Bandura Study Summary PDF

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Bandura’s Study Background: Concerned with the imitation of behaviour by children in social situationsparticularly aggression. They previously found that children would imitate behaviours shown by an adult model. External influences on Children: Many possible external influences on a child and can be varied: - Culture or social conventions - Behavioural influences - Role models in the media - Parenting styles

Aim: To investigate whether the observed aggressive behaviour would be shown in a range of settings if when the model was no longer present. Hypotheses: - Boys= more aggressive than girls - Seeing aggressive behaviour- child will show aggressive behaviour - Observing a non aggressive person- reduces amount of aggression in child - Children would imitate the same sex model more than the opposite sex model Participants: - Children in nursery at Stanford University - 72 children (37-69 months) – average is 52 months - To control individual differences in aggression levels- first observed by researcher then nursery teacher - They were scored on physical and verbal aggression (aggression towards inaminate objects & tendency to not show aggression if provoked) Method, IV & DV - Lab experiment IV: 1) Whether the child witnessed a non aggressive or aggressive adult model 2) Sex of the adult model 3) Sex of the child DV: amount of imitative behaviour & aggression shown by child in phase 3 - Measured by male model and at times second researched observing child through a one way mirror and noting down at 5 second intervals

Experimental Design: - Independent measures & matched participants design - Matched through procedure which pre rated them for aggressiveness - Rated on 4 5-point rating scales by the experimented and a nursery school teacher - Theses scales measured extent to which kids showed physical Aggression, verbal aggression towards inanimate objects and aggressive inhabitation - Inter rate reliability for these scores was very high - Participants arranged in triplets and randomly assigned to one of the experimental groups or to control group

Groups: - Boy + male aggressive/non aggressive model - Boy +female aggressive/non aggressive model - Girl + male aggressive/non aggressive model - Girl + female aggressive/non aggressive model FIRST STAGE: - Child goes in room for 10 mins and shown play area - Adult in the room playing with construction toys, bobo doll and hammer - For one group model sat down and played quietly (non aggressive condition) - Other group: model was aggressive with bobo doll (aggressive condition) SECOND STAGE: - Children were then taken to arouse some aggression in them because previous research has shown that witnessing aggression has an immediate effect on reducing aggression - To avoid this: children taken to second room where there were some lovely toys - Researched then came and said they cannot play with those toys to arouse aggression THIRD STAGE: - In third room- child shown toys which included all the toys in 1st room: bobo doll, dart guns and a ball hanging form the ceiling - Some non aggressive toys were there too - Child allowed to play with anything and was observed for 20 mins through a one way mirror Observed different behaviours and recorded them every 5 secs for a period of play- 240 observations made. 1) Imitative aggression 2) Partially imitative aggression 3) Non imitative physical and verbal aggression 4) Non aggressive behaviour

Results: - Boys did imitate significantly more physical aggression than girlsbut not verbal aggression - Found that seeing aggression resulting in more aggressive behaviour- created largest difference between both aggressive vs non aggressive conditions & aggressive vs controls - Aggression shown to dampen down when the children saw a non aggressive model Aggression & Gender Results - Boys were shown to imitate more imitative aggression, mallet aggression, aggressive gun play when they observed a male model - Girls imitated more physical, mallet and bobo doll punching and aggressive gun play when they observed a male model: maybe because acceptable for man to show aggression Conclusions: 1) Aggression could be influenced by role models and aggressive acts which has been seen would often be imitated 2) But there was increase in non imitative aggression 3) Showed boys and girls show different patterns of imitation to same vs opposite sex models 4) Non aggressive model reduced amount of aggression displayed in both genders Strengths: - High ecological validity because of task of playing with toys- realistic - Matched control across baseline aggression, gender and age- ensures no individual cofounds (reduces extraneous variables so increases internal validity) - Study has high replicability to check that data is reliable Weaknesses: - Some had a very small number of behaviours that were recorded which reduces potential reliability - Same came from small group from one nursery at a prestigious university - Children so cannot be generalized to adults Ethics: - Kids under significant distress by watching adult be aggressive or when toys taken away - Long term consequences not considered: significant non imitative aggression so they might have grown up to be more aggressive - Informed consent- was it fully agreed?...