BANDURA (1961, 1963a, 1965)
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BANDURA, ROSS & ROSS (1961)
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BANDURA, ROSS & ROSS (1963a)
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A recent incident (San Francisco Chronicle, 1961) in which a boy was seriously knifed during a re-enactment of a switchblade knife fight the boys had seen the previous evening on a televised rerun of the James Dean movie Rebel Without A Cause, is a dramatic illustration of the possible imitative influence of film stimulation – Albert Bandura |
Aim:
To find out if children would become more aggressive if exposed to an aggressive role model in film or in a less-realistic cartoon compared to watching a live model. Bandura also wanted to test the popular idea that watching filmed aggression might be “cathartic” (making people calmer because it “vents” their aggressive feelings).
IV
Bandura manipulated two sets of IVs: (1) whether the aggressive role model was real, filmed or a cartoon character, (2) whether the role model was the same sex or opposite sex to the child; there was also (3) a Control condition where the children did not see a role model at all. (NB. There was no Non-Aggressive Model this time)
Bandura also studied a naturally-varying IV: (4) whether the child was male or female.
This makes the study both a lab experiment and a natural experiment. It has a Matched Pairs design because each child was only in one condition but they had been matched on starting levels of aggression.
DV
Bandura’s observers recorded the number of verbal, physical, mallet and gun-play aggressive actions the children carried out; they also counted the number of acts of non-imitative aggression.
Sample
96 children, 48 boys and 48 girls, aged 3-5, recruited from Stanford University Nursery School (an opportunity sample).
Procedure
The basic procedure is described above. There was no Non-Aggressive Model condition, but an extra condition was added where children watched a film in which the female adult model was dressed as a cartoon cat, while following the script with the Bobo Doll.
Results
You can see at once that the Control group carried out half as much aggression as the other groups.
However, there’s no significant difference between live models and filmed or cartoon models.
To find out if children would become more aggressive if exposed to an aggressive role model in film or in a less-realistic cartoon compared to watching a live model. Bandura also wanted to test the popular idea that watching filmed aggression might be “cathartic” (making people calmer because it “vents” their aggressive feelings).
IV
Bandura manipulated two sets of IVs: (1) whether the aggressive role model was real, filmed or a cartoon character, (2) whether the role model was the same sex or opposite sex to the child; there was also (3) a Control condition where the children did not see a role model at all. (NB. There was no Non-Aggressive Model this time)
Bandura also studied a naturally-varying IV: (4) whether the child was male or female.
This makes the study both a lab experiment and a natural experiment. It has a Matched Pairs design because each child was only in one condition but they had been matched on starting levels of aggression.
DV
Bandura’s observers recorded the number of verbal, physical, mallet and gun-play aggressive actions the children carried out; they also counted the number of acts of non-imitative aggression.
Sample
96 children, 48 boys and 48 girls, aged 3-5, recruited from Stanford University Nursery School (an opportunity sample).
Procedure
The basic procedure is described above. There was no Non-Aggressive Model condition, but an extra condition was added where children watched a film in which the female adult model was dressed as a cartoon cat, while following the script with the Bobo Doll.
Results
You can see at once that the Control group carried out half as much aggression as the other groups.
However, there’s no significant difference between live models and filmed or cartoon models.
When you look into the data, the cartoon produced more non-imitative aggression (100) but less imitative aggression (24) whereas the human models were the other way around.
Because Bandura filmed this study, there is qualitative data as well as quantitative data (all the footage in the video clips you see are actually from this variation).
Conclusions
Bandura concludes that children will imitate filmed aggression in the same way as live aggressive role models.
Bandura also concludes that watching filmed violence is NOT cathartic. Instead of becoming less aggressive after watching aggressive film or cartoons, the children showed more aggression.
Bandura was surprised to see how much the cartoon role model was imitated, because he expected there to be less imitation as the role model became less realistic (because the children would identify with it less). However, the cartoon aggression seemed to weaken social inhibitions generally, because there was less imitative aggression but more non-imitative aggression in this condition.
Because Bandura filmed this study, there is qualitative data as well as quantitative data (all the footage in the video clips you see are actually from this variation).
Conclusions
Bandura concludes that children will imitate filmed aggression in the same way as live aggressive role models.
Bandura also concludes that watching filmed violence is NOT cathartic. Instead of becoming less aggressive after watching aggressive film or cartoons, the children showed more aggression.
Bandura was surprised to see how much the cartoon role model was imitated, because he expected there to be less imitation as the role model became less realistic (because the children would identify with it less). However, the cartoon aggression seemed to weaken social inhibitions generally, because there was less imitative aggression but more non-imitative aggression in this condition.
The results of the present study provide strong evidence that exposure to filmed aggression heightens aggressive reactions in children – Albert Bandura
BANDURA (1965)
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BANDURA'S QUALITATIVE DATA
Bandura filmed the 1963 study, providing qualitative data since we can watch and describe the children’s actual behaviour rather than just study his statistics. He also recorded some of the children’s comments about the role models:
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