A Summary and Interpretation of Bandura Et Al Bobo Doll Study

A summary and interpretation of a study into aggressive behaviour in children

The table shows a summary of the data collected during a study into aggressive behaviour and how it can affect children. In this study children were studied in set conditions, to monitor their behaviour and to see if they imitated any of the violence they were shown. There was also a control condition; this was to see how the children behaved when they were not shown any aggressive acts.

The table shows the average number of aggressive acts performed by the participants in each of the five conditions. In the control condition there are generally fewer acts of aggressive behaviour. The lowest score is Imitative aggression by girls (1.8) and the highest is Non-imitative aggression by boys (40.4). What is interesting in this condition is that the boys scored fairly highly in terms of non-imitative aggression. On average the boys showed more aggressive behaviour than the girls in all of the conditions.

In terms of imitative aggression shown, the average scores vary. The girls highest average score (19.2) was with the real life female model compared to the boys highest score (38.4) with the real life male model.

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How research by Bandura and colleagues on social learning and aggression has contributed to our understanding of children’s behaviour.

This report aims to:

* Explain how the work of Bandura and his colleagues has contributed to our understanding of children’s behaviour

* Summarise the findings of the 1963 Bobo doll study by Bandura, Ross and Ross

Background

In 1963, Albert Bandura and his colleagues Dorothea Ross and Sheila Ross ‘sought to explore the extent to which children would imitate aggressive behaviour that they saw performed by another person, referred to as ‘model’’(John Oates ,2012, page 109)

Bandura and his colleagues devised a study in which they would monitor children’s behaviour in a series of situations....