1.
1) Bandura’s Bobo doll study: 3 – 5 year
olds from university crèche were shown
film clips of a model behaving
aggressively three times towards a Bobo
doll.
2) The experimental group who had spoken
with the adult showed improved scores
in measures of pro-social behaviours
including tolerance and friendship. (This
was not the case with the control group).
Conclusion: Watching and discussion
with an adult helps children to benefit
from prosocial behaviour.
3) He found that boys who had high levels
of exposure to television violence when
they were younger committed 49% more
acts of violence than those who had
watched relatively little violence on TV.
However, the relationship was
curvilinear… Those who had been
exposed to very high levels of violent
television actually were 50% less violent
than moderate or high levels of
exposure.
4) Belson’s study into long term effects of
exposure to violent video games: He
studied 1565 male youths (13 to 17 yrs).
They were interviewed on several
occasions about their exposure to
violent video games. The level of
violence was rated by members of a BBC
viewing panel. They were then assessed
on how often they had been involved in
any of 53 categories of violence in the
last 6 months.
5) 88% of the children who had watched
the clips imitated the aggressive
behaviour, none of the children from the
control group (who had not seen the
video) did.
6) Findings were that the amount of play
did not correlate significantly with
arguments with teachers/ physical fights.

2.
7) Research into Celebrity worship 8) Explanations for media influence on
antisocial behaviour.
9) Research on media violence 10) The loss group who had been exposed to
most fear were the only group to change
their behaviour (self -examined more)
and to change their views on self –
examination.
11) Ethical issues include the concept that
these students were exposed to fearful
messages which could have potentially
caused them stress. Fully informed
consent was unlikely to have been
gathered as it would have confounded
the findings.
12) Maltby et al (2001) tested the theory
that celebrity worship is accompanied by
poorer psychological wellbeing. They
gave out the Celebrity Attitude Scale and
the General Health Questionnaire (a
screening device used to reveal
symptoms of poor psychological health)
to an opportunity sample of 126 men
and 181 women from workplaces and
community groups in Yorkshire.

3.
13) The study used real TV programmes,
giving it high validity. However, because
the children knew they were being
observed, they may have responded to
demand characteristics and give socially
desirable answers.
In terms of real life application, the study
has powerful implications for ensuring
that children gain maximum benefit
from watching pro-social programmes.
14) Demand characteristics: There was a risk
of this, even though the children were so
young. Supported by Noble, who noted
that one of the children said to his
mother ‘Look Mummy! There’s the doll
we have to hit!’
15) Ethical issues are important in this study
due to the sensitive nature of the
information being collected.
Confidentiality must be maintained.
16) Persuasion and attitude change (Hovland
– Yale model)
17) Gentile et al (2004): Carried out a study
in Midwestern US schools of 607
students (average age 14) who were
asked to name their 3 favourite video
games. They were asked to rate how
often they played the game (1 = rarely to
7 = often) and to rate how violent the
game was (1 = a little to 7 = extremely
violent). They were also asked how much
time they spent playing computer
games, how often their parents limited
this, whether they had got into a fight in
the last year and how often they got into
arguments with their teachers.
18) The effects of video games and
computers

4.
19) Researchers found that those with a high
NC responded better to fact- based
leaflets (suggesting they had read and
understood the info.) whilst those with
low NC responded better to the emotion
based leaflet (implying peripheral
processing was used).
20) Persuasion and attitude change: The
Elaboration Likelihood Model
21) The research has been replicated since
and the methodology has been
vindicated. However, the boys were
asked about their viewing patterns and
may have succumbed to social influence
or demand characteristics.
22) Effects of watching prosocial behaviour
23) This study is an example of a highly
controlled lab experiment but because
students knew they were taking part,
they might have given socially desirable
answers.
Because the study was only a short
study, we cannot be sure whether the
attitude change was temporary or long-
lasting.
24) Vidrine, Simmons and Brandon (2007)
attempted to assess the importance of
Need for Cognition (NC) in smokers. They
used 227 smokers who were measured
to assess their NC, then exposed to one
of three conditions:
1) A fact-based leaflet emphasizing
smoking risks.
2) An emotion- based leaflet
emphasizing smoking risks
3) A control condition.

5.
25) Meyerowitz and Chaiken (1987) looked
at the role of fear in message content.
They looked at female university
students who were randomly allocated
to one of three conditions and given a
leaflet relating to breast self-
examination:
1) The ‘loss condition’ (pamphlet
emphasized the dangers of failing to
examine)
2) The ‘gain condition’ (pamphlet
emphasized the positive
consequences of self-examination’
3) The ‘neutral condition’ (control) (The
pamphlet contained neither type of
information but gave basic facts
about breast cancer.
The students were interviewed after 4
months and asked about their attitude
to self-examination and how often they
carried it out.
26) Due to the nature of the research, self-
reporting may have been biased and
affected the results as the students may
not have been honest about the amount
of time they spend playing games. There
is also low population validity due to the
research being carried out on teenage
American students, meaning the findings
can’t be generalised to the adult
population or people from other
cultures.
27) Fogel (2007) examined the effects that
watching pro-social sitcoms had on
children (8 – 12 years) in California. The
children had to complete a
questionnaire about their normal TV
watching habits and were allocated to
one of 2 conditions:
1) The experimental group watched a
30 min episode of Hang Time and
then discussed it with an adult for
15 mins.
2) They watched the clip but did not
discuss it.
28) Scores on the entertainment- social
subscale of the CAS correlated positively
(and significantly) with social
dysfunction, anxiety and depression
scores on the GHQ.
Scores on the intense- personal and
borderline pathological subscales
correlated positively (and significantly)
with anxiety and depression scores.
This supports the idea that there is a
significant link between celebrity
worship and poor psychological
wellbeing as a result of failed attempts
to escape, cope or enhance the
individual’s daily life.

6.
Answers:
8, 1, 5, 14
9, 4, 3, 21
22, 27, 2, 13
18, 17, 6, 26
16, 25, 10, 11
20, 19, 23, 24
7, 12, 15, 28