Help seeking in aggressive and nonaggressive boys as a function of social or mechanical mediation of assistance

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.The preparation of this report was supported by U.S. Public Health Service, Maternal and Child Health Service Project No. 916, and by Grant HD-03110 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Appreciation is expressed to Miss Sydney Silverstein, who served as experimenter; to Mr. James Blank and Mr. William Blecker of the Iowa City Public School System; and to Dr. Jane E. Anderson, Dr. Dee W. Norton, Dr. A. L. Benton, and Dr. David A. Parton of the University of Iowa.