Bandura 63

• Experiment was looking at copying behaviour of TV characters
• Aim: to compare imitative behaviours when  children watch an aggressive model in the same room as them, on film using cartoon characters 
• Sample: 

  • 48 boys and 48 girls from one nursery school in the USA were used
  • Age ranged from 35-69 months to
  • children were divided into three experimental groups and one control group with 24 participants in each
• Aim: to compare imitative behaviours when  children watch an aggressive model in the same room as them, on film using cartoon characters 
• Children were divided into three experimental groups: real life model, human model being aggressive on film and an aggression cartoon character. There was also a control group, 24 participants in each group. They were separated into gender. The gender of the role model was either male or female.
• 1. Real life aggression group: Children were sat at one corner of the room with potato prints, stickers and coloured paper. The model was at the opposite corner of the room with a small table, chair, tinker toy set, mallet and BoBo doll. The experimenter left and the model played with the toys. After one minute the model carried out distinctive physical and verbal acts: hit and punched the Bobo doll, hit the BoBo doll with a mallet, ‘hit him down’ and ‘kick him.’ The sequence of aggressive acts was repeated three times.
• 2. Human model in a film aggression group:

  Identical Procedure Children were sat at corner with crafts. They watched a film where the model: The model was on film and had the same toys as the real life model: small table, chair, tinker toy set, mallet and BoBo doll. After one minute of the film the model carried out distinctive physical and verbal acts: hit and punched the Bobo doll, hit the BoBo doll with a mallet, ‘hit him down’ and ‘kick him.’The sequence of aggressive acts was repeated three times. The children were in the room for ten minutes, watching the film.
• Cartoon aggression group:

  Identical Procedure Children were sat in corner with crafts. They watched a film where the cartoon model was dressed up as a black cat performing acts: cartoon cat was similar to cartoon cats and to make it realistic the background of the cartoon consisted of brightly coloured tress, butterflies and music. After one minute of the film the cat carried out distinctive physical and verbal acts: hit/punched the Bobo doll. The sequence of aggressive acts was repeated three times. The children were in the room for ten minutes, watching the film.
• Arousal phase: Same as original study

  Observation: Same as original study 20 mins filmed and categorised using behaviour categories.(The data for the aggressive real life model and control group were taken from the ‘61 study)
• Conclusion : Exposure to filmed aggression heightens aggressive reactions in children. Subjects who viewed the aggressive human on film (92) and cartoon models (99)

  on film exhibited almost twice as much aggression as the control group (52) who saw no model of aggression