Bandura, Ross study

Bandura, Ross study

1. The aim of Bandura's study was to demonstrate that if children were passive witnesses to an aggressive display by an adult they would imitate this aggressive behaviour when given the opportunity.

2. Sample: 72 children selected from the Stanford University nursery after obtaining parental permission. 36 boys and 36 girls, aged between 37 months -69 months.. Average age 52 months.

   • Two adult roles models for the child to imitate. One male model and one female.
   • In order to ensure no confounding variables occurred, children were pretested by the researchers for how aggressive they were. They did this by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behaviour on four point rating-scales. The rating scales were aggression inhibition, physical aggression, verbal aggression and aggression towards non-animate objects.
     • Observers were the female experimenter, the male model and a female school nursery teacher
       • To test inter-rater reliability 51 of the children were observed and coded by two observers. Inter-rater reliability was found to be very high at 0.89

3. The researchers made the following 4 predictions: "...subjects exposed to aggressive models will reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of the models..." "...the observation of non-aggressive models will have a generalised inhibiting effect on the subject's subsequent behaviour..." "...subjects will imitate the behaviour of a same-sex model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex..." "...boys will be more predisposed than girls towards imitating aggression..."

4. The study was a lab experiment. The design was a match paired design. There were three IVs: The condition the children were placed in (Non-aggressive, aggressive, control), the gender of the model and the gender of the child.

   • Conditions were divided equally into three groups of 24 children each. They were further divided based upon the gender of the children. 12 boys and 12 girls. The 12 boys and 12 girls were further halved based upon the gender of the role model they would imitate. Therefore, 6 boys would be imitating the male role model and 6 boys would imitate the female role model in the aggressive condition. While 6 girls observed a male model and 6 girls observed a female model in the aggressive condition.
     • In the control condition, no role models were used.

5. Procedure

   • In stage one of the experiment children were brought to the experimental room by the experimenter. The model was also invited to come in and join in the game. The room was set out for play and the activities were chosen because they had been noted to have high interest for nursery school children. One corner was arranged as the child's play area, where there was a small table and chair, potato prints and picture stickers. After settling the child in its corner the adult model was escorted to the opposite corner of the room where there was a small table, chair, tinker-toy set, a mallet and a five foot inflatable Bobo doll. After the model was seated the experimenter left the experimental room. In the non-aggressive condition, the model ignored Bobo and assembled the tinker-toys in a quiet, gentle manner. In the aggressive condition the model began by assembling the tinker-toys, but after one minute turned to Bobo and was aggressive to the doll in a very stylised way.
     • An example of physical aggression was "raised the Bobo doll and pommeled it on the head with a mallet", An example of verbal aggression was, "Pow!" and "Sock him in the nose". After ten minutes the experimenter entered and took the child to a new room which the child was told was another games room.
       • In stage two the child was subjected to 'mild aggression arousal'. The child was taken to a room with relatively attractive toys. As soon as the child started to play with the toys the experimenter told the child that these were the experimenter's very best toys and she had decided to reserve them for the other children.
         • Then the child was taken to the next room for stage three of the study where the child was told it could play with any of the toys in there. The experimenter stayed in the room "otherwise a number of children would either refuse to stay alone, or would leave before termination of the session". In this room there was a variety of both non-aggressive and aggressive toys. The non-aggressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears and plastic farm animals. The aggressive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns, and a 3 foot Bobo doll.
           • The child was kept in this room for 20 minutes during which time their behaviour was observed by judges through a one-way mirror. Observations were made at 5-second intervals therefore giving 240 response units for each child.

6. Response Measures by the children

   • Imitation of physical aggression, imitation of verbal aggression such as "Pow", "Sock him in the nose" and Imitation of non-aggressive verbal behaviours were quite common.
     • Some imitations were not completely similar to the Models, these included Mallet aggression (hitting toy with mallet), sitting on bobo.
     • Three aggressive behaviours that were not imitations of the model's behaviour included aggressive gun play, punching bobo, non-imitative physical and verbal aggression

7. Results

   • The children in the aggressive condition made more aggressive responses than children in non-aggressive condition. Boys made more aggressive responses than girls. Boys in the aggressive model conditions showed more aggressive conditions if the model was male than if the model was female. The Girls in the aggressive conditions also showed more physical aggressiveness if the model was male but more verbal aggressive responses if the model was female. (Case reversed in case of punching Bobo)
   • Bandura reported that the aggression of the female model had a confusing effect on the children, perhaps because it did not fit in with their prior learning about what is culturally appropriate behaviour. For example, one of the children said, "Who is that lady? That's not the way for a lady to behave. Ladies are supposed to act like ladies...", and another child said, "You should have seen what that girl did in there. She was punching and fighting but no swearing".
   • However the aggressive behaviour of the male model fitted more comfortably into a cultural stereotype of appropriate behaviour. For example, one boy said, "Al's a good sucker, he beat up Bobo. I want to sock like Al", and one of the girls said, "That man is a strong fighter, he punched and punched and he could hit Bobo right down to the floor and if Bobo got up he said, 'Punch your nose', He’s a good fighter like Daddy."

8. Strengths: Replicable, control, Validity. Weakness; Ethical concerns, low ecological validity.