Personality and Delinquency: Further Multivariate Work With Discriminant Variables in Samples of Scottish Delinquent and Non-Delinquent Boys

Abstract

A female experimenter modeled affectionate physical contact in a group of preschool children who imitated the behavior. This induced a significant increase of affectionate behavior during a subsequent free-play period. By contrast, a group which had imitated "neutral" physical contact and another that had imitated "warm" verbal contact did not show a significant increase in affectionate behavior. Aggressive behavior was virtually absent in all groups.The effects of modeling upon aggressive behavior have been widely explored (Bandura, 1973;Berkowitz, 1962;Feshbach and Singer, 1971). The same research of affectionate behavior per se has not been explored, for the most part, because it has been difficult to bring affectionate behavior under experimental control. However, similar response classes have been manipulated and have been found to have contradictory effects upon behavior. Nurturance increased imitation (Bandura and Huston, 1961;Staub, 1971), but had no effect in Grusec and Skubinski, 1970;Rosenhan and White, 1967), and even reduced the likelihood of imitation (Bandura et al.. 1967). Yarrow and Scott (1972) found that when an adult was nurturant to children, they in turn were nurturant. Altruism also has been explored in the child prosocial literature. Liebert and Fernandez (1970) found that children exposed to multiple charitable models who donated a specific amount also donated in kind. Staub (1970) found that instructing a child that he could enter a room increased the likelihood that he would enter a room to help a distressed stooge. Fryrear and Thelen (1969) found that the modeling of affectionate behavior could induce imitative affection. These authors, however, were limited in their inferences because of an interaction between the sex of the model and the sex of the subjects. Pirot and Acker (1978, in press) induced nurturant behavior in both boys and girls using a modeling procedure with a male model.The present research systematically extends the Pirot and Acker (1978) research by the use of a different -sex model (female) ; by modeling "warm" and explicitly affectionate (e.g., kissing and hugging the teddy bear) behavior instead of the nurturance-producing procedure of Pirot and Acker; by an attempt to explore the variable of the imitative neutral physical contact training as a determinant of affectionate behavior; and finally, by the exploration of imitative "warm" verbal contact (affectionate verbal modeling) to induce affectionate behavior in young children. METHOD DESIGN AND SUBJECTSFour groups were created: (a) an Imitative "Warm" Physical Contact group; (b) an Imitative "Neutral" Physical Contact group; (c) an Imitative "Warm" Verbal Contact group; and (d) a Control group in which no training was given. 369