who try to imitateviolent behaviors. Many studies have been conducted to determine if in fact people imitate or modelaggressive behaviors. For example, one of the most well know studies of modelingaggressive behavior and to determine if children imitate violent acts observed ontelevision is an experiment done by Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross and Sheila A. Ross.To test their hypothesis, the subjects were divided into three experimental groups and onecontrol group. One group observed real-life aggression, the second group observed thesame models but on film and the third group watched an aggressive cartoon. The groupswere also subdivided into male and female subjects so that half the subjects wereexposed to the same sex models, while the other half viewed model of the opposite sex.After the subjects were exposed to aggression, they were tested for the amount ofimitation and non-imitation aggression. As a result, the boys were significantly moreaggressive than the girls. Gender was also positively correlated with imitative aggressionand the subjects tended to imitate the same sex models more than the opposite sex. In addition, Bandura, Ross and Ross had predicted that the subjects who saw aggressivebehavior being displayed would consequently be more aggressive when frustrated thanthe subjects who were as frustrated but had not been exposed to prior aggression. Theexperiment confirmed their prediction. One of the finding of the experiment was that thesex of the child and the sex of the model provides support that the models influence issomewhat determined by the gender of the model. Also, the experiment has strongevidence that children who are exposed to film aggression will have their aggressivebehavior increased. The findings also show that children tend to model their aggressionafter social behavior particularly that which is seen on television. Their conclusion canalso imply that children who observe aggression in real-life situations, ...
