Bobo Doll Experiment

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

The study done by Ross Bandura was the Bobo Doll Experiment. This study was done in 1961. He had a total of 72 participants 36 girls and 36 boys around the ages of 3 and 6 years old. Bandura was trying to “add credence to his belief that all humans behavior was learned, through social imitation and copying, rather than inherited through genetic factors” (Shuttleworth). Bandra designed an experiment that would allow some to watch aggressive actors and others to watch non-aggressive actors. Bandra decided to use children for the experiment because children tend to have less social conditioning and the also have “less instruction and teaching of rules of society than adults subjects” (Shuttleworth).

Of the many disorders presented in chapter 15, I find phobias the most interesting. A phobia is an anxiety disorder. It is an intensive fear of something that has little to no danger at all. Phobias can range in many different varieties such as; acrophobia which is the fear of heights, arachnophobia which is the fear of arachnids otherwise known as spiders, and claustrophobia which is the fear of closed spaces.

Before the children were left alone with the toy, one group of children ( Group A) watched an adult perform violent actions towards the doll. The other group of children (Group B) watched the adult perform nonviolent acts by ignoring the doll completely and playing with other toys.When the kids were left alone the ones that were in Group A were known to be aggressive towards the toy. The ones in Group B were seen to ignore the Bobo doll and instead play with the tinkertoys left in the lab setting. Bandura applied his steps of the observational learning process to this experiment. This is known because the children must have had to pay attention to act in the way they did towards the doll. Then they had to retain the information so they could recall it back to act on the Bobo doll. The kids had to imitate the violent or nonviolent actions and finally reinforcement was used because there was question of a consequence after the behavior occurred. Throughout life people of all ages engage in this observational

In 1961 Albert Bandura and two of his colleagues set out to find empirical evidence to support his Social Learning Theory, which is the "theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished.” (Myers 162) The “Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models,” is more famously known as the Bobo doll study. The Bobo doll study tested children's susceptibility to aggressive tendencies by exposing them to adult models who exhibited aggressive behaviors and observing how the child expressed frustration later on away from the adult model.

In the classic "Bobo doll" studies, children witnessed adults play with a rubber, inflated toy. The adults either behaved aggressively towards the doll, such as hitting it with a hammer, or kicking it, or interacted peacefully with the doll.

Fears and phobias are a common experience that are normally based on past events. Often, your fear or phobia is caused by seeing a horrible event, your parents' influence when you were young or experiencing a traumatic event. If you remember the event that caused it, it is slightly easier to treat the phobia. Many people are unable to remember the traumatic experience that led to their fear, although the memory is still stored in the subconscious.

A phobia is an intense, unrealistic fear, which can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, that is brought on by an object, event or situation.

The behavior of humans is developed as they grow up and are surrounded by a variety of people. For example, in Lord of the flies, the littluns imitate the older boys. They believe that since that boy is doing that, then it should be okay to do the same. In the Bobo Doll Experiment, this is exactly what happens. This experiment was to see how aggressive the children were with the bobo doll after they have seen what their model does to it. The children from this experiment are split into three groups and two groups are given a model. The models are either aggressive or passive with the bobo doll used in the experiment. The influence on the children is shown by the conclusion, “-That is, children learn social behavior such as aggression through the process of observation learning- through watching of another person” (Mcleod). As said by Mcleod, children learn social behavior, by watching others.

Phobias are anxiety disorders. Phobias are excessive fears of specific things or situations. Fear of heights (acrophobia’s) is a hyper-reaction and survival mechanism of a fear response. Often it is learned response from a previous

Phobia is the fear or irritation one has towards some things, objects or activities, which results to one totally avoiding them or trip off on sighting them.

Psychology is apprehensive about the human behavior as being hereditary or learned. This is where nature and nurture come into place. An article written by McLeod, S.A (2007) tells us that “the basic assumption is that the characteristics of the human species as a whole are a product of evolution and that individual differences

Phobia is an extreme fear or dislike of particular thing or situation , especially one that cannot be reasonable . In addition, the Phobia has no age , nor gender. People with Phobia cannot control themselves . There are two types of Phobia are a Specific , or Simple Phobia and Complex Phobia . Specific , or Simple Phobia is a normal fear , but it can be develop in childhood to become a Phobia . Complex Phobia is happen in bad event specially on adulthood . All in all , Phobia is kind of extremely scared and it has to two types are a Specific or Simple Phobia and Complex Phobia .

Fear is an inevitable bodily defence mechanism that has been around since the beginning of human evolution. Every human being experiences fear intermittently throughout their lifetime, in some, their fear(s) are so severe that they interfere with daily activities. An irrational fear of an object, situation, or activity that a person feels obligated to avoid is considered a phobia 1. The word “phobia” originates from the Greek word "Phóbos" that translates as morbid fear 5. Phobias present themselves in different intensities. For example, one person may show negligible symptoms of claustrophobia while another could be completely conspicuous and avoid enclosed spaces altogether. Studies show that the reason for phobias to arise comes from

In the Bobo Doll experiment conducted by Albert Bandura, researchers were interested in testing children’s behavior in response to their exposure to violence. This study was constructed with 72 children, 36 boys and 36 girls from Stanford University Nursery School. Before the study began, each child was individually scored on his or her level of aggression towards others, as rated by the experimenter and the child’s teacher. Then the children were separated into groups based on a similar score of aggression. The children were separated into three groups of 24 children. The three groups allowed the experimenter to create the conditions used to test the children’s response to violence, which was the independent variable, as it affects the children’s aggressive behavior, the dependent variable. The first group of subjects was the aggressive model group, where the subjects were presented in a