(25) Bandura Social Aggression Theory ‪@aicepsychology‬ AICE Psychology 9990 #bandura

Introduction to Bandura's Social Learning Theory

• The theory emphasizes that aggression is learned through observation rather than being innate.

• In the early 1960s, it was theorized that watching aggression could relieve internal aggression, which Bandura aimed to counter with his studies.

Background Concepts

Classical Conditioning

• Definition: Learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together.

• Key Elements:

  • Unconditioned Stimulus (US): Naturally elicits a response (e.g., thunder).

  • Unconditioned Response (UR): Natural reaction to the US (e.g., fear).

  • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Originally neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response (e.g., lightning).

  • Conditioned Response (CR): Learned response to the CS (e.g., fear at the sight of lightning).

• Example: Fear sparked by lightning after initially being connected to thunder.

Operant Conditioning

• Definition: Learning process through reinforcement or punishment.

• Types of Reinforcement/Punishment:

  • Positive Reinforcement: Giving something to increase desired behavior (e.g., rewards).

  • Negative Reinforcement: Taking something away to increase desired behavior (e.g., removing chores).

  • Positive Punishment: Giving something to decrease undesired behavior (e.g., scolding).

  • Negative Punishment: Taking something away to decrease undesired behavior (e.g., restricting privileges).

Bandura’s Experiment

Purpose and Hypotheses

• Aim: To show that aggressive behavior can be modeled and subsequently imitated by children.

• Key Hypotheses:

  • Children exposed to aggressive models will mirror aggressive acts.

  • Observations of non-aggressive models should inhibit aggression.

  • Children imitate same-sex models more than opposite-sex models.

Methodology

Structure of the Study

• Participants:

  • 72 children (36 boys, 36 girls) from a Stanford nursery school.

  • Lacked parental consent; ethical concerns about their participation.

Room Phases of the Experiment

1. Phase One: Introduction with a model

   • Children observe a model interacting with toys, including the Aggressive Model (either physical or verbal aggression) and Non-Aggressive Model (engaging with other toys).

2. Phase Two: Waiting period that introduced mild frustration

   • Children briefly allowed to play with appealing toys, then told these were for others, purposefully creating a mild aggressive response.

3. Phase Three: Free play observation

   • Children allowed to interact with toys without direction, with observers noting their interactions through a one-way mirror.

   • Data collected every 5 seconds for a total of 240 observations in each session.

Independent Variables

• Model type: Aggressive, Non-Aggressive, or No Model (control group).

• Model gender: same or opposite gender to the child.

• Learner's gender: whether the children were boys or girls.

Dependent Variables

• Measurements include any behaviors displayed by the child: imitative behavior, non-imitative aggression, overall aggression levels, etc.

• Eight categories were established for observational data:

  1. Imitative physical aggression

  2. Imitative verbal aggression

  3. Imitative non-aggressive verbal responses

  4. Non-aggressive behaviors towards the Bobo doll

  5. Aggressive actions towards the Bobo doll

  6. Non-imitative physical and verbal aggression

  7. Aggressive gunplay

Results

• Children who observed aggressive models exhibited significantly more physical and verbal imitation of aggression than those who observed non-aggressive models.

• Non-aggressive model group exhibited minimal aggression, confirming the social learning hypothesis.

• Boys showed higher rates of imitative aggression with male models, while girls displayed more verbal aggression in response to female models.

Generalizability and Reliability

• Despite balanced gender representation, the small sample size (only six per group) limits generalizable results.

• High reliability due to consistent exposure and controlled conditions for each child.

Application and Validity

• Findings suggest aggression is learned behavior influenced by environment.

• Implications for parenting and media consumption: Parents should be cautious about their children's exposure to violent depictions.

• Validity remains high due to effective control of extraneous variables in a lab setting.

Ethical Considerations

• Major ethical issues regarding lack of parental consent, debriefing, and potential psychological harm to children.

• Current standards would not allow for replication due to these ethical concerns; study serves as a cautionary tale regarding child studies in psychology.