What is the social learning theory?

Learning through observation and

imitation.

How might the social learning theory

explain where aggression comes from?

Children copying aggressive behaviour

shown by adults.

Aim

To demonstrate that if children witness an

aggressive display by an adult role

model they would imitate this behaviour

when given the opportunity in a new

environment.

Hypotheses

1 Children who observe aggressive acts

from a model will reproduce these

aggressive acts.

2 Observing a non-aggressive model or no

model will inhibit aggressive behaviour.

3 Children will imitate same sex models

more than opposite sex models.

4 Boys will be more predisposed than girls

towards imitating aggression.

What was the sample?

72 children, 36 boys, 36 girls. Average age

of 52 months, attending Stanford

University Nursery School.

How was it gathered?

Opportunity sample, Bandura used

children that fitted his criteria

Independent variables:

-Sex of the child (male/female)

-Sex of model (male/female)

-Behaviour of the model (aggressive/non-

aggressive)

Dependent variable:

The level of aggressive behaviour shown

by each child.

Room 1,Condition 1: An aggressive male

or female.

Model spent time being aggressive

towards the bobo doll. Punched on the

nose, thrown in the air and hit with a

mallet. This was a set routine, and was

repeated 3 times for each child.

Condition 2: Non aggressive

Assembled tinker toys, totally ignoring the

bobo doll.

Room 2: mild aggression arousal

experience

All 72 children entered. The room was filled

with attractive toys for the children to

play with. Once a child started playing

with the toys the experimenter told them

that they were her very best toys and

that they cannot play with them.

Children were told that they can play

with the toys in the other room.

Room 3: observation

There were various toys, set in a fixed order.

Aggressive and non-aggressive. Allowed

to with them for 20 minutes.

1 Set aggressive routine

2 Amount of times the aggressive routine

was repeated for each child

3 Room 3 – the toys were in a fixed order

4 The children were allowed to play with

the toys in room 3 for 20 minutes.

Quantitative:

- Males showed an average of 25.8

physically aggressive acts when seeing

an aggressive male model, compared

with an avergae of 1.5 when seeing a

non-aggressive male model.

- Male children, male model= 25.8

- Female children, female model=5.5

- Qualitative:

- Boys showed more mallet aggression

- Aggression is learnt through observing

role models that are aggressive.

- Certain models are more likely to be

imitated than others dependent on the

sex of the child and the sex of the model

- In general, the male aggressive model

was more influential and boys imitated

more physical aggression than girls

- In short, this study is clear evidence for

the social learning theory.