2. A / AS Psychology.. Key Studies Developmental Psychology Key study Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

3. Bandura, Ross & Ross The Bobo Doll Study

5. The Question The nature - nurture debate Do children learn behaviour from the behaviour they see around them?

6. Specifically……. Can aggressive behaviour be learned by observation? NB: This was the study that triggered the TV violence debate

7. Before we begin……. 1List two behaviours you think might be learned by watching others 2List two behaviours you think could not be learned in this way

8. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The participants 72 children (Stanford University nursery school) 36 boys & 36 girls age range 37 months - 69 months Mean age 52 months

9. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study TWO adult ‘role models’ one male and one female and a female experimenter

10. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Method - an experiment there were three conditions 24 children in each condition

11. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The THREE CONDITIONS Non aggressive condition Aggressive condition Control condition

13. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Non aggressive condition and Aggressive condition There were male and female role models 12 children in each

14. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Thus 6 boys saw aggressive male 6 boys saw non-aggressive male 6 boys saw aggressive female 6 boys saw non-aggressive female

15. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Thus 6 girls saw aggressive female 6 girls saw non-aggressive female 6 girls saw aggressive male 6 girls saw non-aggressive male

16. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Level 1 Independent Variable (IV) aggressive or non-aggressive role model Level 2 Independent variable (IV) Same sex or opposite sex role model Level 3 Independent variable…?

17. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Write a TESTABLE two-tailed hypothesis for the study Write a TESTABLE one-tailed hypothesis for the study

18. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study In order to ensure that each group contained equally aggressive children they were all rated for aggression before the experiment rated on - physical aggression, verbal aggression aggression to inanimate objects aggression inhibition (self control)

19. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study What happened then? Children were taken one at a time to a separate part of the building by the female experimenter for… Phase one of the experiment Modelling the behaviour phase

20. Observation phase The child was sat in one corner of the room. The child was encouraged to play with toys – potato printing and tinker toys. The model was sat in another corner. The model also played with toys. Either in a subdued way or aggressively depending on the experimental condition.

22. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study What happened then? Phase two of the experiment The AROUSAL phase This was necessary to provoke the children

23. The children were intentionally upset In phase 2 the child was taken into a separate room laid out with a wonderful array of brand new toys. Once the child had started to play with the toys they were told they had to stop …as these toys were intended for other children. This upset many of the children

24. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study What happened then? Phase three of the experiment The OBSERVATION phase

25. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study What was observed? Imitative aggression – i.e. what was copied. Non-imitative aggression – i.e. what the child made up themselves Physical & verbal agression.

29. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The results IMITATION - the children in the aggressive condition imitated many of the modelled physical and verbal aggressive behaviours they also imitated non-aggressive behaviours

31. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The children in the NON- aggressive condition imitated very few of the modelled behaviour. 70% had zero scores.

32. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The children in the aggressive condition displayed MUCH more non- imitative (non-copied) aggressive behaviour – in other words they just played a lot more aggressively!

33. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The results NON-AGGRESSIVE CONDITION the children in the non-aggressive condition spent more time playing with the toys (dolls etc) also more time doing nothing

34. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study GENDER RESULTS Boys imitated more physical aggression (but not verbal)

35. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Boys were more aggressive after watching the MALE aggressive model Girls were more aggressive after watching the FEMALE aggressive model

37. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Bandura et al concluded that… Learning can take place by observation no classical or operant conditioning was required! Also that children are more likely to learn from same sex models!

38. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Bandura suggested that Freud’s theory of identification may be used to explain how learning took place. The child first identifies with the same sex role model and then copies their behaviour.

39. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Thinking about BPS guidelines WAS THIS STUDY ETHICAL? What are the issues? If not ethical WHY not?

40. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Thinking about methodology Does this study have ecological validity? If not ecologically valid - why not?

41. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study Thinking about the participants To whom can we generalise the findings?

42. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study This study started the debate about children learning aggressive behaviour from watching violence on TV. How might watching TV differ from the experience of the children in the Bandura experiment?

43. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study There were four predictions (hypotheses) in this MATCHED participants laboratory experiment that used an independent measures design Make sure you know what they were?

44. Bandura Ross & Ross The BOBO doll study The end