Bandura

• Aim

  • To see whether children would imitate adult behaviour when given the opportunity, even if they saw these behaviours in a different environment and the model they observed was no longer present
  • Specifically it was aggressive behaviour that Bandura was interested in
• Hypothesis

  • Subjects exposed to aggressive models would reproduce aggressive acts resembling the models
  • Observation of non-aggressive models would have a generalised inhibiting effect on the subject's sequence behaviour
  • Subject could initiate the behaviour of a same-sex model more than opposite sex
  • Boys should be more pre-disposed than girls toward initiating aggression
• Sample

  • 72 children
  • 37 to 69 month old
  • Mean age of 52 months
  • 26 boys, 36 girls
  • Matched participant design - on gender and aggression
  • From Stanford uni nursery
• Independent variable

  • Age of children
  • Number of observers
  • Gender of children
• Model condition

  • Aggressive model female
  • Non-aggressive model female
  • Aggressive model male
  • Non-aggressive male
  • No model
• Procedure stage one (10 mins)

  • Each child was taken individually to a table in a room and given toys to play with including potato printing and stickers
  • The model proceeded to play with the tinker for one minute then go to the Bobo doll, laid it down sat on it and punched it before taking the mallet and striking the dolls head. They then tossed it around the room.
  • The sequence was repeated 3 times
• Non-aggressive model stage one

  • Each child was taken individually to a table in a room and given toys to play with including potato printing and stickers
  • An adult model sat at another table that had tinker toys, a Bobo doll and a mallet. The model played with the tinker toys and ignored the Bobo doll
• Stage 2 (2 mins)

  • Children were taken into a smaller room with an attractive toy e.g. a fire engine, a train, or a spinning top.
  • After two minutes, the experimenter told the child that these were the best toys and they couldn't play with them
• Stage 3 (20 mins)

  • In the third experiment all 72 kids were taken back to the main room and observed through a two-way mirror.
  • A record was made every 5 seconds of behaviour
  • Behaviours recorded
  • Imitate behaviours of physical or verbal aggression
  • Partial imitative behaviour of aggression
  • Non-aggressive behaviour
• Physical aggression test

  • Aggressive female - girls = 5.5
  • Aggressive male - boys = 25.8
• Verbal aggressive results

  • Aggressive female - girls = 13.7
  • Aggressive male - boys = 2.0
• Qualitative results

  • Showed children thought aggression is a male behaviour as they said: 'That ain't no way for a lady to behave' or 'That girl.. she was acting like a man.' when observing female models.