developmental area (Bandura) unit 2

Question 1

aim

Answer 1

to see whether children would imitate adult behaviour when given the opportunity even if they saw these behaviours in a different environment

Question 2

sample

Answer 2

72 children from Stanford university nursery
36 boys 36 girls
aged 37-69 months

Question 3

type of sampling

Answer 3

opportunity sampling

Question 4

what participant design was used

Answer 4

matched participant design
children were matched on gender and their prior aggression levels before the study

Question 5

stage 1 aggressive model condition

Answer 5

model played with tinker toys and bobo doll, model sat on bobo doll and punched it

Question 6

stage 1 non aggressive model

Answer 6

model played with the tinker toys and ignored the bobo doll

Question 7

stage 2

Answer 7

Children were taken into a second room which contained lots of attractive looking, colourful toys such as a spinning top, a fire engine, a doll set, and aeroplane. The child was at first told they could play with the toys but then when they had settled into playing (about 2 mins) they were told by the experimenter that these were her best toys and not just anyone could play with them. She had decided to keep them for other children.

This was to arouse any aggressive behaviour they might have learned in stage one by making them frustrated

Question 8

stage 3

Answer 8

In the third stage of the experiment, all 72 children were taken back to the main experimental room one-by-one and observed by the male model through a one-way mirror
The behaviours recorded were either:
Imitative Behaviour of Physical or Verbal Aggression (repeating physical and/or verbal aggression in exactly the same way the model did)
Partial Imitative Behaviour of Aggression (generally imitating the model but not exactly)
Novel Aggressive Behaviour (showing aggression in ways the model did not show)

Question 9

quantitative findings

Answer 9

Boys watching an aggressive male model made 25.8 aggressive acts vs only 1.5 when watching a male non-aggressive model.
Boys showed on average 38.2 imitative physical aggressive acts and girls only 12.7.

Question 10

conclusions

Answer 10

children will only imitate behaviour of adult role model when the adult is still present
children learn aggressive behaviour by watching other people

Question 11

strengths

Answer 11

sample contained boys and girls
high level of control
matching participants to prior aggression levels
confidentiality maintained

Question 12

weaknesses

Answer 12

children from university nursery so middle to upper class so not representative of other children
limited range of ages