Summary Of The Aggressive Role Model

As a carefully controlled laboratory study, cause and effect can be established. All variables, except the independent variable, could be controlled (McLeod, 2014). Therefore, the idea of the model had an effect on the child’s subsequent behaviour was demonstrated. The results showing whether the children’s aggressive behaviour was affected by the aggressive role model through observation might be more accurate. However, this study lacked ecological validity because it was carried out in an artificial environment (Brain, 2002). It was not naturalistic because it was not in a real life situation, therefore, it did not mean that children would hit a real person or behave aggressively in a real life situation even thought they were exposed to aggressive role models.

Another study regarding aggression in children was carried out by Stein and Friedrich (1973), who used a complicated naturalistic observation system to count several types of aggressive actions toward students in the nursery school. Researchers divided children into three groups: one group watched violent cartons such as Superman and Batman (aggressive …show more content…
All the factors other than the independent variable were controlled, therefore they could not contribute to differences among those groups (Sigelman & Rider, 2009). The experimenters also ensured that children in all conditions were studied in the same environment and treated similarly except the type of the program they watched. It showed that media involving aggressive models would cause children to become more aggressive. However, it was difficult for investigators to compare the results because some children might watch a lot of violent television whereas some might watch little. The cause-effect relationship of watching violent television caused increased aggression would be established difficultly (Sigelman & Rider, 2009). These factors might affect the accuracy of the