The Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura’s results of the experiment sustained three of the four original predictions that were made. The first being that the children who were exposed to the aggressive model had the exact behavior they had observed when the adult was no longer in sight. Second, Bandura also foresaw that experimental children in the non-aggressive group would behave much less aggressive than those who were exposed to aggression. The results of the experiment indicated that while children of both genders in the non-aggressive group did exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who had observed an opposite-sex model behave non-aggressively were more likely than those in the control group to engage in

The fundamentals of the social learning theory significantly describe offenders and their criminal behavior which is learned based on observation and imitation. A researcher by the name of Albert Bandura along with coworkers tested the social learning theory with several experiments on children and their imitation of aggression based on what they saw and were exposed to. Bandura’s focus was to prove that human behavior such as aggression is learned through social imitations and copying the actions of others. Walters (1966) gives details about the Bobo doll experiment and explains its purpose related to learning a violent behavior based on observation. In the experiment, the tested subjects were children of both sexes, ranging from the ages of three to six years. Some of the children were exposed to a non-aggressive adult, while the other children were placed in a room with an aggressive adult who would both physically and verbally attack the Bobo doll. The control group in the experiment was not exposed to any adult. During the second phase of the experiment, the children were left in a room by themselves with the toys, and watched to see if they would demonstrate the aggressive behavior like that of which they observed adults doing earlier. Walter (1966) describes the results as “children who had been exposed to an aggressive model showed more imitative physical and verbal

The room was also equipped with a one-way window so the child could be observed without their acknowledgement. The experiment showed that the consequences in the films that the children observed in the ending, created a different outcome. The children who witnessed the film were the adult was rewarded was most likely to repeat or imitate the aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll. In the situation of the other children who watched the adult being punished for their aggressive behavior, the children were less likely to recreate the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll. After the findings Bandura added to the experiment. The children who watched any of the three films were asked to recreate what the adult did in the film. Each imitation the child recreated correctly, they were rewarded with candy and stickers. Virtually all the children were capable of recreating all actions, aggressive or non-aggressive. The different variations of the films the children watched had no impact on them. In conclusion to Bandura’s experiment, you are capable of imitating any behavior, aggressive or non-aggressive, but you are more likely to imitate if there is expectation of any type of reward.

In the Bobo doll experiment, the kids demonstrated behavior similar to what the saw. The hit the doll, hammered the doll, and kick the doll. Then the kids began to adopt different ways of attacking the doll, whether it was with a gun, smacking it with a ball, or hitting the tether ball which hit the Bobo doll. One possible implication of viewing violence when it comes to social learning is that violence might be a product of what they are taught. Like in the video, the kids saw an adult beating up a doll. In a way, the may think if the adult can do it, I can also beat up the doll. If the kid does not differentiate from what is appropriate from adult behavior, and kids behavior, they will copy behavior of authority. Another implication could

The Bobo Doll experiment also demonstrated that incentives can affect performance (Holy & Perry, 2012). Incentives can encourage behaviors to continue or be discouraged. At this educator’s program, students who have misbehave loose the privilege of using their favorite toy. After the child repeatedly loses privileges for the same misconduct, the child begins to learn that behavior have a consequence. Many early childhood educators can see that, after the child has learned cause and effect, the child minimizes the behavior to avoid losing privileges. As Holy & Perry (2012) states, this might explain why not all adolescents get influenced by the media's smoking advertisements. Adolescents avoid "bad behavior" because they have personal consequences

Albert Bandura’s Bobo the Doll Experiment was performed to solidify and add credence to his belief that all human behavior is learned through social imitation, rather than inherited through genetic influences. During the 1960s, many psychologists debated whether genetics or environmental factors, such as social learning, effected a child’s development. Bandura designed the Bobo Doll experiment to prove that children imitate behaviors set by role model’s. Bandura’s research hastened the evolution of the 20th century experimental psychology from pure behaviorism into what is now known as social cognitive learning (Artino, 2017).

In this experiment, children were first shown a video of an adult hitting, assaulting, punching and kicking the Bobo doll. Then they were brought into a room and left alone with nothing, no toys but a Bobo doll. Later, the children were seen to imitate the actions of the adult in the video, inflicting violence onto the doll. For observational learning to happen, there must be a motivation for people to perform the action. In this case, the children were left with no toys but the Bobo doll. Additionally, they must also observe the actions, retain the memory to be able to reproduce, imitate and repeat the actions carried out by the adult in the video.

Then each group was divided into 2 in which one of the groups would be viewing a same-sex model, while the other group watched an opposite-sex model. During the first part of the experiment, each child was separately taken to the experiment room where they were presented with a variety of diverting activities like pictures and stickers, which was used to motivate observation but not participation. Then, the behavior model (the adult) was taken to the opposite side of the room which had a toy mallet, a tinkertoy set, and the Bobo doll. For one of the groups, the model displayed physical and verbal aggressive behavior towards to Bobo doll. In another group the model simply ignored the Bobo doll and played with the tinkertoy set.

The non-aggressive group of kids watched a video in which the doll was being treated nicely. Lastly, the control condition group was not exposed to any video. Subsequently, children were taken to room full of toys including the Bobo Doll. The observation covered 20 minutes with a kid alone in the room. The results were labeled that children from the aggressive model group tend to imitate more aggressive responses that the other two groups. Also, researchers found that there is a difference between genders; meaning that boys tend to copy the physical aggressive behavior from the same-sex child in the video. And, they also discovered that girls were more tended to show verbally aggressive behavior. In recap, simply, paying attention to a particular behavior like the one showed in the video, would lead to imitation if it calls our

In the contemporary world, there are several considerations regarding the impact of social influences on the development and growth of a child's temperament and morality.

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).

In the Bobo Doll Experiment conducted by Stanford University’s Dr. Albert Bandura the researchers were interested in a few things. The researchers were interested in seeing whether or not, if social behaviors such as aggression can be influenced and acquired by imitation and as well observation. In this study the participants were composed of 36 boys and 36 girls from the nursery on campus, all ranging in the ages from 3 to 6. In this study a tall inflatable plastic toy that were painted as clown, also known as a bobo doll was used. The bobo doll was buoyant and had weight at the bottom which allowed it to stand back up after being knocked down. Moving on the participants were all split into three groups: in which one group observed aggressive

Albert Bandura, who was born in December of 1925 was raised by immigrant parents who gave him a choice when he was younger. His two choices were to stay home, till the land, and spend time in the local bar or to try to get a higher education (Sloat, 2015). As someone in the education field I am very thankful that Bandura choose to go for the higher education option because we would not have the theories that he created. One of the most common points he focused on was: why we do the things we do (Sloat, 2015). As an aspiring teacher this will help to understand the reasons of why students are doing what they are.

This theory of social learning was extended and theorized by a psychologist named Albert Bandura. Bandura, together with his students and colleagues conducted a series of studies, in 1961 and 1963 known as the Bobo doll experiment. These studies helped Bandura publish his seminal article and book in 1977 that extended on the idea of how behaviour is learnt, thus built from Miller and Dollard’s research.

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