Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

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Dr. Albert Bandura was a psychologist who social learning theory stressed the importance of observational learning, imitation and modeling. He did a study where he took a Bobo doll and had a woman beat the doll up while shouting aggressive words at it. This behavior was filmed and then shown to a group of children. Then once the child viewed the film they were allowed to play with the Bobo doll. Dr. Bandura wanted to see if the children behaved in the manner as the adult has done on the film.
I did further research on this experiment to see just what it entailed. There were 36 boys and 36 girls ages ranged from three to almost six, with the average age being 4.4 years old. In addition there was eight experimental groups. Twenty-four then were assigned to a control group that got no treatment. Then the rest were placed into two groups with twenty-four in each. One of the groups was then exposed to models that were aggressive in nature, while the other group was subjected to a non aggressive model. Then Bandura further divided these experimental groups into male and female. Then these groups were then split in half and were exposed to a same sex adult model and the other were exposed to an opposite sex adult model.
Each child was evaluated separately to make sure their behavior was not influenced by others. Each child was then taken into a playroom and allowed to do different activities. Then an adult was brought in who was to sit down and join in the activity the child was doing. Basically in the non-aggressive setting, the adult played with tinker-toys and have not interaction with the Bobo doll, while in the aggressive group the adult model attacked the Bobo doll violently. Also, the adult abused the doll verbally. Then afte...

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...ould have been nice to see more of the experiment that was done. Bandura basically states that aggression can be learned by observation or by direct instruction. (Bandura - bobo doll experiment, 2010) I do agree with him on his theory. Because I fully feel that children learn from their environment. If children are taught it is alright to be violent, mean or aggressive, then they will grow up to think this is alright. On the other hand, if they are shown it is wrong and made to understand why it is, they are more likely to grow up stable and non-violent.

Works Cited and References.
Bandura - bobo doll experiment. (2010, Feburary 22). Retrieved from You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU
Cherry, K. (2014). Bobo Doll Experiment. Retrieved from About.com: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/bobo-doll-experiment.htm

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