assessing the children for their prior levels of aggression and rating them on four different rating scales previous to the study.

Question 11

What were the four different rating scales used to determine inherited aggression in bandura’s study?

Answer 11

Verbal aggression
aggression towards objects
aggression inhibition
physical aggression

Question 12

Who observed the children in the pretesting? What was good about this?

Answer 12

The experimenter and a nursery school teacher. They had very high interobserver reliability, with a correlation co-efficient of 0.89

Question 13

What was the experimental design of Bandura’s study?

Answer 13

Matched pairs

Question 14

What were the IVs of Bandura’s study?

Answer 14

Gender of participant
gender of model
aggressive vs non-aggressive

Question 15

What were the 5 model conditions in Bandura’s study?

Answer 15

control - none
aggressive female
aggressive male
non-aggressive female
non-aggressive male

Question 16

What were the controls of Bandura’s study?

Answer 16

The script of the models and experimenter

The rooms were always set up the same

Question 17

In Bandura’s study, why was it necessary for there to have a non-aggressive model condition?

Answer 17

To see if the children would imitate a different behaviour too.

Question 18

In Bandura’s study, why was it necessary for the model to have very distinctive aggressive acts in the aggressive condition?

Answer 18

To clearly see whether the children are imitating the model.

Question 19

Why was in necessary for each child to be studies individually in bandura’s study, rather than a group?

Answer 19

To ,make sure that the children weren’t just conforming to the grouo norms.

Question 20

What conclusions were made from bandura’s study? (not to do with gender)

Answer 20

Aggressive behaviour can be transmitted through observation and imitation.
Seeing adults act in a certain way means that children think it is okay to act that way (becomes legitimised)

Question 21

What conclusions can be drawn from Bandura’s study? (gender)

Answer 21

In western culture, boys and girls are socialised to act in a certain way. Girls are more comfortable with verbal aggression because physical aggression is ‘unladylike’. Boys see heroic characters acting aggressively in stories (gender stereotyping)

Question 22

What were the qualitative findings of Bandura’s study?

Answer 22

They filmed all of the trials
took notes of what the children said. e.g “He’s a good fighter”, “who’s that lady, she’s not very ladylike”, “ Shoot the bobo”
They abserved for 20 minutes.

Question 23

Describe the observation method in Bandura’s study

Answer 23

There were three observers; one experimenter in the room with the child, and two watching behind a one way mirror. It was a covert observation. They used a time sampling method, where they tallied what happened every 5 seconds.

Question 24

What happened in stage 2 of Bandura’s study?

Answer 24

The children were taken to another room with ‘attractive’ toys, e.g doll with accessories, fire engine, jet fighter etc, they were allowed to play with them for 2 minutes before the experimenter said that those toys were for other children and they could no longer play with them.

Question 25

Why was stage 2 of Bandura’s study done?

Answer 25

To give the children a reason to be aggressive. (trigger)

Question 26

What did the model do in the control group of bandura’s study?

Answer 26

There was no model

Question 27

What did the model do in the non-aggressive condition of Bandura’s study?

Answer 27

They played with the ‘tinker toys’ and ignored the bobo doll

Question 28

What did the Model do in the aggressive condition of Bandura’s study?

Answer 28

They played with the tinker toys for one minute, then began attacking the bobo doll (punching, struck with a mallet, tossed across the room). They also shouted things at the doll (aggressive: sock him in the nose, non-aggressive: he keeps coming back for more”)

Question 29

What were the three categories of observation in bandura’s study?

Answer 29

Imitate behaviour
Partial imitative behaviour
Non-imitative behaviour

Question 30

What are the three things being observed in the imitative behaviour categories in Bandura’s study?

Answer 30

Imitation of physical aggression
imitative verbal aggression
imitative non-aggressive verbal responses

Question 31

What were the two things observed in the partial imitative behaviour category of bandura’s study?

Answer 31

physical aggression

sits on bobo doll

Question 32

What were the three things observed in the non-imitative aggressive behaviour in Bandura’s study?

Answer 32

Punches bobo doll
aggressive gun play#
non-imitative physical and verbal aggression

Question 33

What were the mean number of imitative physical aggressive acts in each model condition for the girls in bandura’s study?

Answer 33

Aggressive female: 5.5
Aggressive male: 7.2
non-aggressive female: 2.5
non-aggressive male: 0.0
control: 1.2

Question 34

What were the mean number of imitative physical aggressive acts in each model condition for the boys in bandura’s study?

Answer 34

aggressive female: 12.4
aggressive male: 25.8
non-aggressive female: 0.2
non-aggressive male: 1.5
control: 2.0

Question 35

What were the mean number of imitative verbal aggressive acts in each model condition for the girls in bandura’s study?

Answer 35

Aggressive female: 13.7
aggressive male: 2.0
non-aggressive female: 0.3
non-aggressive male: 0.0
control: 0.7

Question 36

What were the mean number of imitative verbal aggressive acts in each model condition for the boys in bandura’s study?

Answer 36

aggressive female: 4.3
aggressive male: 12.7
non-aggressive female: 1.1
non-aggressive male: 0.0
control: 1.7

Question 37

Is Bandura’s study ethnocentric?

Answer 37

Yes, it was done in America with only American children so probably couldn’t be applied to other cultures. (e.g guns/gender stereotypes)

Question 38

How well did bandura with protection from harm as an ethical consideration?

Answer 38

He didn’t do very well, as he may have actually taught the children to be more aggressive which could be a long term affect.

Question 39

How well did Bandura do with confidentiality as an ethical consideration?

Answer 39

He did very well, no names or addresses were taken down. However, there were videos taken which were later released to the public.

Question 40

How well did Bandura do with right to withdraw as an ethical consideration?

Answer 40

Although the parents could pull there children out at any point, they weren’t actually present for the full experiment and the young children may not have understood that they could leave

Question 41

How well did bandura do with informed consent as an ethical consideration?

Answer 41

reasonably well, he got parental consent, however the parents weren’t fully informed of all that the study entailed.

Question 42

How well did Bandura do with debrief as an ethical consideration?

Answer 42

The parents were fully debriefed

Question 43

How well did bandura do with Deception as an ethical consideration?

Answer 43

He did well, he never really lied to anybody (although he did withhold some information)

Question 44

Did Bandura’s study have interobserver reliability?

Answer 44

Yes, it was very high. In the pre testing, the two observers had a correlation coefficient of 0.89 and in the actual study, there were three observers that got very similar results.

Question 45

Did Bandura’s study have external reliability?

Answer 45

Mostly yes, the results were fairly consistent however some of them were a little unclear.

Question 46

Did Bandura’s study have internal reliability?

Answer 46

Yes, it was all very standardised, pretty much everything was the same for every child.

Question 47

Did Bandura’s study have internal (construct) validity?

Answer 47

Not really, as the doll was clearly a toy, so the children knew they weren’t really hurting it, so aggression wasn’t accurately measured.

Question 48

Did Bandura’s study have external (ecological) validity?

Answer 48

Not really, the children would not be used to seeing an adult (especially female) attack a doll and they themselves would not normally attack a doll either.

Question 49

Did Bandura’s study have external (population) validity?

Answer 49

Not really, it is quite biased towards America as it occurred in America with American children. Also, it can only be applied to children aged 3-5, not all children.