The influence of response modality on children\u27s imitation of helping and coercive behavior

The present study examined the effects of adult, film mediated models on the prosocial behavior of school children. Also the effect of congruency and incongruency between the model\u27s response and the response the children were asked to perform was investigated. Thirty third-grade students, 19 female and 11 male, were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group observed a short film of an adult model providing helping (positive) feedback to a young boy who was playing a marble maze game. The second group was treated identically to the first except that the model provided coercive (negative) feedback. The third group observed a neutral (no feedback) model. Each of the three groups was then divided in half. Half of the students from each group were asked to give feedback to an unseen boy who was playing the marble maze game by speaking into a microphone (congruent with model). The other half of the students gave the unseen boy feedback manually by pressing levers (incongruent with model). The results indicated that the students who gave verbal feedback displayed significantly more imitation than those who gave motor feedback. The students who made verbal responses also made statements about the unseen boy\u27s performance on the game that conformed more closely to the type of feedback (positive, negative, neutral) the model provided than those students who made motor responses