Post on 13-Jul-2015
What is the social learning theory?
Learning through observation and
imitation.
How might the social learning theory
explain where aggression comes from?
Children copying aggressive behaviour
shown by adults.
Aim
To demonstrate that if children witness an
aggressive display by an adult role
model they would imitate this behaviour
when given the opportunity in a new
environment.
Hypotheses
1 Children who observe aggressive acts
from a model will reproduce these
aggressive acts.
2 Observing a non-aggressive model or no
model will inhibit aggressive behaviour.
3 Children will imitate same sex models
more than opposite sex models.
4 Boys will be more predisposed than girls
towards imitating aggression.
What was the sample?
72 children, 36 boys, 36 girls. Average age
of 52 months, attending Stanford
University Nursery School.
How was it gathered?
Opportunity sample, Bandura used
children that fitted his criteria
Independent variables:
-Sex of the child (male/female)
-Sex of model (male/female)
-Behaviour of the model (aggressive/non-
aggressive)
Dependent variable:
The level of aggressive behaviour shown
by each child.
Room 1,Condition 1: An aggressive male
or female.
Model spent time being aggressive
towards the bobo doll. Punched on the
nose, thrown in the air and hit with a
mallet. This was a set routine, and was
repeated 3 times for each child.
Condition 2: Non aggressive
Assembled tinker toys, totally ignoring the
bobo doll.
Room 2: mild aggression arousal
experience
All 72 children entered. The room was filled
with attractive toys for the children to
play with. Once a child started playing
with the toys the experimenter told them
that they were her very best toys and
that they cannot play with them.
Children were told that they can play
with the toys in the other room.
Room 3: observation
There were various toys, set in a fixed order.
Aggressive and non-aggressive. Allowed
to with them for 20 minutes.
1 Set aggressive routine
2 Amount of times the aggressive routine
was repeated for each child
3 Room 3 – the toys were in a fixed order
4 The children were allowed to play with
the toys in room 3 for 20 minutes.
Quantitative:
- Males showed an average of 25.8
physically aggressive acts when seeing
an aggressive male model, compared
with an avergae of 1.5 when seeing a
non-aggressive male model.
- Male children, male model= 25.8
- Female children, female model=5.5
- Qualitative:
- Boys showed more mallet aggression
- Aggression is learnt through observing
role models that are aggressive.
- Certain models are more likely to be
imitated than others dependent on the
sex of the child and the sex of the model
- In general, the male aggressive model
was more influential and boys imitated
more physical aggression than girls
- In short, this study is clear evidence for
the social learning theory.