Bandura 1961 small details

• 36 girls 36 boys
• Aged from 37 to 69 months
• Male role model, female role model and female experimenter
• 8 experimental groups each with 6 pps
• Control group of 24 participants
• They were rated on a 5 part scale covering

  . Physical agression

  . Verbal aggression

  . Aggression towards objects

  . Aggressive inhibition
• They were rated by an experimenter and a nursery school teacher
• Pps were then grouped into threes according to aggression ratings and were allocated randomly to the control group a group that watched an aggressive model. Group watched a non-agressibe model
• Doll was laid on it side and the model sat on it and punched it
• Model struck doll on head with mallet
• Verbal aggression such as the model saying sock him on the nose and verbal comments that weren't aggressive
• The control htroup underwent the same procedures with regard to play but there was no model present
• Three types of imitation were measured

  . Imitation of physical aggression

  . Imitation of verbal aggression

  . Imitation of non-agressive verbal responses
• In the non aggressive condition and in the control group very little aggressive behaviour was found around 70% of these pps had a 0 score for aggression
• About 1/3 of those in the aggressive condition also imitated the models non aggressive responses no one in the other two conditions made such remarks
• The mallet was used aggressively on objects other than the bobo doll to a greater extent by those in the aggressive and control conditions than by those in the non aggressive group. Perhaps modelling subdued non aggressive behavioureads to less aggression
• Girls who observed a non aggressive model performed a mean number of 0.5 mallet aggressive responses compared with 18 for girls in aggressive condition and 13.1 for girl in control condition
• A male model had more influence on behaviour than a male model
• No significant differences between the non-agressibe group and to control group
• No sex differences were found with regard to farm animals, cars or toys
• Verbal aggression there was a gender focus in that girls imitated the female model more with regard to verbal agressok. 13.7 for female model compared with 2 for male model. 4.3 for female model compared with 12. 7 for male model
• Overall conclusion was that observing aggressive behaviour may weaken social inhibitions particularly if the behaviour is performed by adults and observed by children
• Study was a carefully set up and controlled laboratory experiment. For example care was taken to get the children into a similar emotional state before the observation and to set up measurable acts that could be recorded. This means that cause ahd effects conclusions could be drawn because the variables were isolated and operationalised with controls
• One judge didn't know to which condition the child has been allocated a blind procedure was used to avoid bias when recording the play behaviour. Therefore the results were reliable
• Bandura, Ross and Ross conclude that there might be cultural issues in what is observed so a study set within one culture might not have findings that are geberalisablr to other cultures