Social Cognitive Theory

Studies

Bandura (1961) Terms to define

• Social cognitive theory

• Attention

• Retention

• Motivation

• Potential role model

Bandura (1961) Aim

To investigate whether aggression can be learned through observation and imitation

Bandura (1961) Procedure

• 36 young boy and 36 young girls

• Before the experiment they were tested for their levels of agression, wich thy tsted using a 5-point rating scale with the purpose of matching the children with others that have a similar agression level to reduce a possible effect on the results of the study (example for matched-pairs design)

• Individual children were taken to a room containing a variety of toys and were given 10 minutes to play in the room, while being observed by the researchers

• There were 3 observation groups: 1. consisted on 24 children who watched eaither a male or female model behving in an agressive manner towards a doll, also using verbal agression towards the doll. 2. a different set of the same sample size watched a non-agressive model who played quitely with the toys without any form of physical or verbal agression. 3. this group was the control group consisting of the same sample size and these children werent shown any model

• The children then were taken to another room that contained a variety of attractive and exciting toys and played for two minutes before the experimenter said that “those were her very best toys” and that she has decided to reserve them for other children, this with the purpose of frustrating them and thereby prime for agression.

• After this they were led to another room and were allowed to play with any of the toys in the room, while bieng observed and their behavior was scored for agression

Bandura (1961) Results

• Children from group 1, who observed agressive models had far more gressive behavior than children from groups 2 and 3, who were exposed to non-agressive models or to no model

• The children often exhibited the exact same forms of physical and verbal behavior seen in the models

• Differences in behavior between boys and girls were observed. Boys tended to imitate more of the physically-agressive acts than girls, and were more likely than girls to imitate models of the same gender

• Little difference between boys and girls with regard to verbal agression, however girls in group 1, were shown to be more likely to display physical agression if the model was male

• The children not only imitated behavior they observed, but they also exhibited agressive behavior that was not learned in the context of the experiment (e.x. used a toy gun to display agression towards the doll)

• Children were not blindly modelling specific behaviors, but that they seemed to understand that the type of behavior exhibited towards the doll was agression, therefore they used other acts of agression they may have observed somewhere else (tv, books, stories, surroundings”

Bandura (1961) Evaluation

The findigs can be interpreted this as a meaning that social learning had taken place, and that similarity to role models (male or female) appeared to be an important factor in the social learning

Kimball (1986) Terms to define

• Social cognitive theory

• Attention

• Retention

• Motivation

• Potential role model

Kimball (1986) Aim

Too study the impact of telvision on children’s aggressive behavior by carrying out a longitudinal natural experiment

Kimball (1986) Procedure

• 120 children in the sample

• Conducted in three small towns in British Columbia, Canada, first in 1973, when one town, Notel, did not have television recpton, and again in 1975, two years after Notel recieved one Canadian channel

• Two other towns in the same region that already had television programming for several years were also observed

• They observed both physical and verbal agressive behavior displayed by the children of an elementary school on the playground

• Additionally teacher and peer ratings of agressive behavior and information about television habits were obtained

Kimball (1986) Results

• The aggressive behavior of children in Notel increased significantly from 1973 to 1975, whereas, the gressive behavior of children in the other two towns did not change significantly over the same period of time

• The peer and teacher ratings supported the findings

• The males were more physically aggressive than females

• The childrens favourite tv shows shoed no differences between aggressive and less aggressive children

Kimball (1986) Evaluation

• The most probable explanation of increased aggression in Notel children was heightened arousal, resulting from Notel children’s lack of familiarity with television

• Heightened arousal would result in a greater likelihood of aggression

Social cognitive theory and studies general evaluation

• A gap exists between whn one observes the model and when one may demonstrate the behavior, therefore it is difficult to establish that the behavior is the result of observing the model

• The social learning theory does not explain why some people never learn a behavior, despite of meeting all the criteria

• There are difficulties in measuring self-efficacy

• The studies were natural experiments (Kimball more than Bandura"), therefore the researcher cannot control other possible external variables

• Studies in laboratories lack ecological validity