A / AS Psychology..

Key
Studies

• Developmental Psychology

• Key study
• Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)
Bandura, Ross & Ross

The Bobo Doll Study

 The Question

The nature - nurture debate

Do children learn behaviour from
the behaviour they see around
them?
 Specifically…….

• Can aggressive behaviour be

learned by observation?

• NB: This was the study that triggered

the TV violence debate
 Before we begin…….

• 1 List two behaviours you

think might be learned by watching
others

• 2 List two behaviours you think could not

be learned in this way
 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
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• TWO adult ‘role models’

one male and one female

and a female experimenter

 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• Method - an experiment

• there were three conditions

• 24 children in each condition
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• The THREE CONDITIONS

• Non aggressive condition
• Aggressive condition
• Control condition
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• Non aggressive condition

• and
• Aggressive condition
• There were male and female role
models
• 12 children in each
 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
 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
 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…?
 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
 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)
 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
 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.
 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
 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
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• What happened then?

• Phase three of the experiment

• The OBSERVATION phase
 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.
 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
 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.

 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!
 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
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• GENDER RESULTS

• Boys imitated more physical

aggression (but not verbal)
 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
 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!
 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.
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• Thinking about BPS guidelines

• WAS THIS STUDY ETHICAL?

• What are the issues?

• If not ethical WHY not?
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• Thinking about methodology

• Does this study have ecological

validity?
• If not ecologically valid - why not?
 Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

• Thinking about the participants

• To whom can we generalise the

findings?
 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?
 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?

Bandura Ross & Ross
The BOBO doll study

The end