Bandura

• Bandura, Ross and Ross(1961)

  • Aim: to see if children learn aggression from adult role models
  • Participants: 72 children aged 3-6years of age

  -all were assessed for natural levels of aggressions and matched to a similar child in other conditions
• Procedures:

  • A lab experiment was used
  • they were split into groups as:

  Those in the 'aggressive' condition saw an adult attack a 'Bobo doll'

  All children were then taken to a room with nice toys and told they couldn't play with them (to frustrate them)

  Then they were put in a play situation
• Findings:

  • those in the 'aggressive' conditions acted more aggressively
  • boys were more likely to imitate the same sex role model
  • boys imitated more physical aggression than girls
• conclusions:

  • This supports SLT as the children observed and imitated aggressive acts
  • Gender differences might be due to expectations the children had eg :how they were expected to behave