Bandura‘s social modelling approach to aggression

By Ahmed Samooh

Bobo doll experiment

Behaviourism-Theory-Method

Aggression-Instincttheories (Freud, Lorenz)-Frustration-aggressionhypothesis(Dollard et al.)

TV and violence:-Williams (1986)-Huessmann & Eron-Parke et al. 1977…

1. Theoretical background: behaviourism

2. The behaviourist approach to experimentation

3. Main theorists: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Bandura

4. The Bobo Doll experiment

5. Evaluation

6. Implications of the Bobo Doll experiment

7. Research on the impact of TV: tacklingconfounding variables

Watson, J.B. (1913) – Psychology as the behaviorist views it(Behaviourist Manifesto)

[Psychology] failed signally, I believe, during the fifty-odd years of its existence as an experimental discipline to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science.[...]

If you fail to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrained. The attack is made upon the observer and not upon the experimental setting [unlike] In physics and in chemistry

I firmly believe that two hundred years from now, unless the introspective method is discarded, psychology will still be divided on the question as to whether auditory sensations have the quality of 'extension', whether intensity is an attribute which can be applied to color, whether there is a difference in 'texture' between image and sensation and upon many hundreds of others of like character.

Watson, J.B. (1913) – Psychology as the behaviorist views it(Behaviourist Manifesto)

The time seems to have come when psychology must discard all reference to consciousness; when it need no longer delude itself into thinking that it is making mental states the object of observation.[…]

I believe we can write a [new] psychology […]and never go back upon our definition: never use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and the like. […]

It can be done in terms of stimulus and response, in terms of habit formation, habit integrations and the like. […]

What we need to do is to start work upon psychology, making behavior, not consciousness, the objective point of our attack.

Focus on the observable (behaviour)

All that cannot be observed is ignored

Nearly all behaviour is learned

Focus on experimentation rather than speculation

Commitment to discovery, not dogma

Parsimony

Environmental determinism: tabula rasa, littleimportance attached to genes

Animal research can be generalized to humans

Pavlov: Classical conditioningUnconditioned Stimulus (food) > unconditioned response (dog salivates)

Conditioning: US paired with CS (bell) > UR (salivation)

CS (bell) > CR (salivation)

Skinner: Operant conditioningBehaviour is not always learned on the basis of an unconditioned stimulus

Behaviour is determined by past history of reinforcement

Stimulus > Response

Shaping / Chaining

Nothing that is learned can‘t be unlearned – implication for therapy

Bandura: Social modelling

S-O-R

Acquisitionperformance

Behaviour can be learned in absence of reinforcement, by means of imitatingothers

Social Modelling canaccount for learning complex behaviourssuch as language

Sample / Subjects / Participants

36 boys and 36 girls, from Stanford Nursery, mean age 4 years 4 months

Independent Variable

Exposure to aggressive model or non-aggressive model

Dependent variable

Imitation / behaviour after the exposure (clearly operationalised)

Imitation of physical aggression: […] striking the Bobo doll with the mallet, sitting on the doll and punching it in the nose, kicking the doll, and tossing it in the air.

Imitative verbal aggression: Subject repeats the phrases, "Sock him," "Hit him down," "Kick him," "Throw him in the air," or "Pow"

Imitative nonaggressive verbal responses: Subject repeats, "He keeps coming back for more," or "He sure is a tough fella."

Mallet aggression: Subject strikes objects other than the Bobo doll aggressively with the mallet.

Sits on Bobo doll: Subject lays the Bobo doll on its side and sits on it, but does not aggress toward it.

…

Control group

Total72 boys and girls

Aggressivecondition

24 Control group24

Non- aggressivecondition

24

Aggressivecondition

Subject

Male Female

Model Male 6 6

Female 6 6

Non-aggressivecondition

Subject

Male Female

Model Male 6 6

Female 6 6

Control group24 participants

Inter-rater reliability„In order to provide an estimate of interscorer agreement, the performance of

half the subjects were also scored independently by second observer. „

Rater blind to the condition„The male model scored the experimental sessions for all 72 children. Except

for the cases in which he, served as the model, he did hot have knowledge of the subjects' group assignments.‖

Matched-pairs design„subjects in the experimental and control groups were matched individually on

the basis of ratings of their aggressive behavior in social interactions in the nursery school.‖

PretestDuring the pretest, a number of the subjects imitated the essential components

of the model's behavior but did not perform the complete act, or they directed the imitative aggressive response to some object other than the Bobo doll. Two responses of this type were therefore scored and were interpreted as partially imitative behavior.

H1.„Subjects exposed to aggressive models would reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of their models and would differ in this respect both from subjects who observed nonaggressive models and from those who had no prior exposure to any models.‖

H2. „It was further predicted that observation of subdued nonaggressive models would have generalized inhibiting effect on the subjects' subsequent behavior, and this effect would be reflected in a difference between the nonaggressive and the control groups, with subjects in the latter group displaying significantly more aggression.‖

H3. „One would expect, on this basis, subjects to imitate the behavior of a same-sex model to a greater degree than a model of the opposite sex.‖

H4. „Since aggression, however, is a highly masculine-typed behavior, boys should be more predisposed than girls toward imitating aggression, the difference being most marked for subjects exposed to the male aggressive model.‖

„Scores of children in theaggressive condition weresignificantly higher than thoseof either the non-aggressive orcontrol groups.‖

Significance level

H1: supported or rejected?

Aggression is a learned behaviour, not an in-built instinct

Learning can take place in absence of anyreinforcement, only via observation and modelling

Modelling is a powerful and fast way of learning

Implications for parents, teachers, psychotherapists (treatment of phobias)

Bandura, Ross & Ross (1963): children watched films with eitheran aggressive or non-aggressivemodel

Filmed model produced evenmore aggression than live model

Model rewarded or punished for aggression

Children imitated the rewardedaggresive model the most

Bandura‘s research as the ‗first generation‘ of scientific researchon the effects of media violenceon children

http://www.topics-mag.com/edition02/images/tv_kidsyuki.jpeg

JANUARY 15, 2007

Saddam Video Is Blamed for Deaths of More Children, by Tom Zeller Jr

According to the American Psychological Association, there‘s no question that a daily diet of violent media becomes part of the psycho-social mix in an individual. This is based largely on the work of psychologist Albert Bandura, who highlighted the important role social modeling and observational learning plays in human motivation — and action. (Before that, psychologists had largely focused on a sort of Pavlovian model of learning, based on actions and consequences.) […]

Dr. Bandura‘s classic „Bobo Doll Experiment‖ , in which children who were shown film of an adult aggressively beating an inflatable doll were more likely to imitate and repeat that behavior when exposed to a Bobo Doll themselves, is often cited in describing the power of violence in the media. […]

Of course, the science isn‘t exactly settled on all this. An essay at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, while acknowledging the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bandura, and the complex relationship between mind and media, suggests ―even among researchers who are convinced of a causal link between television and violence, explanations of when and why this occurs are varied.‖

What do the Bobo doll studies really tell us about the effects of TV on children?

Films used in the study differ markedly from real movies (no plot, no causal justification for the model‘s behaviour, which isquite bizzare)

Participants in an experiment know they are expected to play a particular role „Look, Mummy, this is the doll we have to hit‖ (Nobel, 1975)

Does not test long-term effects Aggresion towards an inanimate toy only, not a living being What else can you do with the Bobo doll? Children in the experiment are not punished for their behaviour Problems with ecological validity and hence generalization

Led to phase 2 research on the effects of media violence

There has been a tremendous amount of research on the effects of media violence on children and adolescents over the past 40 years.

Yet theorists still do not agree on this. Why?

SEPTEMBER 17, 2000Hollow Claims about Fantasy Violence by Richard Rhodes

[I]s there really a link between entertainment and violent behavior? The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association,

the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Mental Health all say yes. They base their claims on social science research that has been sharply criticized and disputed within the social science profession, especially outside the United States. In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure to mock violence in the media and subsequent violent behavior has ever been demonstrated, and the few claims of modest correlation have been contradicted by other findings, sometimes in the same studies. […]

Brainstorming: What effects would you like to test?

Formulate hypothesis How would you test this hypothesis? Who would be your participants? How would you define your independent variable? How would you define and measure your

dependent variable? How would you test long-term effects? Would it be a laboratory experiment or a field

(real –life) study? How would you establish a causal relationship?

Correlational studies do not establish causation

The importance of other variables difficult to assess

Weaknesses of laboratory experiments

Difficulties with field experiments

Difficulties with defining and measuring aggressionreliably

Studies use different measures, difficult to compare

Little known about the mechanism

Even if media violence can cause aggression, how do you reduce the violence?

Key reading:Bandura, Ross & Ross (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of

aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582

To view vide footage from the experiment, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI

Additional reading: Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review,

20, 158-177. Available at: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm Murray, J.P. (1994). Impact of televised Violence. Hofstra Law Review, 22(4), 809-

825. Available at: http://www.johnmurray.org/murray_a.htm Anderson, et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological

Science in the Public Interest, 4(3), 81-110. Freedman, J.L. (2001) Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games. Paper devlivered

at Playing By the Rules: The cultural policy challenges of video games. University of Chicago. (Available online at: http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/freedman.html

Zeller, T. Jr (September 15 2007). Saddam‘s Video is Blamed for Deaths of More Children. New York Times. Available at: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/saddam-video-is-blamed-for-deaths-of-more-children/

Rhodes, R. (September 17, 2000). Hollow claims about fantasy fiolence. New York Times, Section 4, p 19. Available at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02EFD81138F934A2575AC0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/A/American%20Academy%20of%20Pediatrics