Outline and Evaluate Social Psychological Theories of Aggression Essay Example
Outline and evaluate social psychological theories of aggression
Social Learning Theory
Social Learning Theory is based on the fact that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. Social learning theory explains human behaviour in terms of continuous mutual interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.
Outline of research: Bobo Doll experiment
The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Bandura and studied patterns of behaviour associated with aggression. Bandura carried out this study to look at social learning, where people learn through imitation. He used children, because they generally have less social conditioning. Bandura wanted to expose children to adult models exhibiting either aggressive or nonaggressive behaviours. Then, in a new environment without the adult model, he wanted to observe whether or not the children imitate these adult model aggressive or nonaggressive behaviours.
Evaluation of Research
1. Cause and effect can be established as it could be demonstrated that the model did have an effect on the child's resulting behavior because all variables other than the IV are being controlled.
2. Artificial as hitting a doll isn’t the same as hitting a person, as there is no evidence that young children intend to harm bobo in modeling experiments.
3. The bobo doll experiments are reliable as many other studies support the fact that children learn by imitating others.
Outline of research: Family background of aggression
Patterson’s study was conducted using interviews and questionnaires and comparing families with at least one highly aggressive child to other families. His findings suggested that a coercive home enviroment may cause aggressiveness. This is an enviroment which little affection is shown as they don’t use social reinforcement they use punishment and shouting and other aggressive tactics for behavioural control.
Evaluation of Research:
1. Has high ecological
Social Learning Theory
Social Learning Theory is based on the fact that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. Social learning theory explains human behaviour in terms of continuous mutual interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.
Outline of research: Bobo Doll experiment
The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Bandura and studied patterns of behaviour associated with aggression. Bandura carried out this study to look at social learning, where people learn through imitation. He used children, because they generally have less social conditioning. Bandura wanted to expose children to adult models exhibiting either aggressive or nonaggressive behaviours. Then, in a new environment without the adult model, he wanted to observe whether or not the children imitate these adult model aggressive or nonaggressive behaviours.
Evaluation of Research
1. Cause and effect can be established as it could be demonstrated that the model did have an effect on the child's resulting behavior because all variables other than the IV are being controlled.
2. Artificial as hitting a doll isn’t the same as hitting a person, as there is no evidence that young children intend to harm bobo in modeling experiments.
3. The bobo doll experiments are reliable as many other studies support the fact that children learn by imitating others.
Outline of research: Family background of aggression
Patterson’s study was conducted using interviews and questionnaires and comparing families with at least one highly aggressive child to other families. His findings suggested that a coercive home enviroment may cause aggressiveness. This is an enviroment which little affection is shown as they don’t use social reinforcement they use punishment and shouting and other aggressive tactics for behavioural control.
Evaluation of Research:
1. Has high ecological