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Bandura's study (1961) - Coggle Diagram
Bandura's study (1961)
Aim
To find out if children would show more aggressive behaviour if exposed to an aggressive role model and less aggressive behaviour if exposed to a non-aggressive role model
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DV
Bandura’s observers recorded the number of verbal, physical, mallet and gun play aggressive actions the children carried out; they also counted the number of acts of non-imitative aggression.
Sample
There were 72 children, which were 36 boys and 36 girls which were all between the ages of 3 and 5. They were also all recruited from Stanford University Nursery School.
Procedure
- The 72 children were split into 3 groups of 24 and 2 of the groups were split into 8 further groups. About half of the children saw same sex role models and the others saw an opposite sex role model, but the control group didn’t see different gender role models.
- Each child went into the room and depending on what group they were in saw different conditions. This was repeated for all of the children separately - standardised procedure
- The children then separately went into a different room to be observed by 3 observers (2 behind a mirror and 1 in the room) and recorded all different types of behaviours (imitative and non imitative aggression). They then recorded all the results in a table.
Results
There was very little aggressive behaviour in the non-aggressive role model condition and in the control condition; around 70% had a score of zero for aggression - they spent most of their time sitting quietly.
In general, a male role model had a bigger influence than a female role model - the male aggressive role model produced more aggressive behaviour and the male non-aggressive role model produced more calm.
Conclusion
Bandura concludes that behaviour can be learned by imitation even if it hasn’t been reinforced (as Skinner suggested). In fact, complex patterns of behaviour can be learned through imitation without needing reinforcement for each part.
The male role model was much more influential than the females and the boy’s showed a much greater tendency to engage in physical aggression - Bandura linked it to cultural expectations.
The verbal aggression with the girls imitating the female role model and the boys imitating the male role model - linked with people will imitate the model they most identify with.
Aggressive role models seem to weaken social inhibitions. You can see this by the control condition group who acted ‘naturally’ - when the children played with the aggressive toys, this is linked to cultural expectations and what the children are taught they are meant to play with.
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