Observational learning of prosocial behavior determined by the media and optimal learning period

Research Project

Project/Area Number	60510072
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Psychology
Research Institution	Aoyama Gakuin University
Principal Investigator	YOSHIMI Yoshihiro Aoyama Gakuin University, 文学部, 教授 (70082584)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	SUGIYAMA Kenji Toyo University, 文学部, 助教授 (00082636) YONEZAWA Shunji Aoyama Gakuin University, 文学部, 教授 (10084237)
Project Period (FY)	1985 – 1986
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1986)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000) Fiscal Year 1986: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000) Fiscal Year 1985: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Keywords	observational learning / prosocial behavior / altruistic response / viewpoint / emphasy / 年令差
Research Abstract	The present experiments investigated the changes of elementaly school childrens (1st and 4th grades) altruistic responses through observational learning of prosocial behavior in relation to the modeled events and to the observer's varibles. The former included the viewpoints of observed materials and the ways of presentation, the latter included empathy for, impression on, and evaluation of tese materials and ages. Observational learning was the symbolic modeling of altristic behavior by pictures with narration. The response measure was the change of rating scores to pre-and post-questionnaires on altruistic stories. The main results were as follows: 1. The observation of non-altruistic model emphasized his emotion facilitated alruistic cange, but the observation of altruistic model emphasized his emotion or behavior facillitated non-altruistic change. 2. Under the condition of fixed viewpoint, the observation of non-altruistic behvior facilitated altruistic response, but the observation of altruistic behavior had negative effect. 3. The observers who had observed altruistic behavior and answerd that the model or the object felt unwell showed greater non-altruistic change. 4. The observers who had observed altruistic behavior and estimated model's behavior low showed greater non-altruistic change. 5. The deeply impressed observers showed greater altruistic change. 6. The observers who observed non-altruistic behavior and felt sorrow to it showed greater altruistic change. 7. The observational learning without visual presentation was less effective. 8. The 1st grade children were more altruistic than the 4th grade children. 9. The response tendencies to many kinds of altruistic behaviors were not congruent between 1st grade and 4th grade children. 10.The 1st grade children estimated non-altruistic behavior worse than 4th grade children.