Bandura, Ross & Ross (1961) - Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models (LEARNING)
Aim
Sample
To investigate if children would show more aggression if exposed to an aggressive adult role model and less aggression to a non-aggressive adult role model.
To investiagte if the sex of the role model and the child made a difference, specifically to see if the children were more likely to imitate a same sex role model and if boys were more aggressive than girls.
72 children between the ages of 3 to 5 years old from Stanford University Nursery School (36 male and 36 female). - opportunity sample
Procedure
Two adults, one male and one female, acted as role models for the aggressive and non-aggressive conditions. The 72 children were split into 3 conditions: aggressive role model, non-aggressive role model and no role model (control), where 48 children were split into 8 experimental groups each with 6 participants and the remaining 24 in the control group. Half the children saw a same-sex role model and half saw an opposite-sex role model. There were 3 rooms: the model room, the arousal room and the observation room.
In the aggressive conditions, the model played with the tinker toy for 1 minute and then acted aggressively towards the bobo doll for 9 minutes. Physical aggression included pushing, punching, kicking, hitting with mallet, sitting on it and verbal aggression included "pow", "kick him" and "hit him down".
In the non-aggressive conditions, the model sat quietly in the corner playing with the tinker toy and ignored the bobo doll.
After all the conditions took place for 10 minutes, the child was taken to another room with all the toys and after 2 minutes the toys were taken from them to provoke mild frustration arousal. In the final room, the children were allowed to play with a variety of toys and were observed via a one-way mirror for 20 minutes. Behaviours such as imitative and non-imitative as well as physical and verbal were recorded and then given aggression scores.
Method
Bandura's laboratory experiment and natural used independent measures (with matched pairs).
Results
Overall, children exposed to an aggressive role model displayed significantly more imitative aggression than the ones exposed to non-aggressive role models. For example, 25.8 male participants showed imitative physical aggression due to the aggressive role model but only 1.5 did due to a non-aggressive role model.
The boys overall had higher aggression scores than the girls.
Girls showed more verbal aggression when exposed to an aggressive female role model and boys showed more physical and verbal aggression when exposed to an aggressive male role model.
Conclusions
When children observe the behaviour of a role model, they are likely to imitate that behaviour through vicarious (observational) learning.
Learning can be indirect and new behaviors can be learned simply by observing others.
Evaluation
✓ Reliability - Bandura's study had high inter-rater reliability as he used 2 observers behind the one-way mirror and consistency was present as the observers had 0.89 co-efficient correlation in rating prior aggression. His procedure used a standardised procedure meaning all the participants experienced the same experiences (such as all the same toys), making it also replicable which was seen in his two other variations in 1963 and 1965
✗ Generalisability - The sample of 72 participants was ethnocentric as all the children were collected from one university in America. The children were from nursery at an academically established university, suggesting their parents may be of similar socio-economic backgrounds. This reduced the generalisability as observational learning may occur differently across other global cultures. Furthermore, the findings of children's observational learning can't be generalised to adult age groups.
✓ - Application - The findings can be applied to parenting and teaching styles. It suggests children observe and imitate adults, so to instil good habits and morals, parents and teachers need to keep their temper and keep them away from aggressive role models. Calm role models have a significant effect, which might apply to “buddy” systems used in schools or prisons to help troubled students or prisoners learn from a role model.
✗ Validity - This study had high internal validity due to the standardised procedures used such as the timings of how long the role model played with the toys (10 minutes) and the child being observed later (20 minutes). This meant all the participants experienced the same conditions so behaviour was measured accurately.
However, there may have been low mundane realism since it was unusual that the children were taken to a room to play with toys and were encouraged by a role model to possibly act in a certain way. For instance, a bobo doll is designed to be hit and knocked over and being watched through a one-way mirror meant the children may have known they were being watched. This may have given rise to demand characteristics where the children may have guessed what was being asked of them to satisfy or dissatisfy the aim.
Finally, this study has low ecological validity as the children's behaviour was observed and tested in artificial, unnatural settings compared to usual. So, observational learning behaviours found may have been invalid.
BALANCED CONCLUSION
The findings of Bandura's study show how much impact the environment of a child can have on their behaviour, since they will learn and imitate those that are shown by, for example, their siblings or parents. Therefore, behaviourism theories like SLT are useful in explaining how behaviour is learned. However, it's also important to consider the biological role in a child's behaviour, since certain biochemical compositions such as testosterone levels, can change the effects of models and the mood of individuals.
✗ Ethics - Although the children could not give valid consent to take part, their nursery teachers agreed and it is assumed the children’s parents gave presumptive consent. The children couldn't withdraw from the study and no effort seems to have been made to debrief them afterwards by explaining that the aggressive role models were only pretending. Furthermore, the children may have been caused distress from the aggression shown by the role models which violates 'protection from harm' as they may not have left the study as they entered it. This is an example of the BPS guideline's 'normalising unhelpful behaviours' to carry out a study.
The children were brought into a room and the role model was invited in. The child sat in a corner and overheard the experimenter tell the role model that the various toys like a 5-foot Bobo doll, a mallet, a tinker toy (etc) were theirs and not for the child to play with.
The children were seen repeating the physical and verbal behaviours used by the role models.