Paper2: Developmental-Bandura et al

Question 1

Describe the aim to Bandura

Answer 1

• Bandura et al’s research set out to understand how aggression is transmitted to a child from models in their environment.

Question 2

What did researchers believe before they conducted the study?

Answer 2

• Boys were more aggressive than girls.
• Seeing aggressive behaviour would result in the child showing aggressive behaviour.
• Observing a non-aggressive person would reduce the amount of aggression displayed by a child.
• Children would imitate a same sex model more than an opposite sex model.

Question 3

Where did the study take place?

Answer 3

• Stanford University

Question 4

Describe the sample?

Answer 4

• 72 children,
• aged from 37-69 months
• with an average of 52 months.

Question 5

What were all the children matched for before the study?

Answer 5

• Children were matched on the basis of their pre-existing aggressivenes
• rated on a 5-point scale by the experimenter and nursery school teacher prior to the experiment.

Question 6

What design were all three studies?

Answer 6

• matched-pairs design

Question 7

What was the independent variable?

Answer 7

• whether the role model was aggressive or non-aggressive,
• whether the role model was the same sex or opposite sex to the child; there was also
• a Control condition where the children did not see a role model at all.

Question 8

What was the dependent variable?

Answer 8

• recorded the number of verbal, physical, mallet and gun-play aggressive actions the children carried out
• they also counted the number of acts of non-imitative aggression.

Question 9

How were the children separated?

Answer 9

• split into 8 experimental groups with 6 children in each and a control group of 24 children
• Half of the experimental group saw an aggressive role model and half saw a non-aggressive role model.
• groups split so that half saw a same sex role model and half saw an opposite sex role model.

Question 10

What was stage1?

Answer 10

modelling

Question 11

describe Stage1 of bandura?

Answer 11

1. individually put in toy room for 10mins
2. 24 children exposed to aggressive - model hit bobo doll
3. 24 children exposed to non-aggressive
4. 24 children exposed to no model

Question 12

What was stage2?

Answer 12

aggression arousal

Question 13

Describe stage2?

Answer 13

1. all children taken individually to separate room
2. all toys were nice, non-aggressive
3. child plays with toys
4. toys are taken away to stimulate aggression

Question 14

what was stage 3?

Answer 14

test for delayed imitation

Question 15

Describe stage3

Answer 15

1. all children put in room with aggressive and non-aggressive toys
2. all left for 20mins each
3. observed through 1way mirror
4. all imitation of model behaviours were recorded in 5secs intervals

Question 16

Describe the overall results

Answer 16

boys did imitate more physical aggression than girls, but not verbal aggression.
seeing aggressive behaviour resulted in the child showing more aggressive behaviour
Aggression was also showed to dampen down when the children saw a non-aggressive model.

Question 17

Describe the gender results

Answer 17

Boys were shown to imitate more imitative aggression non-imitative aggression when they observed a male rather than female model.
girls imitated more physical, when they observed a male role model.

Question 18

Describe the conclusions

Answer 18

aggression could be influenced by role models and aggressive acts which has been seen would often be imitated.
boys and girls show different patterns of imitation to same versus opposite-sex models.
a non-aggressive model reduced the amount of aggression displayed by both genders.

Question 19

Describe the strengths of the study

Answer 19

high ecological validity because of the task of playing with toys which is very realistic.
high replicability to check that the data is reliable.

Question 20

Describe the weaknesses to the study

Answer 20

conditions had a very small number of behaviours that were recorded which reduces potential reliability.
long-term consequences have also not been considered
data cannot be generalised to adults

Question 21

Describe the ethics in bandura

Answer 21

children may have been under significant distress by watching the adult be aggressive
sample came from a small group from one nursery at a prestigious university,

Question 22

Describe the nature/nurture debate

Answer 22

nature - boys were more physically aggressive than girls due to genetics or testosterone
nurture - Observation and imitation of role models led to aggressive behaviour

Question 23

Describe the usefulness debate

Answer 23

role models
media
social workers

Question 24

Describe relaibility

Answer 24

High inter-rater reliablility
Standardised procedure so it can be replicated

Question 25

Describe ethnocentrism

Answer 25

USA has high rates of aggression so they will be more likely to imitate it