Bandura (1961) Flashcards
What were the aims of Bandura’s study?
- To see if children would copy an adult’s aggressive behaviour towards a Bobo doll
- To see if children were more likely to copy the aggressive behaviours of adults of the same sex
- To see if boys were more likely to copy the aggressive behaviours than girl
Who were used in the sample?
72 boys and girls with an average age of 4 years old.
What type of method was used?
Lab
What participant design was used?
Matched pairs
What were the 3 different conditions?
1) Control group
2) Aggressive model
3) Non-aggressive model
What were the 3 IVs?
1) Condition children were exposed to
2) Gender of the child
3) Gender of the adult
What were the 2 DVs?
1) Number of physical aggressive acts displayed
2) Number of verbal aggressive acts displayed
Briefly describe the procedure of this study.
- Child was put in opposite corner of room to the adult and Bobo doll
- Adults in the aggressive model physically attacked the doll with a mallet and verbally abused the doll by saying “pow”
- Adults in the non-aggressive model ignored the Bobo doll and played with other toys
- Child then put in a room with other toys but was told it couldn’t play with them to elicit ‘mild aggression arousal’
- Child then put in a room with non-aggressive, such as crayons, and aggressive toys, such as the Bobo doll
- Child was kept in that room for 20 mins where behaviour was observed through a one-way mirror by 2 observers
- Observations were made at 5 second intervals
What were the results of Bandura’s study?
- Boys imitated more aggression than girls
- Boys watching aggressive male model imitated 25.8 of the actions
- Girls watching aggressive female model imitated 5.5 of the actions
- Girls copied more verbal aggressive acts
- Boys copied more physical aggressive acts
- Children exposed to aggressive condition copied more aggressive acts
Evaluate the generalisability using a low point.
P - Low
E - Used a sample of 72 boys and girls
E - This does not represent how adults would observe and reproduce behaviour of their role models due to being significantly different in context to the role models of children
Evaluate the reliability using 2 high points.
P - High
E - Standardised procedure such as observing children at 5 second intervals for 20 mins
E - Making the study accurately replicable to test for consistency of results
P - High inter-rater
E - Included 2 observers who agreed 89% of the time
E - Removes subjectivity and makes the results objective
Are there any applications?
P - Yes
E - Highlights how children will imitate the behaviour of role models
E - This can help parenting by behaving around a child they way you would want them to behave, such as not shouting at them for doing something wrong as they will likely shout and be aggressive back
Evaluate the validity using 2 low points.
P - Low
E - Children had never seen a Bobo doll before so maybe they thought they were supposed to hit it
E - Therefore no cause and effect could be established because they thought that was how you play with it rather than actually being aggressive
P - Low ecological
E - Carried out in an artificial environment where the model and the child were strangers
E - Doesn’t represent how children would observe and imitate behaviour in real life
Evaluate an ethical issue.
P - Unethical
E - The children were deliberately encouraged to be aggressive with no talk of removing that aggression
E - And so children may have been aggressive after the study which they should have countered by showing a pro-social role model to calm them down
