A / AS Psychology.. Key Studies Developmental Psychology Key study Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

A / AS Psychology.. Key Studies

• Developmental Psychology

• Key study

• Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

Bandura, Ross & Ross

The Bobo Doll Study

The Question

The nature - nurture debate

Do children learn behaviour from the behaviour they see around

them?

Specifically…….

• Can aggressive behaviour be learned by observation?

• NB: This was the study that triggered the TV violence debate

Before we begin…….

• 1 List two behaviours you think might be learned by

watching others

• 2 List two behaviours you think could not be learned in this way

Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study

• The participants

• 72 children (Stanford University nursery school)

• 36 boys & 36 girls• age range 37 months - 69 months

• Mean age 52 months


• TWO adult ‘role models’

one male and one female

and a female experimenter


• Method - an experiment

• there were three conditions

• 24 children in each condition


• The THREE CONDITIONS

• Non aggressive condition

• Aggressive condition

• Control condition


• Non aggressive condition

• and

• Aggressive condition

• There were male and female role models

• 12 children in each


• Thus

• 6 boys saw aggressive male

• 6 boys saw non-aggressive male

• 6 boys saw aggressive female

• 6 boys saw non-aggressive female


• Thus

• 6 girls saw aggressive female

• 6 girls saw non-aggressive female

• 6 girls saw aggressive male

• 6 girls saw non-aggressive male


• Level 1 Independent Variable (IV)

aggressive or non-aggressive role model

• Level 2 Independent variable (IV)

Same sex or opposite sex role model

• Level 3 Independent variable…?


• Write a TESTABLE two-tailed hypothesis for the study

• Write a TESTABLE one-tailed hypothesis for the study


• In order to ensure that each group contained equally aggressive children they were all rated for aggression before the experiment

• rated on -• physical aggression, verbal aggression• aggression to inanimate objects• aggression inhibition (self control)


• What happened then?

• Children were taken one at a time to a separate part of the building by the female experimenter for…

• Phase one of the experiment

• Modelling the behaviour phase

Observation phase

• The child was sat in one corner of the room. The child was encouraged to play with toys – potato printing and tinker toys.

• The model was sat in another corner. The model also played with toys. Either in a subdued way or aggressively depending on the experimental condition.



• Phase two of the experiment

• The AROUSAL phase

• This was necessary to provoke the children

The children were intentionally upset

• In phase 2 the child was taken into a separate room laid out with a wonderful array of brand new toys.

• Once the child had started to play with the toys they were told they had to stop…as these toys were intended for other children.

• This upset many of the children



• Phase three of the experiment• The OBSERVATION phase


• What was observed?

• Imitative aggression – i.e. what was copied.

• Non-imitative aggression – i.e. what the child made up themselves

• Physical & verbal agression.


• The results

• IMITATION - the children in the aggressive condition imitated many of the modelled physical and verbal aggressive behaviours

• they also imitated non-aggressive behaviours


• The children in the NON- aggressive condition imitated very few of the modelled behaviour.

• 70% had zero scores.


• The children in the aggressive condition displayed MUCH more non-imitative (non-copied) aggressive behaviour – in other words they just played a lot more aggressively!


• The results

• NON-AGGRESSIVE CONDITION

• the children in the non-aggressive condition spent more time playing with the toys (dolls etc) also more time doing nothing


• GENDER RESULTS

• Boys imitated more physical aggression (but not verbal)


• Boys were more aggressive after watching the MALE aggressive model

• Girls were more aggressive after watching the FEMALE aggressive model


• Bandura et al concluded that…

• Learning can take place by

observation• no classical or operant conditioning

was required!

• Also that children are more likely to learn from same sex models!


• Bandura suggested that Freud’s theory of identification may be used to explain how learning took place.

• The child first identifies with the same sex role model and then copies their behaviour.


• Thinking about BPS guidelines

• WAS THIS STUDY ETHICAL?

• What are the issues?

• If not ethical WHY not?


• Thinking about methodology

• Does this study have ecological validity?

• If not ecologically valid - why not?


• Thinking about the participants

• To whom can we generalise the findings?


• This study started the debate about children learning aggressive behaviour from watching violence on TV.

• How might watching TV differ from the experience of the children in the Bandura experiment?


• There were four predictions

• (hypotheses) in this MATCHED participants laboratory experiment that used an independent measures design

• Make sure you know what they were?


The end

A / AS Psychology.. Key Studies Developmental Psychology Key study Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

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