developmental : bandura

aim

• to see whether children would imitate the aggressive behaviour of an adult

• to look at gender differences in learning of aggression

method and design

• lab experiment

• controlled observation

• matched pairs design

sample

• 72 children (36 boys and 36 girls)

• aged 3-5 years

variables

IV’s :

• 3 model conditions

• aggressive, non aggressive and control

• male / female model and male / female child

DV :

• aggressive acts observed

• physical, verbal, partial, non

• covert observation

procedure

stage 1 :

• child taken to room to set out for play

• adult taken to opposite corner of room with small table, chair, tinker toy, mallet and bobo doll

• non aggressive - ignored bobo doll and quietly played with other toys

• aggressive - after 1 minute playing peacefully, acted aggressively towards bobo doll

stage 2 :

• child subjected to ‘mild aggression arousal’

• after being left to play with toys, experimenter comes in and tells them to stop as those toys are for other children

stage 3 :

• child taken to room with lots of toys (aggressive and non aggressive)

• child left for 20 mins

• observations made at 5 second intervals

results

• after watching an aggressive female model, girls showed violent behaviour 52 times and boys did 70 times

• after watching a male aggressive model, girls were violent 45 times and boys were violent 119 times

• in the non aggressive female condition, girls were aggressive 19 times and boys were aggressive 69 times

• in the non aggressive male condition, girls were aggressive 9 times and boys were aggressive 62 times

• in the control experiment with no model, girls showed violent behaviour 36 times and boys were violent 70 times

• overall higher aggression is shown after watching an aggressive act

conclusions

• children exposed to the aggressive models showed significantly more imitation of physical and verbal aggressive behaviour then children in the non aggressive or control conditions

• gender of the model did influence the children’s behaviour, they were more likely to cope the behaviour of a same sex model

• overall biys showed more aggressive behaviour than girls

sampling bias

• all children from Stanford uni nursery

• similar backgrounds so possibly can’t generalise to wider population

• slightly small sample

validity

• validity lowered due to previous mild aggressive arousal

• high ecological as room set up with toys for children and playing is normal task for them

• high internal as genuine behaviour shown

ethics

• children can’t give their own consent, parents did for them

• these children may be more aggressive as a result as they may learn the behaviour (socially sensitive)

research method

• controlled observation

• high level of control e.g. matching all ppts at the same base level of aggression

type of data

• quantitative data - number of children that imitated behaviour, genders recorded

• easy to analyse and compare

• but no quantitative so lacks insight

reliability

• high reliability

• all had mild aggressive arousal before observed

• used standardise procedures

practical applications

• shows the importance of early environment on shaping behaviour

• teaching practices (who is a child most likely to imitate)
  age ratings, films, video games

• parenting

• 9pm watershed in the uk

ethnocentrism

• is ethnocentric

• as research from America

• similar socioeconomic background

• but not really an issue as not trying to generalise any cultural influences to anywhere else