Bandura

Bandura

1. Background

   • Social learning theory - people learn through observation of adult role models whose actions they imitate

2. Aims

   • 1. P's who witnessed aggressive behaviour would reproduce aggressive acts resembling their motives; 2. observation of non-aggressive models would have a subsequent effect on the subjects' behaviour; 3. P's would imitate the behaviour of a same-sex model more than a model of the opposite sex; 4. boys should be more pre-disposed than girls to imitating aggression

3. Research method

   • Lab experiment
     • IVs: 1. gender of model - male/female; 2. gender of child - boy/girl; 3. model behaviour - aggressive/non-aggressive
   • Matched groups design
     • Children were matched based on their initial aggression levels so there were no confounding variables based on initial aggression
   • Model conditions
     • Aggressive same sex
     • Aggressive opposite sex
     • Non-aggressive same sex
     • Non-aggressive opposite sex

4. Sample

   • 72 children (half male half female) aged between 37 and 69 months. From Stanford University Nursery. Mean age is 52 months

5. Pre-testing

   • Control for participant variables. Rated on a scale of 1-5 for four categories. Rated by nursery teacher and experimenter.
     • i) Physical aggression; ii) Verbal aggression; iii) Aggression towards inanimate objects; iv) Aggression inhibition (not showing aggression when provoked)
       • inter-rater reliability = 0.89
         • Consistency between raters of a behaviour using the same method to measure it

6. Controls

   • Toys were always laid out in the same way so children always saw toys in same order
   • The aggressive model always acted in the same way
   • The rooms children were sent to were always the same

7. Observation categories

   • Children were observed one-by-one by the male model through a one-way mirror
     • A record was made every 5 seconds of behaviour from children
   • Imitative behaviour
     • Physical aggression
       • Striking Bobo with mallet, sitting on doll and punching it in the nose, kicking the doll, tossing it in the air
     • Verbal aggression
       • "Sock him", "Hit him down"
     • Verbal non-aggressive
       • "He keeps coming back for more", "He sure is a tough fella"
   • Partially imitative behaviour
     • Mallet aggression (objects other than Bobo), Sits on Bobo doll (non-aggressively)
   • Non-imitative behaviour
     • Aggressive gun play, phrases not said by the models, punching the Bobo doll
   • Time sampling

8. Conclusions

   • Children learn social behaviour (e.g. aggression) through observation of a model
   • Important implications for the effects of media violence on children

9. Ethnocentrism

   • Highly ethnocentric as it only contained children from one area in the USA so the results can't be applied elsewhere

10. Ethics

    • Upheld: Consent, confidentiality
    • Broken: withdrawal, protection from harm, deception, debriefing

11. Reliability

    • Internal: the procedure was very specific and lots of controls were put in place
    • Inter-rater
      • Pre-testers agreed with each other at 0.89. Maximum is 1
      • Results were recorded every 5 seconds so experimenters knew what happened as it was happening
    • External: Sample consisted of 72 children but experimental group only consisted of 6 children each. Not large enough to suggest a consistent effect

12. Validity

    • Internal: Entails how observing an adult - children do this all the time (high). Artificial setting means other factors can't be assessed (low)
    • Ecological: Children would not normally be asked to play alone and directed through different rooms to play (low)
    • Population: The sample was very limited so it can't be generalised to all children. Adults don't learn in the same way as children (low)

13. Debates

    • Nurture: Being brought up with aggressive models will make one learn to copy the aggressive models
    • Socially sensitive: Negative effects on the children at the time, and could encourage aggression
    • Situational: Observing aggressive behaviour means that someone will act aggressively
      • Individual: Males acted more aggressively than females- gender is an individual attribute