Citation

Shea BJ, Routh DK, Cottrell NB, Brecht JM. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 1973; 1(2): 214-224.

Affiliation

University of Iowa, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00916115

PMID

24198151

Abstract

The behavior of preadolescent and adolescent boys, rated as aggressive and nonaggressive, was examined to test predictions from Bandura and Walters' social-learning theory and from Weiss and Miller's punishment model of audience-observation effects. The subjects were given a bogus motor task, actually insoluble, with help available on each trial. For half the subjects, help was given through the mediation of a social agent; for the rest, help was on a nonsocial, mechanically mediated basis. The groups for whom help was socially mediated made fewer help-seeking responses and decreased the number of such responses over successive trial blocks. The predictions from Bandura and Walters' theory were not supported, since neither age nor degree of aggressiveness had an effect on help-seeking responses. The results were, however, consistent with the punishment model of audience effects.

Language: en