General Psychology 1 General Psychology 1 Observational Learning – Module 22 March 31, 2005 Class #18

Albert Bandura (1925-Present) Observational Learning "Of the many cues that influence behavior, at any point in time, none is more common than the actions of others" (1986)  Born on December 4, 1952 in Province of Alberta, Canada  Went to a small high school with only 20 students and 2 teachers  1949 received his B.A. from the university of British Columbia  1952 obtained his doctorate from the University of Iowa  1953 accepted teaching position at Stanford where he still teaches today

Social Learning Theory  Also called observational learning  The learning that occurs by observing and imitating others or a model

Major Components Involved Attention: You can’t learn anything unless your paying attention and are fully engaged in what it is your learning. Anything that puts a damper on attention like being tired, groggy, drugged, nervous, etc will make you learn less. Retention: It’s impossible to learn things if you can not remember or retain them. Reproduction: We all have the ability to reproduce behavior example: some people can watch football players all day long and still not be able to replicate their play’s because they don’t know how to play football but if it was a football player watching it may improve their performance

Major Components (Con’t) Motivation: Bandura says that people are not going to do anything unless they are motivated to do so, he mentions a few motives: Past reinforcement: past rewards Promised reinforcements: Promised reinforcements: Incentives we can imagine Vicarious reinforcement: Vicarious reinforcement: seeing and recalling the model being reinforced reinforcedSelf-Efficacy: Knowing and feeling that you can do it well

Bandura, Ross & Ross (1963) The “Bobo” doll experiment -In this experiment pre-schoolers of avg. age 4.3yrs. were divided into two groups and put into two separate rooms and allowed to play with “attractive” toys while “Bobo” an unattractive inflatable, adult-size, egg shaped balloon creature sat by itself at the far end of the rooms

Next, the attractive toys were taken away from the children…. What Happens? ROOM 1 ROOM 1 While playing with the attractive toys the children witnessed adults enter the room and start beating the daylights out of Bobo the clown ROOM 2 ROOM 2 While playing with the attractive toys the children witnessed adults enter the room and play nicely with Bobo the clown

Bandura (1965) “Bobo” Doll In This experiment kids watched films of adults beating on Bobo, but each had a different ending. FILM 1: Adults were praised and rewarded with candy and soda by another adult who was heard saying, “You’re a strong Champion.” FILM 2: Adult was scolded by another adult, “Your very bad” or “Hey there, you big bully, quit picking on that clown,” FILM 3: Neutral ending, no reward or punishment

Criticisms…….. Many people said that those dolls were made for punching. So Bandura did another experiment with a video of a woman beating up a real clown. -Next as in the other experiments the children go into another room and what do they find ? A live clown. Were the results the same? Were the results the same?

Hanratty (1969) Participants: preschool boys preschool boys Experimental Group: watched a film about violent behavior towards a person dressed up as a clown watched a film about violent behavior towards a person dressed up as a clown Control Group: watched a non-violent flim All children were then allowed to play with a pretend doll and a real person dressed as a clown.

Hanratty (1969) Results: Only the boys who saw the violent film clip committed aggressive acts Dependent variable: ????????????? Independent Variable: ?????????????????

Application of Bandura’s Theory Prosocial behavior –Bandura feels it can be used to promote prosocial behavior – helping behavior Violence in schools –Bandura feels his theory applies to today’s violent times as well

Is Television To Blame? Hundreds of studies say yes! Why? –Social Learning Theory says: People become immune to the horrors of violence They gradually come to accept violence as a way to solve problems They imitate the violence they observe on television They identify with certain characters

Space Blaster Doomsday Version 2.5

Social Learning Theory of Aggression Theory that aggressive behavior is learned through: –Direct Reward (example: father buys son an ice cream after he wins a fight) –Observing Others Being Rewarded for Aggressiveness (example: a television character wins the girl of his dreams as a result of killing several people)

Glamorizing Violence Plagens, et al. (1991) –Typical American child sees 200,000 acts of violence on TV by age 18 –Children who watch a lot of violent TV are more violent towards peers –Experimental studies, in which violence is controlled, also find effects of watching violence

Other studies have found… By the end of elementary school, a typical American child will have seen: –8,000 murders –More than 100,000 other acts of violence study found 534 separate episodes of prime-time violence during a 2 week period. The most violent TV shows are targeted to children (e.g., cartoons).

Violent Video Games Several studies have shown significant results indicating that playing violent video games is associated with a history of property destruction and hitting other students… –Anderson & Dill (2000) College students randomly assigned to play a violent video game (Wulfenstein) later had more aggressive thoughts and feelings than those who played a nonviolent game (Tetrix)

Dilemma for parents about letting children watch television and play video games –parents find video a good babysitter –parents believe video can sometimes be educational tool Experts suggest parents turn off the TV to avoid exposing children to video violence Videos

Most “good guys” are male white heroes Women/females portrayed as victims or adoring friends—not as leaders Content of video games even worse than than that of television –more violent, sexist, racist Videos

Content of video games crucial reason behind great concern of developmental researchers -research shows that violent TV and video games push children to be more violent than they normally would be computer games probably worse, as children are doing the virtual killing

Can have positive effect… Freidrich and Stein (1972): –The Mister Rogers Study: Showed a preschool group Mister Rogers every weekday for four weeks During the viewing period, children from less educated homes became more cooperative, helpful, and more likely to state their feelings Other studies: –Children, especially males, who watched educational television became teens who earned higher grades, read more