Bandura et al
strengths (tips on how to answer below!!!!)
Reliability
The strength of bandura study on aggression is the standardized procedure
can be replicated to test for reliability. For example, each participant went
through an aggression arousal stage where the child began to play with a set
of attractive toys e.g. doll set, truck etc. only to be withdrawn the toys from.
This ensured that each participant entered the final stage of the experiment
in a frustrated mental state. In addition, the behavior of the aggressive and
non-aggressive models was controlled as both models begin by assembling
tinker toys. In conclusion having many controls in an experiment helps
reduce extraneous variables and the experimenter is confident that the iv
directly affects the dv hence increasing reliability of the results allowing for
experiment to be replicated.
Quantitative data
The use of quantitative data which is numerical data that can be compared
easily and analysis can be made to draw conclusions about behavior. For
example, the imitation physical aggression in males who watched a male
model was 25.8 whilst, the imitative physical aggression in female subjects
was 7.2 therefore we can conclude that males imitated more physical
aggression than female subjects. In conclusion quantitative data increases
the reliability of study as it is easy to analyze compared to qualitative data
which you have to interpret comments and words
Weakness
Ecological validity
The weakness of bandura study on aggression is the low ecological validity
where the study does not reflect what happens in real life, as bandura uses a
laboratory setting. The set up was artificial because the children were
brought to a laboratory in the first stage. The children imitated aggressive or
non-aggressive behavior quickly after observing it. In real life, you retain the
behavior you observe, then reproduce it after some time. Moreover, study
lacked mundane realism as the tasks were nothing like real-life ones e.g.
using a bobo doll to test aggression. In conclusion the tasks and location are
not realistic as social learning happens out of a person's free will.
Ethics