Bandura 1963

• To find out if children would became more agressive if exposed to an agressive role model in film or in a less realistic cartoon compared to watching a live model
• Bandura also wanted to test the popular idea that watching filmed agression might be cathartic (making people calmer because it 'vents' their agressive feelings
• To see if agression seen on film would be Imitated
• When made frustrated those who had watched agression would show agression more than those who hadn't watched such agression. Those more anxious about agression would show less imitarive act
• 96 children
• 48 boys 48 girls
• Aged 3-5
• Opportunity sample
• Three experimental groups with 24 children in each one and control group of 24
• Some watched a same sex model and some didn't
• Participants in the human film agression condition were in a darkened room and worked on potato prints while the film was running about 6 feet away from them
• Film condition there was a projector and screen
• The cartoon showed the female model dressed as a black cat and she behaved as a cartoon cat would. There was artificial grass, flowers and things to make the scene look artificial. There was also cartoon music at the end
• Agressive behaviour was measured in a different room and the children were made midly agressive before they went into the room to play
• Behaviour was recorded hy observers behind a one way mirror
• For each pp the observation lasted 20 minutes and observations took place at 5 second intervals. Therefore each pp had 240 responses recorded
• There was a high level of agreement between the two observers
• Responses recorded were

  . Imitative agressive

  . Partially Imitative acts

  . Mallet aggression

  . Non-imitarive agression
• Mean total real-life aggression

  83
• Mean total human life agression

  92
• Mean total cartoon agression

  99
• Mean total control group

  Agression

  54
• The researchers used a wilcoxon test and found that all 3 aggression groups differed significantly from the control group
• Those who observed the real life and those who observed the human film conditions against those in the control group showed a lot more imitative physical and verbal aggression
• No significant difference between live models and filmed or cartoon models
• Overall they concluded that it was human film model that led to more agression in relation to the control group this was more agression in total more imitarive agression more agressive fun play
• Concludes that children will imitate filmed agression in the same way as live agressive role models
• Conclude that watching filmed violence isn't cathartic. Instead of becoming less agressive after watching agressive or control conditions the children showed more agression
• 80% of those watching the real-life model and the human film model and 79% of those watching the cartoon model showed more imitative agression
• The researchers claim reliability for their findings as there were more than one observer and there were inter - observer reliability.
• There might be vicarious learning too as the model exhibiting agression wasn't punished
• The model might not have been directly rewarded either but if behaviour seemed acceptable to the child they may have imitated it bc they thought it was fine to do so
• Experimental method and the control conditions are the same in all ways expect for the iv. A control condition which also helps which was kept the same except for iv. This gives the results scientific credibility and cause and effect conclusions can be claimed
• Draws on the reliability and scientific credibility is that the results have practical application
• Validity. Children were in an artificial setting when their behaviour was being observed. There were no parents to use negative reinforcement to prevent the agression ahd the models seemed to get no punishment for their behaviour the children might not see it as wrong. Not real-life agression but modelled agression children thought they ought to display
• Generalisability, children from uni sample. Not right to generalise from this sample and say that all children watching agression would behave in same way. Having said that there seems to be no evidence to say that all children wouldn't use observational learning in such situations