The Bandura Study

The Bandura Study

A) The Bandura study aimed to see if children copying aggression that

they see in adults. In the study a male or female model was aggressive

toward a bobo doll, the children were then observed to see if they

imitated any behaviour shown by the model, or if they were/weren’t

aggressive. There were also 2 control groups, one of which had seen a

non aggressive male/female model and another group was observed after

seeing no model.

The results showed that the children were more aggressive when they

had seen the aggressive model. Boys were, on average, more aggressive

than girls. The gender of the model also had an affect on the

behaviour of the children. Boys were more aggressive (both verbally

and physically) when they had seen the aggressive male model. Girls

were more physically aggressive when they had seen the aggressive male

model BUT were more verbally aggressive when they had seen the

aggressive female model.

B) Snapshot studies can be very useful for looking at specific details

of behaviour or if the experimenters are lacking time and money. There

are, however some problems of snapshot studies, like the one carried

out by Bandura.

1. Snapshot studies are time specific; this means that the results are

dependant on whatever is going on at the time. For example the mood of

the participants or experimenter can change on a daily basis and

therefore affect the results, because it can change the way people

behave or change the way that the experimenter will look at the data.

Cultural change over time may also have an affect on the results or

the interpretation of the results. In the Bandura study things c...

... middle of paper ...

...istic and therefore more valid. More

qualitative data and just more data mean that the analysis and the

results would be a lot more detailed. Generalisations could be made

with more confidence because most children watch TV and have access to

computer games and so are more likely to be affected by it. This would

then mean that there would be bigger implications from the results.

2. The same type of study could be conducted but instead of looking at

the children being affected by the media, they could look at the

affect of the more violent toys that boys are usually encouraged to

use when they are young, by restricting access, to toys that are seen

as violent, to some children and letting others go on as normal. By

doing observations and questionnaires to parents and teachers, it

could be seen if they have an affect.