Bandura 1963

• what were the aim?

  see if aggression can be imitated - also to see if viewing relevant violence had more effect than less relevant voilence
• how many participants were there?

  48 boys and 48 girls
• what age where the participants?

  3 to 5 years old
• what models did they have?

  1 female model and one male model
• how many experimental groups were there?

  3 experimental groups and 1 control group
• how many participants in each group?

  24
• what did group 1 see?

  real life study - data collected from bandura 1961
• what did group 2 see?

  filmed model aggression
• what did group 3 see?

  cartoon violence was a film of the female model dressed as a cat (no male model cat)
• what did the control group see?

  no aggressive behaviour was modelled
• what was the aggression arousal stage

  following the exposure all four of the children were then individually placed into a separate room with an experimenter where they were exposed to a mildly frustrating situation to create aggression
• what was the observation stage?

  the children were allowed to play freely in an adjoining room which was ful of toys - including a bobo doll and "weapons" that were used by models - researchers observed the children and noted interaction with the bobo doll
• how were the result recorded?

  noted down an observation every 5 seconds for 20 mins while the child played - through a one way mirror
• why was it cartoon and films in the groups?

  people were worried that the portrayal of aggression through pictorial media may be influential in shaping the form of aggression will take rather than in altering the level of instigation of aggression
• what were the results?

  • children exposed to aggressive behaviour whether real life, film or cartoon exhibited nearly twice as much aggressive behaviour than the control group
  • 80% of the watching real life model and 97% of those watching cartoon showed signs of imitative aggression
  • boys exhibited more over all aggression that girls
• what else did bandura find?

  • boys exhibited more total aggression, more imitative aggression and aggressive gun play than girls
  • boys and girls were more likely to imitate a same sex role model, suggesting that gender of model and sex appropriates of behaviour is an important factor
• what were the conclusions?

  • observation of filmed aggression may lead to imitative aggression
  • the idea that watching aggression is cathartic (psychodynamic) and reduces aggression but that was rejected
• what was the positive generalisability ?

  male and female participants & role models - findings are not restrictive to one gender
• what was negative about the generalisability?

  all the participants were 3 to 5 years old - older children and adults plus more violent children can not be generalised
• what was the good reliability?

  good external reliability - highly standardised procedure, also possible to replicate - bandura 61 and 65 have found similar results

  highly standardised procedure - good internal reliability - same female and male model used in all groups
• what is negative about the validity?

  • the setting was very artificial and so the ecological validity as the aggression was not typical aggression
  • demand characteristic - the children may be have been initiated by the cartoon/film/model and they thought that was what they were meant to do
  • internal validity - the behaviour observed may have been better described as 'play' rather than aggression
• what is the application?

  education and parenting - if children observe cartoons behaving in that way then they are likely to imitate that and therefore censorship on the media is needed
• what are the ethics of the study?

  informed consent as the children were 3 to 5 years old - parents and mothers would have consented for them to be in the study

  protection of participants - exposing children to violent imagery and a situation that was expected to create aggression