AS level Psychology The Core Studies The developmental approach Behaviourist & Social Learning perspective

AS level PsychologyThe Core Studies The developmental approachBehaviourist & Social Learning perspective

Psychology

• Developmental Psychology

• Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

Bandura, Ross & RossThe Bobo Doll Study

The Question

• The nature - nurture debate

• Do children learn behaviour from the behaviour they observe around them?

Specifically…….

• Can aggressive behaviour be learned by observation?

• NB: This was one of the studies that triggered the TV violence debate

1 List two behaviours you think a child might learn by observing other people

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

Getting started:

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThe participants

• 72 children (Stanford University nursery school)

• 36 boys & 36 girls

• age range 37 months - 69 months

• Mean age 52 months

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study

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


First IV

• Non aggressive condition

• Aggressive condition

• Control condition


Second IV

• Children observed either a

• MALE or FEMALE role model

• 12 children in each

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThird IV

• Gender of the child

• Child was male or female

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThus

• 6 boys saw aggressive male

• 6 boys saw non-aggressive male

• 6 boys saw aggressive female

• 6 boys saw non-aggressive female

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThus

• 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


• Write a TESTABLE two-tailed hypothesis for the study

• Write a TESTABLE one-tailed hypothesis for the study

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study• The matching process

• To ensure that each group contained equally aggressive children they were rated for aggression before the experiment

• rated on

• physical aggression, verbal aggression

• aggression to inanimate objects

• aggression inhibition (self control)

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study• What happened then?

• Children taken one at a time

• Phase one of the experiment

• Modelling the behaviour phase


• What happened then?

• Phase two of the experiment

• The AROUSAL phase

• This was necessary to provoke the children so that they were equally likely to display any aggressive behaviour they had learned


• What happened then?

• Phase three of the experiment

• The OBSERVATION phase

• Child left alone in play room to which a ‘mini’ Bobo and mallet had been added

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study• What was observed?

• The criteria

• Imitative aggression

• Non-imitative aggression

– both physical & verbal

– e.g. hitting Bobo with mallet

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study• Who observed?

• More than one observer

• How long for?

• For 20 minutes in 5 second time samples

• 240 observation samples for each child


• Examples of behaviour observed


The results

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


The results

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

• 70% had zero scores

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThe results

• NON-IMITATION

• the children in the aggressive condition displayed more non-imitative (non-copied) aggressive behaviour

Bandura, Ross & Ross The BOBO doll studyThe 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)


GENDER RESULTS

• Boys more aggressive after watching MALE aggressive model

• Girls more aggressive after watching FEMALE aggressive model


The conclusion

• Learning can take place by observation

• Children more likely to learn from same sex models


The conclusion

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

• Thinking point: Which of Freud’s stages might these children have been in?


• Consider: BPS guidelines – Was this study ethical?

• What are the issues?

• If not ethical WHY not?


• Methodology

• Does this study have ecological validity?

• If not ecologically valid - why not?


• The participants

• To whom can we generalise the findings?


• The debate about whether children learn 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 SUBJECTS experiment

• What were they?

Documents

AS level Psychology The Core Studies The developmental approach Behaviourist & Social Learning perspective