Bandura Ross

Aim: Children exposed to adult an adult behaving aggresively will imiate this behaviour in absence of themodel. Children exposed to a non-aggressive model will show less aggressive behaviour. children will imitate same-sex models more than opposite-sex models. Boys may be more predisposed to imitate aggressive models than girls

Participants:

• 72 children between 37-69months old
• All attended Stanford University Nursery school
• Equal number of boys and girls

Method

• Lab experiment
• 48 children 6 in each group
• 24 control
• IVs: sex of child, sex of model, behaviour of model
• DVs: imitative physical verbal agression. imitative non-aggressive verbal responses

Method:

• Children exposed to adult model playing aggressively/not aggressively with the Bobo doll
• Agression arousal: children were shown attractive toys and told they were not allowed to play with them
• Observation of delayed imitation- lasted 20 mins while child was in a room with aggressive and non-aggresive toys. Observed through a oneway mirror

Results

• Boys were more physically aggressive and girls were more verbally agressive
• children tended to imitate same-sex models for all types of behaviour

Conlusions

provides support for Social Learning Theory - children learn aggression through imitating role models