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Luis Arauz

Mrs. Lown

October 10, 2017

Education 111

Banduras Theories on Violence in Childrens Lives

In a century where violence has been increasing in communities, families, and media, It should

not be a surprise that children are exposed to violence every single day. Many studies have found

that children imitate what they see. If violent acts are being shown to a child, the child is likely to

encode that behavior or imitate what they see. The more violence the child is seeing the more

desenitization he/she is going to have. Its not a surprise that children act certain ways, its not

the childs fault, most likely the parent/guardian at home or adults in the community, is acting

out in violence to a peer or to the child. We see more violence in low-income communities, but

overall violence in the United States is everywhere. Many types of violence can be blamed for

children's aggressive behaviors, and Albert Bandura would agree as well.

Albert Bandura was born in a town called Mundare in northern Alberta , Canada in

December 4, 1925. He went to a elementary and high school with minimal resources, but with a

very successful rate. He received his bachelor's degree in Psychology at the Unity of British

Columbia in 1949. He then received his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa in 1952. Later, he was

was intrigued and influenced by the learning theory and the behaviorist tradition, following

teaching in 1953, at Stanford University. Later collaborating with his first graduate student,

Richard Walters, ultimately in their first book, Adolescent Aggression in 1959. (Boeree).

One of Banduras theories had to do with observational learning. The idea that children

observe people around them and behave similar to them. Bandura illustrated this during his
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famous Bobo doll (egg-shape balloon creature with weight at the bottom) experiment. This

experiment involved kindergarten children watching a film, that Bandura filmed, with one of his

students, aggressively attacking the bobo doll. Afterwards, they placed kindergarteners, one by

one, in a play room, having the bobo doll off to the side of the room. The observers recorded the

children that watched the film, acted in similar aggressive behaviors and one child even took out

a play gun, that was in the play room, and pointed it to the bobo dolls head, having previous

violent experiences, acting out towards the doll (Boeree).

For most parents this experiment might not mean much, maybe not even think twice

about children playing around with a doll, but for Bandura, this backed up this claim that

children do indeed observe people and behave similar to them. It showed how a violent adult

influenced a child by imitating aggressive acts towards a blow-up toy, proving that observational

learning or modeling works. This type of learning can relate back to the different types of

violence children are exposed to on a constant basis, affecting children severely. The biggest

influence of violence on children is through the media.

Its not a surprise that the biggest source of violence is media, in fact the average

American child watches 28 hours of television each week and will have seen 16,000 simulated

murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18 (Brown). Even in cartoons violent acts

are always being exposed to young children, in fact more than 80 violent acts per hour

(Brown) are shown on television for children. Links have connected violence in the media and

childrens behavior. Researchers are relating to what Banduras theory states, that children

imitate what they see (NAEYC).

In this case children are copying and imitating violent behaviors that media has been

exposing and has increased violent acts the more they watch television. Its even worse if
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children can relate to violent characters on television. This is what observational learning is all

about. Children grasp on to the concept that if I see another person do this, then I can do it too,

but with Banduras theory comes the modeling process which includes several steps that relate to

children processing certain behavior in what they see (Brown).

The first step of the modeling process is attention, stating that if you are going to learn

something, you must pay attention. Any sort of distraction an effect someones attention.

Second, is retention, children must remember what they have paid attention to, forms of mental

images or verbal descriptions come into play. Thirdly, is reproduction, meaning translating

images into actual behavior, you must be able to reproduce the behavior. Lastly, is motivation,

this means that a child must have an internal or external motivation to imitate behaviors. So if a

child is not being motivated to act aggressively, chances are that children are not going to act

sporadically, something must motivate the child to constantly change his/her behaviors into

aggressiveness (Cherry).

Another form of violence that children have been exposed to since the 1970s is domestic

violence. This type of violence is unique because this violence is promoted by parents or

guardians in a household. So the child living in that house has no other option but to be exposed

to physical and verbal abuse from one person to another. According to Brett V. Brown and

Sharon Bzostek, estimated that in 1985, a survey indicated that 10 million children were exposed

to physical violence of some sort between their parents (Brown).

Since this type of violence is mostly done in a household, its hard for children to stay

away from this type of violence. In fact most children that deal with domestic violence suffer

from insomnia and have a trouble focusing in school, lacking skills such as cognitive, verbal, and

motor skills. This type of violence exposes children to become motivated to act out in aggression
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towards people, such as friends because its being motivated by their own parents on a daily

basis. Ultimately, making the kid aggressive up to his/her adult years. The child has no other

option but to pay attention this kind of violence because its what goes on in the house, this is

where the child is most influenced (NAEYC)

The last type of violence that has a great impact and goes well with Banduras

observational theory is child abuse. According to NAEYC 903,000 cases of child abuse and

neglect were reported by the child welfare authorities. So 1 in every 100 child in the U.S. has at

least one case of this type of violence (NAEYC). This violence is shown by a physical abuse

from parent to child, some examples are hitting, beating, choking, whipping, burning, leaving

bruises (NAEYC) and marks on a childs body. So children experience immediate both fear and

bodily harm. This goes onto the step of reproduction, daily abuse from parent to child. This

becomes a habit and becomes a repeated action that is engraved in the childs brain once they

step into the parents area (NAEYC).

Lets say a type of action from parent to child is flinching or backing away. These are

signs that a parents is hitting the child more than often, becoming an act of reproduction.

Bandura would agree that if a child is being physically and mentally abused, the child will

imitate this behavior later on, if intervention and deep therapy are not in the picture. The child

has no other choice but to imitate the behavior their parent(s) do because its what they are

learning in their homes (Cherry).

Violence in the lives of children has become an epidemic that has been going on since the

early 70s once it was being recorded & analyzed from psychological researchers and many

more. This issue has and still will be a major issue that early childhood education must be aware

that there are various type of violence. I picked out the top three type of influential violences
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and most recorded to show how big of an issue this is. After analysis this topic, along with

Banduras theory of observation and modeling, I have come to a conclusion that violence all

together can never be permanently stop, but if the right approach is used, it can change the way

childrens behavior act in the future. Just by asking general questions to a child can help any

early educator realize that there is something wrong, if most of the childs behavior is

aggression. According to Bandura Children learn behaviors from someone or something. If thats

the case then early educators might have to learn Banduras theory of observation and modeling

and how influential it is to any childs behaviors.

Work Cited

Boeree, C. George. Albert Bandura. Personality Theories, 1925,

webspace.ship.edu/cyber/bandura.html.

Dr. C. George Boeree is a retired professor, previously in the Psychological Department at

Shippensburg University. He taught personalities theory and the history of psychology. He was

born in 1952 in a town called Badhoevedorp, near Amsterdam and came to the US in 1956 with

his parents and siblings. He grew up on Long Island, and received his BA from Penn State, and
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his PhD from Oklahoma State all in Psychology. He is married to Judy Kovarik and has three

daughters. He has written up 26 summaries about theorists and their theories.

Brown, Brett V., and Sharon Bzostek. Violence in the Lives of Children. Cross Currents,

CTD, Aug. 2013, catalystforchildren.org/pdf/Violence.pdf.

This document shows information on many types of violence that affect childrens lives, grouped

by the frequency with which they occur. The index terms are child abuse, domestic assault,

media violence, socially approved violence, victims of violence, and dating violence. This was

publicized in September, 2003. I used many quotes and ideas from this source to help me

understand the types of violence and how often they happen in the lives of children in the U.S.

Cherry, Kendra. What Were Albert Bandura's Contributions to the Field of Psychology?

Verywell, 7 Oct. 2017, www.verywell.com/albert-bandura-biography-1925-2795537.

Kendra Cherry in an educator and an author with a decade of experience. She is the author of the

Everything Psychology Book (2nd Edition) and has written hundreds of articles on topics in

psychology such as, personality, social behavior, child therapy, and research method. She has a

Master of science in education from Boise State University with a primary research interest in

educational psychology. She also has a bachelor of science in psychology from Idaho State

University.

NAEYC. Violence in the Lives of Children. A position statement of the National Association

for the Education of Young Children, NAEYC, July 1993,

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ve
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d=0ahUKEwi2_fPMnebWAhWKQCYKHXIMDroQFggmMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2

Fwww.naeyc.org%2Ffiles%2Fnaeyc%2Ffile%2Fpositions%2FPSVIOL98.PDF&usg=A

OvVaw2w2KjqvXhqwCc-frvnvrn7.

NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) is a nonprofit association

in the U.S. representing early childhood education teachers, Para educators, center directors,

trainers, college educators, families of young children, policy makers, and advocates. NAEYC

accredits early childhood programs according to health, safety and education standards it first

launched in 1985 and reinvented and released in September 2006. In this case the violence in the

Lives of Children is an advocacy explaining the seriousness of violence, written in July, 1993.