Reinforcement
If the child is rewarded for its actions it is more likely to perform the behaviour. If the boy imitates a character on the TV and is rewarded by the carer the behaviour is likely to continue. If the carer disapproves of the behaviour of the child and punishes then the child is less likely to perform the behaviour again.
Albert Bandura’s Research On Aggression
Albert Bandura performed a number of experiments which focused on the effect of children watching an adult behave aggressively. For example, Bandura and friends (1961) arranged for an adult to hit and kick a large inflatable doll (called a Bobo doll) whilst the child was in the room. Afterwards the child had a chance to play with a variety of toys, including the doll, whilst the adult was present. Bandura in later experiments changed this procedure, because he showed a child a film of someone being aggressive to the doll in the environmental condition. In the control condition children watched a non-violent film. They were watched afterwards whilst playing and a number of incidents of aggression were noted.
- Participants who had seen a mode of the same sex contained high levels of aggression.
- Boys performed more aggressive acts than girls.
- Comments from students suggested that awareness of what was appropriate behaviour, as some said “ladies shouldn’t do things like that”.
- High levels off aggression were shown by the children who had seen the model be rewarded than those who had seen the model being punished after being aggressive.
- When participants were asked to replicate as much of the model’s behaviour as they could remember, most were able to do so accurately regardless of whether the model had been reinforced or punished. Some of the children who had not been aggressive towards the doll, even though they could do so accurately when asked. These children had learned the behaviour even though they did not imitate it.
The Role Of The Media In Aggression
Bandura’s research indicated that children could learn new ways of being aggressive from their observation of models. This raised the question of what role the media might play in encouraging aggression and violence in society. The way aggression and violence in films, cartoons, TV programmes, computer games and books are presented provides models which children and adults may imitate. As a result of this, there was a huge increase in the research to discover the level and type of violence shown in the media, and what role the media’s presentation of violence might play in aggressive behaviour.
T. Williams and colleagues (1986), studied children in three Canadian towns and were compared to discover whether television had an influence on their levels of aggression. At the start of the study, one town had no television (Notel), another town had one channel (Unitel) and a third had several channels (Multitel). A year later Notel had one channel, Unitel had two channels. The researchers measured children’s levels of aggression before channels were added and again one year afterwards. The observed the children in playgrounds, and asked teachers and children to rate aggression. Aggression both verbally and physically increased after Notel children began watching TV, and this for both boys and girls. In addition Williams found a positive correlation between the amount of time a child watched TV and the amount of aggression he or she showed. There are 2 points to me made about these results:
- A correlation does not mean that time watching TV causes aggression, or that aggression makes children watch TV more, only that these variables are related, they occur together.
- The children in all three towns showed similar levels of aggression when the study started, even though there were different experiences on TV. It could be that the Notel children’s aggression level began to fall after the researcher’s left, bringing them closer to their original level.
An Evaluation of Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory clearly states, learning occurs spontaneously, it does not have to be reinforced. Social factors are also crucial, as are cognitive factors. Whereas behaviourists claimed that learning could be explained without taking in account of mental activities, social learning theorists argue that the mind mediates, in the same sense that for example we imitate a behaviour when we have seen it bring pleasant consequences for others, or we learn a behaviour but may not perform it if we feel it is inappropriate. We also use cognitive functions, such as perception and memory, in order to observe and reproduce behaviour. Nevertheless there are several criticisms of the social learning theory explanation for aggression, including:
- Bandura’s results over-stressed the power of models, because of the demand characteristics of the situation. The children may have thought that they were supposed to copy the behaviour of the adult when they saw the same toys afterwards. Research has shown that in real life situations, with other humans, children showed much lower levels of aggression.
- There are ethical concerns about Bandura’s research, he taught children how to be aggressive and may have also frightened children who saw a real adult being aggressive.
- Bandura failed to distinguish between aggression o play fighting. Research by Cumberbatch (1990) found that children who had not seen the inflatable doll before were five times more likely to imitate aggressive behaviour against it than children who had played with it before. This suggest that higher levels of aggression were related to the novelty value of the toy.
- This explanation fails to consider the influence of biological factors.
My aim is to find out whether the amount of television a child watches affects its levels of aggression. And identify a link between the two. My hypothesis is that the more television a child watches the higher their level of aggression will be. I will achieve this by studying a group of children and observe the levels of aggression after watching a certain amount of television.
Method
Design
I am investigating whether the amount of TV watched affects the levels of aggression which a child shows. I have chosen this because I feel I can complete this experiment very full and to the best standards and deliver accurate and reliable results.
Participants
My participants will be children aged between 3 and 5. I will be using males and females for this experiment. I will be using 4 groups of participants each containing 4 children 2 boys and 2 girls.
Materials
Materials needed will be a television and some toys which are linked to the TV programme which will be The Simpson’s.
Procedure
- Find 16 Participants they must be 8 boys and 8 girls all aged between 3 and 5.
- Split groups into 4 each containing 4 boys and 4 girls.
- Label groups group 1, group 2 etc.
- Set television up in a suitable room
- They will all watch the same TV programme which will be a 20 minute episode of The Simpson’s.
- Group 1 will watch 1 episode.
- Group 2 will watch 2 episodes.
- Group 3 will watch 3 episodes.
- Group 4 will watch 4 episodes.
- When finished viewing introduce children with inflatable dolls of the characters they have just seen.
- Observe the number of aggressive acts seen in each group while paying with the inflatable dolls.
- Record these results in a tally chart then put into a bar chart.
Results
Table To Show Types Of Aggression Acts Seen In The TV Programme In Group 1.
Table To Show Types Of Aggression Acts Seen In The TV Programme In Group 2.
Table To Show Types Of Aggression Acts Seen In The TV Programme In Group 3.
Table To Show Types Of Aggression Acts Seen In The TV Programme In Group 4.
Table To Show Number Of Aggressive Acts Performed After Watching TV Programme.
Discussion
These results mean that the more a child watches a TV programme the more he is likely to perform an aggressive act. These results back up my prediction and I feel that I have achieved what I have aimed to do. These results relate to the theory in my introduction because Bandura felt the more TV was being viewed the more aggressive children were getting. I feel my results support his research. My results totally agree with Bandura’s study. I don’t feel any modifications can be done to the theory.
Criticisms of the method used maybe:
- Maybe older participants should be used to show a more in-depth study on aggression.
- Maybe instead of watching a TV programme a child could observe adults fighting and see if they would imitate that behaviour.
- Procedure could have been written more clearly and written so a person can just go ahead and do the experiment.
By improving the method the results may have shown even more acts of aggression in children. I didn’t find any confounding variables in my experiment. No ethical issues were raised during the study. I think further work should be done to prove whether parents influence the amount of aggression in children.
