Studies in detail

     Aim

To investigate whether exposure of children to real life aggressive model will cause an aggression in them.

Also, to investigate if boys will be more likely to copy an aggressive behaviour.

Method

·         36 male and 36 female children aged 3-5 years old from the same nursery were used. 

·         24 children used for each condition (the control group, the aggressive condition and the non aggressive condition)

·         The children were later subdivided, some to see a same sex model and some to see a different sex model.

·         The children in the aggressive condition were exposed to model being aggressive to the Bobo doll.

·         The children in the non aggressive condition were exposed to a model playing with other dolls and ignoring the Bobo doll.

·         The children in the control group were not exposed to any model but played on their own.

·         All the children then started to play with some toys before the toys were taken away from them and were told that the toys were not for them.

·         They were then taken to another room which had a Bobo doll and other toys in it.

·         They children were watched with a one way mirror as they played and their behaviour was recorded.

Results

·         The children who saw the aggressive model were more aggressive than the children who saw a non aggressive model.

·         About 1/3 of the children copied the model’s behaviour after seeing the aggressive model.

·         Watching an aggressive model had a great effect on the boys especially a male model.

Conclusion

Boys are more aggressive than girls but are less likely to imitate a female model.

Evaluation

Strengths

·         The study was controlled as it was a laboratory experiment and the variables were controlled.

·         The sample was a mix of boys and girls and therefore results can be generalised to other children.

·         The study gives us an understanding of how children learn behaviour.

·         It is applicable to real life as parents can understand how to train their children in other to learn the good behaviours.

Weaknesses

·         The experiment lacks ecological validity as the experiment was not carried out in the children’s natural environment.

·         The study has ethical issues as the children were exposed to aggressiveness and could still be aggressive after the study.

·         The results cannot be generalised to children outside America as the children were from an American nursery.

·          

Aim

To demonstrate how classical conditioning can be used to explain the way humans acquire phobias

Method

•       A healthy, 9 month old male infant called little Albert was the only participant used in the research although it was a laboratory experiment.

•       Little Albert was introduced to a white rat which he played with; he was also introduced to other stimulus such as dog and monkey.  The white rat acted as a neutral stimulus.

•       A large metal bar was banged behind him and this made him upset.

•       At 11 months Albert was presented with the rat and each time he reached for the rat the metal bar was banged behind him and this was repeated many times over several weeks.

•       The white rat was then presented on its own and even without the noise he cried.

Results

•       Albert showed fear (unconditioned response) as a response to the banging of the metal (unconditioned stimulus).

•       Albert played with the rat (neutral stimulus) when presented to him.

•       After the associating the rat with the metal banging, he became distressed and cried (conditioned response) when the rat (conditioned stimulus) was presented alone.

•       He also cried when any other fury thing was presented to him.

Conclusion

Concluded that phobias are learnt through the process of classical conditioning.

Evaluation

Strengths

•       Supports Pavlov findings about learning through classical conditioning.

•       Experimentally valid as extraneous variables which could affect result was controlled.

•       High in reliability as there were controls to the experiment and it could be replicated to test for its reliability.

•       Applicable to real life situations as it helps to understand how phobias develop and how to treat them.

Weaknesses

•       Lacks ecological validity, so the findings cannot be generalised to other settings outside the laboratory situation.

•       Also, the experiment used only one participant and this makes it difficult to generalise the study to anyone else.

•       There are ethical concerns with this study as Albert was conditioned to fear numerous white furry things. Also during the experiment, distress was caused to little albert. There was also no debrief or desensitization.