Component 2: Bandura (Developmental) Flashcards
What is the background to Bandura’s study?
Previous research showed that children will automatically imitate behaviour demonstrated by an adult model if the model remains present.
Little was known about how behaviour displayed by a model might affect an individual in novel settings where the model is not present.
What was the aim of Bandura’s study?
To demonstrate that learning can occur through mere observation of a model and that imitation of learned behaviour can occur in the absence of the model.
What were Bandura’s hypotheses?
- Children exposed to an aggressive adult model will show more aggressive behaviour.
- Children exposed to a non-aggressive model will show less aggressive behaviour.
- Children will imitate same sex models more than opposite sex models.
- Boys will imitate aggressive behaviour more than girls.
What was the research method of Bandura’s study
Controlled observation and a lab experiment
What was the experimental design of Bandura’s study?
Matched-pairs design - the children were matched for age, gender and levels of pre-existing levels of aggression. Aggression was rated on 4 5-point rating scales by the experimenter and nursery teacher. The scales were level of physical aggression, level of verbal aggression, aggression towards inanimate objects and aggressive inhibition (ability to calm down)
Describe the sample of Bandura’s study?
72 children (36 boys and 36 girls) from Stanford University Nursery School.
They had a mean age of 4 years and 4 months.
They were divided into groups of 24 (condition 1 - aggressive model, condition 2 - non-aggressive model and condition 3 - control (no model) The participants were put into groups of three and randomly assigned to one of these groups.
What were the IVs and DVs of Bandura’s study?
IV - aggressive/non-aggressive model, sex of model (male/female), sex of child (boy/girl)
DV - amount of imitative behaviour/aggression shown by a child during phase 3 (measured by the model and at times the researcher through a one-way mirror at 5 second intervals over a 20 minute time period.
Describe the procedure of Bandura’s study?
Phase 1:
Children were individually taken to a room to play with non-aggressive toys such as potato prints and stickers for 10 minutes. If they were in condition 1 (aggressive model) the model would start by playing calmly but after about 1 minute turned to the 5ft bobo doll and spent the remainder of the session being physically and verbally aggressive using standardised procedures. If they were in condition 2 (non-aggressive model) the model would assemble the tinker toy in a calm manner, ignoring the bobo doll. The control group did not take part in this phase.
Phase 2:
All children were taken individually to an anteroom and subjected to mild aggression arousal. They were initially given toys but they were taken away after a couple minutes and told they could play in the next room.
Phase 3:
Children were taken individually to a third room which contained both aggressive and non-aggressive toys. E.g. 3ft bobo doll, mallet, tea set and cars.
They were observed through a one way mirror for 20 minutes every 5 seconds whilst observers recorded behaviour into categories: imitative aggression, partially imitative aggression, non-imitative aggression and non-aggressive behaviour.
There were high levels of inter-rater reliability (90%) as there were two observers
What were the results of Bandura’s study?
- Children in the aggressive condition showed significantly more aggressive behaviour (both imitative and partially imitative)
- Boys imitated male models more for aggression than girls.
- The behaviour of the male model exerted greater influence than the female model.
- Boys imitated aggressive behaviour more than girls.
- One example of verbal aggression was “pow”
What were the conclusions of Bandura’s study?
- Children will imitate aggressive/non-aggressive behaviours displayed by adult models even when they are not present.
- Children learn through observation/imitation which supports the social learning theory.
- Both boys and girls are more likely to learn masculine type behaviour.
- More likely to learn verbal aggression from the same sex adult.
How does Bandura’s study relate to the developmental area?
The Bandura study belongs to the developmental area and links to the key theme as it shows how children’s behaviour can be influenced by the behaviour of adult role models who they imitate. Bandura provides evidence for social learning theory by showing that imitation is strongest when models are the same gender as the child.
