Question

In Bandura's reserach on immitative aggresive beahvior (1961), describe how sex of the child influenced imitation of aggression (physical and verbal).

Answer 1

Bandura's study on immitative learning of aggressive behavior in children was part of his famous Bobo doll experiments.The study had 36 girls and 36 boys as participants grom ages 3 to 6. They were divided into equal groups - one which was exposed to agressive actions of an adult model towards a bobo doll, one control group and the third group which observed an adult who was not aggressive.

The results of the study found that

• in the aggressive condition ,boys imitated physical agression more than girls supporting the hypothesis that boys are more prone to imitate aggression.
• verbal aggression was similar in both girls and boys
• Male subjects showed more physical and verbal aggression , both imitative and non-imitative aggression and engaged in significantly more aggressive gun play when exposed to the aggressive male model than the female subjects.
• Females exposed to female models engaged in more immitative verbal aggression and more non imitative physical aggression than boys.