Social Psychological Theory of Aggression
The social learning theory is learning that occurs as a function of
observing, retaining and replicating behavior observed in others.
Although observational learning can take place at any stage in life,
it is thought to be particularly important during childhood,
particularly as authority becomes important. Because of this, social
learning theory has influenced debates on the effect of television
violence and parental role models. Bandura's Bobo doll experiment is
widely cited in psychology as a demonstration of observational
learning and demonstrated that children are more likely to engage in
violent play with a life size rebounding doll after watching an adult
do the same.
Observational learning allows for learning without any change in
behavior and has therefore been used as an argument against strict
behaviorism, which argued that behavior change must occur for new
behaviors to be acquired. Bandura called the process of social
learning modeling and gave four conditions required for a person to
successfully model the behavior of someone else. Firstly, “attention
to the model”, a person must first pay attention to a person engaging
in a certain behavior (the model). Secondly, “retention of details”
once attending to the observed behavior, the observer must be able to
effectively remember what the model has done. Thirdly, “motor
reproduction”, the observer must be able to replicate the behavior
being observed (E.G juggling cannot be effectively learned by
observing a juggler if the observer does not already have the ability
to perform the component actions). Lastly, “motivation and
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were manipulated into responded to the aggressive movie. The children
were teased and became frustrated because they could not touch the
toys. Many critics believed the experiment conducted was unethical and
morally wrong because the children were trained to be aggressive.
There have been many debates over whether or not violence on
television causes aggressive behaviour in children. Many studies have
indicated that television does not lead to aggressive behaviour. For
instances, psychologists have found that some cartoons are very
violent and cause children to illustrate aggressive behaviour.
However, the general public believes that children view cartoons such
as Elmer Fudd shooting the rabbit as funny and humorous. It is the
parents’ responsibility to inform their children that the cartoons are
not real.