Assignment: Bobo Doll Experiment

Assignment: Bobo Doll Experiment

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Each response should be at least 150 words and include cited scholarly support. Work to have a balanced response that includes both proper review of academic material to establish a foundation along with your own discussion, examples, and integration of the material. APA formatted in text citations and end of post references are required in your initial responses to these question sets.

1. As reported in the text, in the aftermath of the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, there was a dramatic spike in helping behavior. The same thing happened in the wake of the Asian tsunami in 2004, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In each case, people donated huge sums of money and volunteered their time and effort to selflessly help others.

Discuss why disasters like these motivate people to engage in prosocial behavior. Apply other concepts mentioned in the textbook to the phenomenon of post-disaster helping behavior. Consider concepts such as the arousal: cost-reward model, altruism or egoism, and diffusion of responsibility. What increases the likelihood of people providing help when needed?

2. Review the following study about children, modeling, and aggression: . This web page includes an embedded video with narration by Dr. Albert Bandura who conducted this well-known study.

McLeod, Saul (2011). Bobo Doll Experiment. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html

Think of examples of aggressive, even violent, modeling that you see on television and in movies today. Perhaps you have played violent interactive video games and or listened to violent music lyrics. How do you feel after consuming media violence? Many people say that it does not affect them at all and even look upon the violence as harmless, even funny. However, the general consensus is that, at a minimum, exposure to media violence on a day-to-day basis desensitizes the viewer to violence, even though it may not outright lead to violence (except for those who are already predisposed to violence or are already mentally unstable). If you are one of those who think violent media is either funny or innocuous, perhaps you are desensitized and have become a prime example of this point!

Do you think a population unmoved by violence is a healthy population? Why or why not? Name an example in our culture in which children are taught to respect aggression and praise it? How would you feel if your son followed that model? What if your daughter followed that model? How do you think violent media affects adult and/or children’s behavior? Include an example from your own experience that you feel reinforces Bobo doll study.