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Bobo doll experiment

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• Academia - Bobo Doll Experiment
• Frontiers - Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique
• Simply Psychology - Bobo Doll Experiment
• University of Central Florida Pressbooks - Psych in Real Life: The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Verywell Mind - What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression

Bobo doll experiment , groundbreaking study on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

Bandura’s study on aggression—the experiment for which he is perhaps best known—was carried out in 1961 at Stanford University , where Bandura was a professor. For this study he used 3- and 5-foot (1- and 1.5-metre) inflatable plastic toys called Bobo dolls, which were painted to look like cartoon clowns and were bottom-weighted so that they would return to an upright position when knocked down. The subjects were preschoolers at Stanford’s nursery school and were divided into three groups: one group observed aggressive adult behaviour models; another group observed nonaggressive behaviour models; and the third group was not exposed to any behaviour models.

The three groups were then divided by gender into six subgroups in which half of the subgroups would observe a same-sex behaviour model and half would observe an opposite-sex behaviour model. In the first stage of the experiment, the children were individually seated at a table in one corner of an experimental room and presented with diverting activities that had previously been shown to be of high interest to the children (e.g., stickers, pictures, prints) in order to discourage active participation and encourage mere observation. The behaviour model was then taken to the opposite corner—which contained another table and chair, a mallet, a Tinkertoy set, and a 5-foot Bobo doll—and was told he or she could play with these materials. In the aggressive behaviour model groups, the model abused the Bobo doll both physically (e.g., kicked, punched, threw, and assaulted with various objects) and verbally (e.g., made aggressive statements such as “Sock him in the nose” and “Pow” or nonaggressive statements such as “He sure is a tough fella” and “He keeps coming back for more”). In the nonaggressive behaviour model groups, the model ignored the Bobo doll and instead quietly assembled the Tinkertoys. After 10 minutes had elapsed, the behaviour models in both groups left the room.

In the second phase of the experiment, the children were taken individually into a different experimental room, where they were presented with a new group of appealing toys (e.g., train, fire engine, cable car, jet airplane, spinning top , doll with wardrobe, baby crib, and doll carriage). To test the hypothesis that the observation of aggression in others would increase the likelihood of aggression in the observer, the children were subjected to aggression arousal in the form of being told after two minutes that they could no longer play with the toys. The children were then told that they could, however, play with the toys in another room, where they were presented with various toys that were considered both aggressive (e.g., 3-foot Bobo doll, mallet, and dart guns) and nonaggressive (e.g., crayons, paper, farm animals, tea set, ball, and dolls).

In the final stage of the experiment, the children’s behaviour was observed over the course of 20 minutes and rated according to the degree of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour they modeled, the results of which yielded significantly higher scores for children in the aggressive behaviour model groups compared with those in both the nonaggressive behaviour model and control groups. Subsequent experiments in which children were exposed to such violence on videotape yielded similar results, with nearly 90 percent of the children in the aggressive behaviour groups later modeling the adults’ behaviour by attacking the doll in the same fashion and 40 percent of the those children exhibiting the same behaviour after eight months.

Although the study yielded similar results for both genders, it nonetheless suggested at least some difference depending on the degree to which a behaviour is sex-typed—that is, viewed as more common of or appropriate for a specific gender. For example, the data suggest that males are somewhat more prone to imitate physical aggression—a highly masculine-typed behaviour—than are females, with male subjects reproducing more physical aggression than female subjects; there were, however, no differences in the imitation of verbal aggression, which is less sex-typed. Additionally, both male and female subjects were more imitative of the male behaviour models than of the female models in terms of physical aggression but were more imitative of the same-sex models in terms of verbal aggression.

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment on Social Learning

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

During the 1960s, Albert Bandura conducted a series of experiments on observational learning , collectively known as the Bobo doll experiments. Two of the experiments are described below:

Bandura (1961) conducted a controlled experiment study to investigate if social behaviors (i.e., aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation.

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) tested 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old.

The researchers pre-tested the children for how aggressive they were by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behavior on four 5-point rating scales.

It was then possible to match the children in each group so that they had similar levels of aggression in their everyday behavior. The experiment is, therefore, an example of a matched pairs design .

To test the inter-rater reliability of the observers, 51 of the children were rated by two observers independently, and their ratings were compared. These ratings showed a very high-reliability correlation (r = 0.89), which suggested that the observers had a good agreement about the behavior of the children.

A lab experiment was used, in which the independent variable (the type of model) was manipulated in three conditions:

• Aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• Non-aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• No model is shown (control condition) – 24 children

Stage 1: Modeling

In the experimental conditions, children were individually shown into a room containing toys and played with some potato prints and pictures in a corner for 10 minutes while either:

• 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) watched a male or female model behaving aggressively towards a toy called a “Bobo doll”. The adults attacked the Bobo doll in a distinctive manner – they used a hammer in some cases, and in others threw the doll in the air and shouted “Pow, Boom.”
• Another 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were exposed to a non-aggressive model who played in a quiet and subdued manner for 10 minutes (playing with a tinker toy set and ignoring the bobo-doll).
• The final 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were used as a control group and not exposed to any model at all.

Stage 2: Aggression Arousal

All the children (including the control group) were subjected to “mild aggression arousal.” Each child was (separately) taken to a room with relatively attractive toys.

As soon as the child started to play with the toys, the experimenter told the child that these were the experimenter’s very best toys and she had decided to reserve them for the other children.

Stage 3: Test for Delayed Imitation

• The next room contained some aggressive toys and some non-aggressive toys. The non-aggressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears and plastic farm animals. The aggressive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns, and a 3 foot Bobo doll.
• The child was in the room for 20 minutes, and their behavior was observed and rated though a one-way mirror. Observations were made at 5-second intervals, therefore, giving 240 response units for each child.
• Other behaviors that didn’t imitate that of the model were also recorded e.g., punching the Bobo doll on the nose.
• Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups.
• There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who had observed aggressive behavior, although the difference for non-imitative aggression was small.
• The girls in the aggressive model condition also showed more physically aggressive responses if the model was male, but more verbally aggressive responses if the model was female. However, the exception to this general pattern was the observation of how often they punched Bobo, and in this case the effects of gender were reversed.
• Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls. The evidence for girls imitating same-sex models is not strong.
• Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls. There was little difference in verbal aggression between boys and girls.

Bobo doll experiment demonstrated that children are able to learn social behavior such as aggression through the process of observation learning, through watching the behavior of another person. The findings support Bandura’s (1977) Social Learning Theory .

This study has important implications for the effects of media violence on children.

There are three main advantages of the experimental method .

• Experiments are the only means by which cause and effect can be established. Thus, it could be demonstrated that the model did have an effect on the child’s subsequent behavior because all variables other than the independent variable are controlled.
• It allows for precise control of variables. Many variables were controlled, such as the gender of the model, the time the children observed the model, the behavior of the model, and so on.
• Experiments can be replicated. Standardized procedures and instructions were used, allowing for replicability. In fact, the study has been replicated with slight changes, such as using video, and similar results were found (Bandura, 1963).

Limitations of the procedure include:

• Many psychologists are very critical of laboratory studies of imitation – in particular, because they tend to have low ecological validity. The situation involves the child and an adult model, which is a very limited social situation and there is no interaction between the child and the model at any point; certainly the child has no chance to influence the model in any way.
• Also, the model and the child are strangers. This, of course, is quite unlike “normal” modeling, which often takes place within the family.
• Cumberbatch (1990) found that children who had not played with a Bobo Doll before were five times as likely to imitate the aggressive behavior than those who were familiar with it; he claims that the novelty value of the doll makes it more likely that children will imitate the behavior.
• A further criticism of the study is that the demonstrations are measured almost immediately. With such snapshot studies, we cannot discover if such a single exposure can have long-term effects.
• It is possible to argue that the bobo doll experiment was unethical. For example, there is the problem of whether or not the children suffered any long-term consequences as a result of the study. Although it is unlikely, we can never be certain.

Vicarious Reinforcement Bobo Doll Study

An observer’s behavior can also be affected by the positive or negative consequences of a model’s behavior.

So we not only watch what people do, but we watch what happens when they do things. This is known as vicarious reinforcement. We are more likely to imitate behavior that is rewarded and refrain from behavior that is punished.

Bandura (1965) used a similar experimental set up to the one outlined above to test vicarious reinforcement. The experiment had different consequences for the model’s aggression to the three groups of children.

One group saw the model’s aggression being rewarded (being given sweets and a drink for a “championship performance,” another group saw the model being punished for the aggression (scolded), and the third group saw no specific consequences (control condition).

When allowed to enter the playroom, children in the reward and control conditions imitated more aggressive actions of the model than did the children in the punishment condition.

The children in the model punished group had learned the aggression by observational learning, but did not imitate it because they expected negative consequences.

Reinforcement gained by watching another person is known as vicarious reinforcement.

Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models” reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses . Journal of personality and social psychology, 1(6) , 589.

Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models .  Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63, 575-82.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models . The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66(1), 3.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Further Information

• Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
• Bobo Doll Study Summary
• BBC Radio 4 Programme: The Bobo Doll
• Bobo Doll Summary PowerPoint

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What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

• The Experiment

The question of how children learn to engage in violent behavior has been of great interest to parents and researchers alike. In the 1960s, psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues conducted what is now known as the Bobo doll experiment, and they demonstrated that children may learn aggression through observation.

Aggression lies at the root of many social ills ranging from interpersonal violence to war. It is little wonder, then, that the subject is one of the most studied topics within psychology.

This article covers what the Bobo doll experiment is, its findings on childhood aggression, as well as its impact on psychology.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

The participants for the experiment were 36 boys and 36 girls enrolled at the Stanford University Nursery School. The children ranged in age between 3 and almost 6 years.

The experiment involved exposing one group of 24 children to an adult modeling aggressive behavior, and another group of 24 children to an adult modeling non-aggressive behavior. The final group of 24 children acted as the control group that was not exposed to adult models.

These groups were divided again into groups of boys and girls. Each of these subgroups was then divided so that half of the participants would be exposed to a same-sex adult model and the other half would be exposed to an opposite-sex adult model.

Each child was tested individually to ensure that their behavior would not be influenced by other children. The child was first brought into a playroom where there were a number of different activities to explore. The experimenter then invited the adult model into the playroom.

In the non-aggressive condition, the adult model simply played with the toys and ignored the Bobo doll for the entire period. In the aggressive model condition, however, the adult models would violently attack the Bobo doll.

The aggressive models would punch Bobo, strike Bobo with a mallet, toss the doll in the air, and kick it around the room. They would also use " verbally aggressive phrases" such as "Kick him" and "Pow." The models also added two non-aggressive phrases: "He sure is a tough fella" and "He keeps coming back for more."

After the ten-minute exposure to the adult model, each child was then taken to another room that contained a number of appealing toys including a doll set, fire engine, and toy airplane.

The children were permitted to play for a brief two minutes, then told they were no longer allowed to play with any of these tempting toys. The purpose of this was to build up frustration levels among the young participants.

Finally, each child was taken to the last experimental room. This room contained a number of "aggressive" toys including a mallet, a tether ball with a face painted on it, dart guns, and, of course, a Bobo doll. The room also included several "non-aggressive" toys including crayons, paper, dolls, plastic animals, and trucks.

Each child was then allowed to play in this room for a period of 20 minutes. During this time, researchers observed the child's behavior from behind a one-way mirror and judged each child's levels of aggression.

Predictions

Bandura made several key predictions about what would occur during the Bobo doll experiment.

• Boys would behave more aggressively than girls.
• Children who observed an adult acting aggressively would be likely to act aggressively, even when the adult model was not present.
• Children would be more likely to imitate models of the same sex rather than models of the opposite sex.
• The children who observed the non-aggressive adult model would be less aggressive than the children who observed the aggressive model; the non-aggressive exposure group would also be less aggressive than the control group.

The results of the experiment supported some of the original predictions, but also included some unexpected findings:

• Bandura and his colleagues had predicted that children in the non-aggressive group would behave less aggressively than those in the control group. The results indicated that while children of both genders in the non-aggressive group did tend to exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who had observed a non-aggressive, opposite-sex model were more likely than those in the control group to engage in violence.
• Children exposed to the violent model tended to imitate the exact behavior they had observed when the adult model was no longer present.
• Researchers were correct in their prediction that boys would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in more than twice as many acts of physical aggression than the girls.
• There were important gender differences when it came to whether a same-sex or opposite-sex model was observed. Boys who observed adult males behaving violently were more influenced than those who had observed female models behaving aggressively.
• Interestingly, the experimenters found in same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression.

Impact of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Results of the experiment supported Bandura's social learning theory.

According to Bandura's social learning theory, learning occurs through observations and interactions with other people. Essentially, people learn by watching others and then imitating these actions.

Bandura and his colleagues believed that the Bobo doll experiment demonstrates how specific behaviors can be learned through observation and imitation.

According to Bandura, the violent behavior of the adult models toward the dolls led children to believe that such actions were acceptable.

Bandura also suggested that as a result, children may be more inclined to respond to frustration with aggression in the future.

In a follow-up study conducted in 1965, Bandura found that while children were more likely to imitate aggressive behavior if the adult model was rewarded for his or her actions, they were far less likely to imitate if they saw the adult model being punished or reprimanded for their hostile behavior.

The conclusions drawn from the Bobo doll experiment may help explain human behavior in many areas of life. For instance, the idea that children will imitate the abusive behavior that they witness may provide insight into domestic violence .

Adolescents who grow up witnessing abuse in their homes may be more likely to display violent behavior themselves, and view aggression as an appropriate response to solve interpersonal problems.

Research has found that the Bobo doll experiment and its follow-up study shed light on bullying . For instance, when leadership doesn't give negative consequences for workplace bullying, the bullying is more likely to persist.

Therefore, it's important that aggressive or violent behavior is not tolerated by those with power—whether it's at the workplace, in schools, or at home—or else the aggression is likely to continue and may influence young people who witness it.

Criticism of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Critics point out that acting violently toward a doll is a lot different than displaying aggression or violence against another human being in a real-world setting.

In other words, a child acting violently toward a doll doesn't necessarily indicate they'll act violently toward a person.

Because the experiment took place in a lab setting, some critics suggest that results observed in this type of location may not be indicative of what takes place in the real world.

It has also been suggested that children were not actually motivated to display aggression when they hit the Bobo doll; instead, they may have simply been trying to please the adults. It's worth noting that the children didn't actually hurt the Bobo doll, nor did they think they were hurting it.

In addition, by intentionally frustrating the children, some argue that the experimenters were essentially teaching the children to be aggressive.

It's also not known whether the children were actually aggressive or simply imitating the behavior without aggressive intent (most children will imitate behavior right after they see it, but they don't necessarily continue it in the long term).

Since data was collected immediately, it is also difficult to know what the long-term impact might have been.

Additional criticisms note the biases of the researchers. Since they knew that the children were already frustrated, they may have been more likely to interpret the children's actions as aggressive.

The study may also suffer from selection bias. All participants were drawn from a narrow pool of students who share the same racial and socioeconomic background. This makes it difficult to generalize the results to a larger, more diverse population.

A Word From Verywell

Bandura's experiment remains one of the most well-known studies in psychology. Today, social psychologists continue to study the impact of observed violence on children's behavior. In the decades since the Bobo doll experiment, there have been hundreds of studies on how observing violence impacts children's behavior.

Today, researchers continue to ponder the question of whether the violence children witness on television, in the movies, or through video games translates to aggressive or violent behavior in the real world.

Bandura A. Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1965;1:589-595. doi:10.1037/h0022070

Xia Y, Li S, Liu TH. The interrelationship between family violence, adolescent violence, and adolescent violent victimization: An application and extension of the cultural spillover theory in China . IJERPH. 2018;15(2):371. doi:10.3390/ijerph15020371

Hollis LP. Lessons from Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments: Leadership’s deliberate indifference exacerbates workplace bullying in higher education . JSPTE. 2019;4:085-102. doi:10.28945/4426

Altin D, Jablonski J, Lyke J, et al. Gender difference in perceiving aggression using the Bobo doll studies . Modern Psychological Studies. 2011;16:2.

Bandura A, Ross D, Ross SA. Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models . Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1961;63:575-82. doi:10.1037/h0045925

Ferguson CJ. Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can violent video games be a force for good? Review of General Psychology. 2010;14(2) : 68-81. doi:10.1037/a0018941

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment (Explained)

The Bobo Doll Experiment was a study by Albert Bandura to investigate if social behaviors can be learned by observing others in the action. According to behaviorists, learning occurs only when a behavior results in rewards or punishment. However, Bandura didn't believe the framework of rewards and punishments adequately explained many aspects of everyday human behavior.

According to the Social Learning Theory, people learn most new skills through modeling, imitation, and observation. Bandura believed that people could learn by observing how someone else is rewarded or penalized instead of engaging in the action themselves.

In the hit television show Big Little Lies, tensions run high as an unknown child is accused of choking another student. The child is revealed as Max throughout the series (spoiler alert!). Max has an abusive father, and once Max’s mother realizes that her child is learning behaviors from her husband, she decides to take action. 

This cycle of abuse is sad but extremely common. Many abusers were abused themselves or grew up in an abusive household. These ideas seem obvious, but in the mid-20th century, evidence that supports these ideas was becoming known. 

What is the Bobo Doll Experiment?

In 1961, Albert Bandura conducted the Bobo doll experiment at Stanford University. He placed children in a room with an adult, toys, and a five-foot Bobo Doll. (Bobo Dolls are large inflatable clowns shaped like a bowling ball, so they  roll upward if punched or knocked down.)

Who Conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment?

This experiment made Albert Bandura one of the most renowned psychologists in the history of the world. He is now listed in the ranks of Freud and B.F. Skinner, the psychologist who developed the theory of operant conditioning . 

How Was The Bobo Doll Experiment Conducted?

Let’s start by discussing Bandura’s first Bobo doll experiment from 1961. Bandura conducted the experiment in three parts: modeling, aggression arousal, and a test for delayed imitation. 

Stage 1: Modeling 

The study was separated into three groups, including a control group. An aggressive adult behavior model was shown to one group, a non-aggressive adult behavior model to another, and no behavior models were shown to the third group. In the group with the aggressive adult, some models chose to hit the Bobo doll over the head with a mallet. 

The group with a nonaggressive adult simply observed the model playing with blocks, coloring, or doing non-aggressive activities. 

Stage 2: Aggression Arousal 

After 10 minutes of being in the room with the model, the child was taken into another room. This room had attractive toys; the researchers briefly allowed the children to play with the toys of their choice. Once the child was engaged in play, the researchers removed the toys from the child and took them into yet another room. It’s easy to guess that the children were frustrated, but the researchers wanted to see how they would release that frustration. 

Stage 3: Test For Delayed Imitation 

The third room contained a set of “aggressive” and “non-aggressive toys.” The room also had a Bobo doll. Researchers watched and recorded each child’s behavior through a one-way mirror. 

So what happened?

As you can probably guess, the children who observed the adults hitting the Bobo doll were more likely to take their frustration out on the Bobo doll. They kicked, yelled at, or even used the mallet to hit the doll. The children who observed the non-aggressive adults tended to avoid the Bobo doll and take their frustration out without aggression or violence. 

The Second Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura did not stop with the 1961 Bobo doll experiment. Two years later, he conducted another experiment with a Bobo doll. This one combined the ideas of modeling with the idea of conditioning. Were people genuinely motivated by consequences, or was there something more to their behavior and attitudes? 

In this experiment, Bandura showed children a video of a model acting aggressively toward the Bobo doll. Three groups of children individually observed a different final scene in the video. The children in the control group did not see any scene other than the model hitting the Bobo doll. In another group, the children observed the model getting rewarded for their actions. The last group saw the model getting punished and warned not to act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. 

All three groups of children were then individually moved to a room with toys and a Bobo doll. Bandura observed that the children who saw the model receiving a punishment were less likely to be aggressive toward the doll. 

A second observation was especially interesting. When researchers asked the children to act aggressively toward the Bobo doll, as they did in the movie, the children did.

This doesn’t sound significant, but it does make an interesting point about learned behaviors. The children learn the behavior by watching the model and observing their actions. Learning (aka remembering) the learning of the model’s actions occurred simply because the children were there to observe them.

Consequences simply influenced whether or not the children decided to perform the learned behaviors. The memory of the aggression was still present, whether or not the child saw that the aggression was rewarded or punished. 

Is The Bobo Doll Experiment An Example of Operant Conditioning or Classical Conditioning?

Neither! Since operant and classical conditioning rely on explicit rewards or penalties to affect behavior repetition, they fall short of capturing the full scope of human learning. Conversely, observational learning is not dependent on these rewards. Albert Bandura's well-known "Bobo Doll" experiment is a striking example.

This experiment proved that without firsthand experience or outside rewards and penalties, people might learn only by watching others. The behaviorist ideas of the time, which were primarily dependent on reinforcement, faced a severe challenge from Bandura's research.

Criticism of the Bobo Doll Experiment

A Reddit user on the TodayILearned subreddit made a good point on how the Bobo Doll Experiment was conducted: 

"A significant criticism of this study is that the Bobo doll is MEANT to be knocked around. It’s an inflatable toy with a weight at the bottom, it rocks back and forth and stands back up after it is hit.

How do we know that the kids didn’t watch the adults knock over the toy and say, 'That looks fun!' and then mimic them? These types of toys are still often sold as punching bag toys for kids. This study would have much more validity if they had used a different type of toy."

Bobo Doll Impact

There’s one more piece of the 1963 study that is worth mentioning. While some children in the experiment watched a movie, others watched a live model. Did this make a huge difference in whether or not the child learned and displayed aggressive behaviors?

Not really.

The Bobo Doll experiment has frequently been cited in discussions among psychologists and researchers, especially when debating the impact of violent media on children. A wealth of research has sought to determine whether children engage with violent video games and consume violent media, does it increase their likelihood to act out violently? Or, as suggested by the Bobo Doll experiment, do children merely internalize these behaviors and still maintain discretion over whether to act on them or not?

Multiple studies have aimed to tackle this question. For instance, research from the American Psychological Association has pointed to a link between violent video games and increased aggression, though not necessarily criminal violence. However, other sources, such as the Oxford Internet Institute , have found limited evidence to support a direct link between game violence and real-world violent actions. Despite the varying findings, the influence of Albert Bandura's introduction of observational learning and social learning theory cannot be understated. His Bobo Doll experiments remain pivotal in psychology's rich history.

Related posts:

• Albert Bandura (Biography + Experiments)
• 3 Theories of Aggression (Psychology Explained)

Observational Learning

• 40+ Famous Psychologists (Images + Biographies)
• Learning (Psychology)

Reference this article:

About The Author

Operant Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

Latent Learning

Experiential Learning

The Little Albert Study

Bobo Doll Experiment

Spacing Effect

Von Restorff Effect

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Bandura and Bobo

• APS 24th Annual Convention (2012)
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But when it was their own turn to play with Bobo, children who witnessed an adult pummeling the doll were likely to show aggression too. Similar to their adult models, the children kicked the doll, hit it with a mallet, and threw it in the air. They even came up with new ways to hurt Bobo, such as throwing darts or aiming a toy gun at him. Children who were exposed to a non-aggressive adult or no model at all had far less aggression toward Bobo.

Bandura’s findings challenged the widely accepted behaviorist view that rewards and punishments are essential to learning. He suggested that people could learn by observing and imitating others’ behavior.

Faye notes that the Bobo doll experiments were also influential outside of the scientific community. “Bandura’s findings were particularly important in 1960s America, when lawmakers, broadcasters, and the general public were engaged in serious debate regarding the effects of television violence on the behavior of children,” she says.

Today, questions about violent media and video games linger, so Bandura’s research on aggression remains relevant. His Bobo-inspired social learning theory also contributed to the development of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Bandura is a member of an elite group who received both APS lifetime achievement awards: the William James and James Mckeen Cattell Fellow Awards. He was also named among the top five most eminent 20 th century psychologists by the Review of General Psychology . It’s an impressive legacy for a project that began with a little creativity and an inflatable clown.

How can the Bobo experiment be a critique of behaviorism? Children cannot learn from watching unless they have experience, can they? And experience, obviously, is gained through behavior. Behaviorism appears to be merely a version of Russell´s knowledge by acquaintance as opposed to knowledge by description. Whilst description can probably substitute for behavior in a virtual world, it is less likely useful in the real world.

We perceive what we see, is that not an experience where acting out is the result of its cognitive beginning? I would say most people learn from watching, hearing, and doing. While the three are a classroom didactic exercise the other is a practical experience.

I agree with Brian, observation/vicarious learning as represented in the Bobo experiment shapes the behavior we assume will be called for in the future. The behavior is acted out immediately or the experience, our perception of the experience, is molded at that time for future enactment of the behavior, cognitive beginning most definitely.

I can imagine what it was like being one of those children watching the adult kicking and punching the crap out of the doll. Here was the exact opposite of what they had been taught their entire life. It must have been liberating and fun to have free license. Just as you or I might enjoy using a big hammer to smash a wall that has to come down. But not for a moment do I think it leads to aggression or violence. More like catharsis. If Bandura’s experiments had involved adults hurting cats, I do not believe those children would have imitated that

I DO AGREE With Albert Bandula’s That Man Tend To Imitate The Behaviours Of The Person He Observes Given That In The Social Learning Theory Man Is Bound To Copy The Behaviour Of Those Frequently With Them Hence Parents Adults And Teacher Need To Be Concious Of Their Actions.

I’m a Profesional Clown for 31 yrs. I grew up with that Clown Toy. I liked it. The problem with this Toy is many adults see a Clown as a Thing, not a Person. The symbolism of the Toy can bring out the Dark Side of some adults. “Pseudo Clown O Phobia” as I call it is fashionable. Some Unethical Media Shrinks actually are telling people that they should be scared. This is not about Clowns or Toys. As the Internet came in Junk Science has grown. I’m concerned about turning Clowns into evil characters & and the so-called Psychologists who are doing a major disservice, not just to Clowns but to the Real Science of Psychology.

Bandura and Bobo, is not about violence, but desensitization, in the manner media desensitizes the power of words, as well as actions. Yes children experiencing actual violence are more prone to participate in violence, but there is a percentage of desensitized children that “act out” what they have seen; “trauma trigger” this then effects the group by direct experience. This continues especially for those children mentioned above with no outlet for trauma; mass psychotherapy without boundaries, guidance, or professional observation; only the consequence of the penal system. It is proven society has had a large hand in creating the very individuals, that then fill the penal system with just this type of personality. Not everyone is effected, certainly not everyone is as sensitive, to the trigger: but the numbers are still alarming.

My friend and I want to do a science expo project on this issue of the Bobo Doll and Albert Bandura. And we think that adults should be conscious of their actions and their words because children will learn to be like them.

Hello all, does anyone know where I can purchase a vintage Bobo Doll or have a one made? I am a Psychology Major at Cedar Crest College and am doing a project for Psi Chi. We would love to purchase one but don’t know where to find one. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Evaluating the Bobo Doll experiment: Since the experiment was made using children and relying on these children’s judgement, in my humble opinion, is not a strong result. Children do not have a strong base of morality, they do not fully know what is right or wrong and merely rely and mimic what they hear and see (feeds)from adults. The experiment used a doll and this is understood by children as a toy (an inanimate object which could be deformed, thrown, etc). I believe that their actions were parts imitation and curiosity and at the same time liberation that they could do what they think they could do with the doll without being judged by the adult (since children’s actions are controlled by adults). Secondly, the experiment was a model of ‘conditioning’ and not free will. I think the result of this experiment would be different if adults were the participants. Even if the doll was substituted with a live cat (apologies-just an example), the children will still act out what adults did but it will not be true with adult participants. My conclusion for this experiment is that behaviour is truly learned from experiences (heard and seen) and the younger one learns an action, the more likely that it will be moulded into his being/behaviour/lifestyle. But an adult’s adaptation of new behaviour is his choice.

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Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) – The Imitative Aggressive Experiment 

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Last Updated on August 2, 2021 by Karl Thompson

This classic example of a laboratory experiment suggests that children learn aggressive behaviour through observation – it is relevant to the Crime and Deviance module, and lends support to the idea that exposure to violence at home (or in the media) can increase aggressive and possibly violent behaviour in real life.

Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) aimed to find out if children learnt aggressive behaviour by observing adults acting in an aggressive manner.

Their sample consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old.

Stage one – making some of the children watch violence 

In this stage of the experiment, children were divided into three groups of 24 (12 boys and 12 girls in each group), and then individually put through one of the following three processes. 

Stage two – frustrating the children and observing their reactions

The children were then taken to a room full of nice of toys, but told that they were not allowed to play with them, in order to ‘frustrate them’, and then taken onto another room full of toys which consisted of a number of ‘ordinary toys’, as well as a ‘bobo doll’ and a hammer. Children were given a period of time to play with these toys while being observed through a two way mirror.

The idea here was to see if those children who had witnessed the aggressive behaviour towards the doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards it themselves.

To cut a long story short, the children who had previously seen the adults acting aggressively towards the bobo doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards to the bobo doll in stage two of the experiment.

Strengths of the bobo-doll experiment 

Limitations of this laboratory experiment

Laboratory Experiments – advantages and disadvantages

Milgram’s Obedience Experiment – is the other ‘classic’ psychology experiment which usually gets wheeled out for use in sociology.

This post from Simply Psychology offers a much more detailed account of Bandura’s Imitative Aggressive experiment – NB if you’re an A-level sociology student, you don’t really need to know that much detail for this experiment, this link is just for further reading.

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• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63 , 575-582.
• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66 (1), 3-11.
• Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of Models’ Reinforcement Contingencies on the Acquisition of Imitative Responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1 (6), 589.
• Huessmann, L. R., Lagerspetz, K. And Eron, L. D. (1984). Intervening Variables in the TV Violence-Aggression Relation: Evidence From Two Countries. Developmental Psychology , 20 (5), 746-775.

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Bobo Doll Experiment

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The original Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Bandura et al. ( 1961 ) using a 5-ft inflatable clown (the Bobo doll) to demonstrate that children can learn aggressive behavior in the absence of any rewards and solely by observing the behavior of an adult model.

Introduction

At the time the original Bobo doll experiment was conducted, learning was understood through behaviorism as conceptualized by Skinner ( 1953 ). Individuals were believed to learn through rewards and punishments. Rewards such as money, praise, or other desirable tangible and intangible reinforcements were believed to increase the likelihood that someone would behave in a particular way, whereas punishments were believed to decrease the likelihood that someone would behave in a particular way. For example, a boy who pushed a classmate off a swing and was rewarded by being allowed to swing right away would be more likely in the future to push a classmate off the swing when he wanted a turn. However, if the...

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Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory . New York: General Learning Press.

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Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63 , 575–582.

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Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 , 3–11.

Miller, N. E., & Dollard, J. (1941). Social learning and imitation . New Haven: Yale University Press.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior . New York: Macmillan.

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Lansford, J.E. (2020). Bobo Doll Experiment. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1214

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Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique

Introduction.

In a series of innovative experiments, Bandura (1925–2021), renowned Psychology Professor at Stanford University, USA, and his collaborators (e.g., Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 , 1963 ; Bandura, 1965 , 1969 ) showed that young children exposed to adults' aggression tend to behave aggressively. In these experiments, children observed adults, in vivo or in vitro , as well as cartoons, behaving aggressively toward a large, inflated doll (clown) named “Bobo doll”, for about 10 min. The findings of these studies are considered to support modeling, observational learning, or learning by imitation and provide evidence for Bandura's social learning theory, which belongs to the behaviorism paradigm. In this paper, we offer a psychoanalytic critique of these experiments with the aim of shedding light on the unconscious processes of children's imitation of aggression. Although Bandura ( 1986 ) later formulated the so-called social cognitive theory and focused on less observable processes (e.g., self-regulation, self-efficacy, beliefs, expectations), in presenting these early experiments he clearly opposed the existing psychoanalytic interpretations of aggression.

Key findings of Bandura's experiments on aggression in children

The key findings of Bandura's experiments on aggression in children (Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 , 1963 ; Bandura, 1965 , 1969 ) are summarized below.

• Observation of an aggressive model is sufficient to elicit aggressive behavior in the young child. The model does not need to be a familiar or nurturant person. Moreover, there is no need to positively reinforce the aggression of either the adult model or the child. Because punishment does not follow the model's aggressive acts, the child receives the message that aggression is acceptable.
• The virtual world has great power. Children who watch a film showing aggressive people or cartoons tend to imitate this behavior.
• Imitation is inferred by the fact that children show verbal and/or physical aggressive acts that are very similar to those of the model.
• Children not only accurately imitate the observed behaviors but also show ingenuity, manifesting different, novice acts of aggression.
• Children transfer, by means of generalization, aggression into new, different contexts, even when the aggressive model is no longer present (delayed imitation).
• If the adult model is punished for his/her aggressive behavior, the probability that the child will show aggressive behavior is reduced. In contrast, positive reinforcement or no reinforcement of the model leads to increased aggression on the part of the child (vicarious/indirect learning).
• After observing the aggressive model, boys tend to exhibit more physical aggression than girls, whereas no gender difference is found for verbal aggression. Independent of gender, children are more likely to imitate a male physically aggressive model. According to gender stereotypes, this form of aggression is more acceptable for men than for women. In contrast, verbal aggression is more likely to be imitated when manifested by a same-sex model.

Taken together, these results imply that children's aggression can be caused—and probably eliminated—by external manipulations. However, are there interpretations other than this omnipotent behavioristic view?

Psychoanalytic views of children's aggression in Bandura's experiments

In the Bobo doll experiments, after presenting the aggressive model and before placing the child in the room with Bobo doll and other toys with the aim of recording the likelihood of imitation, the experimenters instigated the children's aggression. Specifically, an experimenter led children to another room, where she allowed them to enjoy some attractive toys. After a while, she told them that all toys were hers, that she would no longer let anyone play with them, and that she intended to give them to other children. After experiencing this frustration , the children were accompanied to the room where Bobo doll was.

Bandura (Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 ) stated that he was seeking a more concise and parsimonious theoretical explanation than the one provided by identification with the aggressor , that is, the ego defense mechanism described by Anna Freud ( 1946 ), and attempted to outline alternative explanations (Bandura, 1969 ). However, if we look closely at specific aspects and manipulations of these experiments, we may discover that this mechanism may have more explanatory power for what happened in the laboratory than Bandura believed.

At first, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, in the eyes of the children, the experimenters were omnipotent adult figures with authority, prestige, and power. The strange laboratory setting may have elicited in children excessive arousal , associated with tension and anxiety. This overflow of excitation, that needed to be released, is likely to have resulted from the unprecedented experience, and, more specifically, from the following: separation from parents; presence in an unknown place with strange adults; alternation of unfamiliar rooms and buildings; many overwhelming stimuli, such as physical and verbal aggression exhibited by adults, in vivo or in vitro (i.e., film), or by cartoons within a colorful frame, full of imaginary stimuli; presence of new and exciting toys; and frustration and anger caused by adults who deliberately disrupted children's pleasurable play activity with the aim of provoking their aggressiveness. All these conditions imply that the experiments were not only about “observation of cues produced by the behavior of others” (Bandura et al., 1961 ; our emphasis). If only “cues” were given to children, then why it was assumed in another paper (Bandura et al., 1963 ) that vicarious learning had such a “cathartic function”? Indeed, Bandura may have aptly used this expression because catharsis implies release of tension caused by overwhelming vicarious experience such as in ancient Greek tragedy.

Second, identification with the aggressor is a defense mechanism that is typical of 3- to 6-year-old children—the participants' age in Bandura's experiments. Anna Freud ( 1946 , p. 113) argued that “by impersonating the aggressor, assuming his attributes or imitating his aggression, the child transforms himself from the person threatened into the person who makes the threat”. Children may have unconsciously experienced the aggressiveness of adults (quasi parental figures) toward a familiar playful object as a threat of punishment , possibly a threat of castration by proxy , for their own oedipal/incestuous and autoerotic/masturbatory phantasies, which usually prevail in this age period—the phallic phase of libidinal development (Freud, 1953 ). This explanation is further supported by the finding that males were more influential models regarding physical aggression. According to Anna Freud ( 1946 ), identification with the aggressor is the preliminary stage of superego formation, during which the aggressive drive is not yet directed against the subject but against the outer world. Projection of guilt, thus, supplements the immature superego and may interpret, at least partly, children's sadomasochistic relation with the doll.

Third, we contend that a seduction process of both caretakers and their children had taken place in the university laboratory. With their caretakers' consent, children were brought into an unknown adult place, where they were captivated by adults' passion, namely overt violence against a doll. The violent acts were exhibited in a ritualistic and self-reinforcing manner and in the context of symbolic play. According to Ferenczi ( 1949 ), who was not mentioned by Bandura but whose ideas on this issue inspired Anna Freud, when an adult becomes sexually seductive or violent against a child, a confusion of tongues between the two emerges, in other words, a confusion between child tenderness and adult passion . In these experiments, children experienced an indirect attack with a mild traumatic character: certain adults intruded and impinged on the territory of children's “innocent” play, and then coerced them to observe other adults having little control over their own instinctual (aggressive) drives toward an attractive object. Therefore, it was very likely that children reacted not just with imitation but with anxious identification with the adult. This introjection of the aggressor resulted in children exhibiting the same violent behavior. They seemed to “subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor” and “could only react in an autoplastic way by a kind of mimicry ” (Ferenczi, 1949 , p. 228, our emphasis), possibly introjecting the adults' unconscious guilt for their abusive behavior.

It is important to note that, contrary to identification with the aggressor, introjection of the aggressor is initially an automatic, organismic reaction to trauma—a mixture of rage, contempt and omnipotence—and only later becomes a defensive, agentic and purposeful process (Howell, 2014 ). In these experiments, children seemed to exhibit this automatic, procedural identification and mimicry. It has also been argued (Frankel, 2002 ) that identification with the aggressor is a universal and very common tactic used by people in mild traumatic situations and, generally, on several occasions where they are in a weak position relative to more powerful others. Although benign, this power may become a real threat: “If the adult got out of control and attacked the doll, could she attack me too?” Identification with the aggressor, then, serves an evolutionary function: survival is ensured if individuals conform to what others expect of them.

In the laboratory setting, children confronted what Lacan ( 1977 ) has called the enigma of the adults' desire : “Why are they behaving this way?”; “What do they want from me?”; “Why are they doing this to me?”. The laboratory setting and the adults' aggression toward the doll can be conceptualized as enigmatic signifiers , the Lacanian notion further elaborated by Laplanche ( 1999 ). These signifiers were verbal and non-verbal messages, doubly compromised and non-transparent to both sides of the communication because of the existence of the unconscious. The young participants found themselves in an asymmetrical relationship while their developmental abilities to metabolize what adults communicated to them were inadequate. They were somewhat helpless. Aggressive behavior was the way with which children attempted to translate adults' “alien” messages and derive meaning from the enigmatic situation.

The ingenuity and novelty—“creative embellishment” as Bandura said when describing the experiment in a short film 1 —which children showed in the aggressive use of toys may be regarded as proof of the playful character of the imitation. Children attempted to transform passivity into activity , to acquire mastery of new and challenging objects and experience pleasure in this play activity, as Freud ( 1955 ) argued, rather than be the subjects of uncanny, mildly traumatic experimental conditions and the spectators of adults' violence. Therefore, children seemed to compulsively repeat the activity in a ritualistic fashion. This view is in line with the emphasis given on transformation in Freud's ( 1946 ) definition of identification with the aggressor.

Bandura's experiments on aggression in children, après-coup

The aggression modeling experiments were conducted at a time when Psychology was striving, by “objective” measurements and laboratory experiments, to establish itself as a discipline. They have received criticism because they certainly raise the ethical issue of children's exposure to violence, with unknown short- and long-term consequences. Ethical concerns have also been expressed for other groundbreaking, or even notorious, experiments in the history of Psychology (e.g., Watson's Baby Albert experiment, Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority).

Despite the ethical and methodological flaws, these aggression experiments and the short films that depict them continue to have a great allure to the scientific community and the society at large. Besides, a degree of seduction, namely optimal seduction (Potamianou, 2001 ), is needed to awaken desire for scientific exploration and facilitate openness to the unknown. They inspired research and interventions and raised public awareness about the effects of children's exposure to violence (e.g., through media). These experiments are still regarded to provide indisputable evidence, by means of a “rigorous experimental design”, for young children's vulnerability to adults' violence. They also illustrate that, from early on, humans are capable of abusive acts, and that these acts can be easily provoked. Therefore, the work of civilization is to undertake every action to protect children from the transmission of violence.

However, the fact that scientists' reservations were not strong enough to prevent them from “using” children in such laboratory experiments, implies, paradoxically, that they believed in children's resilience to violence or trauma. Only a few years after World War II, Psychology seemed to engage in an unconscious attempt at reparation (Klein, 1975 ), perhaps on behalf of the whole humanity, through handling—at last!—violence within a controlled and protected but regressed-to-the-infantile laboratory setting.

Conclusions

This study aimed to approach Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children from the psychoanalytic perspective. A variety of psychoanalytic formulations were used to conceptualize the underlying processes and the phenomenology of children's imitation of aggressive acts. These formulations are not supported by research data, a fact that may be regarded also as a limitation of this study. However, they are based on the multitude and richness of clinical observations in the field of Psychoanalysis, which has an undeniably remarkable contribution to the understanding and treatment of human aggression.

Author contributions

EG conceived the idea and drafted the manuscript. KM reviewed key findings of Bandura's experiments and systematically edited the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqNaLerMNOE

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Key Study: Bandura’s Bobo Doll (1963)

Travis Dixon January 15, 2019 Criminology , Developmental Psychology , Key Studies , Social and Cultural Psychology , Studies and Theories

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Introduction

In one of his earlier research studies (1961), Bandura showed that children exposed to an aggressive model would later copy those same aggressive behaviours, even if the child was in a different setting. This supports the idea that behavior can be learned through observation, which is the major claim of Social Learning Theory (SLT). TV and films have become the source of popular debate surrounding violence in today’s society. In 1963, Bandura aimed to “determine the extent to which film-mediated aggressive models may serve as an important source of imitative behavior.”

Albert Bandura (1925->)

Bandura hypothesized that the further from reality the model the less influence they would have on the subjects (i.e. the children). So they used clips from cartoons, filmed humans behaving aggressively and also “real life” human models. The latter, Bandura hypothesized, would have the greatest influence on the subjects. Bandura also believed that the gender of the model would also affect the level of imitation of the behavior.

Methodology

The participants were 48 boys and 48 girls, who were from about 3 to 5 ½ years old, with an average age of about 4, all of whom were students at the Stanford University Nursery School.  They used male and female models. The experiment used matched pairs using ratings of aggressiveness that were obtained with help from their nursery school teacher. For each condition, half of the children observed a model of the same gender while the other half observed a model of the opposite gender.

Real Life Aggression Condition : The child was brought into a small room and placed in a corner with a desk and chair that had colored paper, stickers, and other materials to design pictures. The model (an adult) was taken to the other corner and the child was told this was the model’s play area. It contained small toys, a mallet and a 5 foot tall inflatable bobo doll. The model began by playing with the toys but after one minute they started acting aggressively towards the doll in ways that are quite strange and would be unlikely for a child to behave naturally (i.e. without first seeing someone else behave that way). E.g. the model sat on the doll and punched it in the nose, it raised the doll and hit its head with the mallet, it threw it about the room and kicked it. This was also accompanied by verbally aggressive statements, such as “hit him down,” “sock him in the nose,” “pow”, etc.

Human Film-Aggression Condition: The set-up was the same as the above condition, except instead of a real-life model they used a projector and a sound track to show a film of (the same) models behaving exactly the same way as they did in the previous condition. The film showed for ten minutes.

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Study is one of the most famous studies in social psychology. It challenged the existing view that behaviour came from internal forces and showed that it can be influenced by copying the behaviour of those around us.

Cartoon Film-Aggression: Everything was the same as the other two conditions from the child’s point of view, except the film was now a cartoon of a cat, who performed the same aggressive behaviours as the human models (i.e. punching a bobo doll, throwing it in the air, etc.)

Control Group: Viewed no aggressive behavior. They went straight to the test room.

After being in the room and observing the aggressive behaviours, the children were lead to the test room. In order to frustrate the children and instigate aggressive tendencies (to replicate real-life situations that lead to violence), the experimenter lead the child into the test room that was filled with toys. After the child began playing with the toys, the experimenter said that they were her very best toys and she was reserving them for different children. The child was then taken to the next room and the experimenter busied herself in the corner with paperwork, so as to not interfere with the child. In this room there were the same objects that the models had in the viewing part of the experiment (i.e. a bobo doll, mallet, etc.) The room also contained non-aggressive toys, such as a tea set, bears, dolls, farm animals, etc.

Each subject spent 20 minutes in the experimental room, during which time their behavior was observed by judges who were looking through a one-way mirror. The results demonstrated a high level of inter-rater reliability. The 20 minutes was divided into 5 second intervals, and the judges noted each aggressive behavior that occurred in those intervals. Thus, if the child was aggressive for the whole time, their would be 240 aggressive acts.

The judges looked for “imitative aggression,” “partially imitative responses”, “mallet aggression”, “sits on bobo doll”, “nonimitative aggression” and “aggressive gun play”.

The mean number of aggressive acts for each condition:

Real life = 83 Film Model = 92 Cartoon = 99 Control = 54

Overall, the boys displayed more violent behaviors than the girls in all conditions. However, the girls were more inclined to sit on the bobo doll than the boys. The gender of the model was also an influential factor. For example, children that watched the male model were more inclined to use “aggressive gun play”, even though the model didn’t use the gun. The results also showed that the sex appropriateness of the model’s behavior also influenced the likelihood that the subject would imitate that behavior. For example, boys who watched the female model were more likely to sit on the bobo doll and not punch it in the nose. Thus, social learning depends on whether or not the child believes the model is acting appropriately for their gender.

There was not a statistically significant correlation between pre-experiment tests of aggressive behavior and levels of aggression displayed during the experiment.

Critical Thinking Questions

• Were Bandura’s hypotheses correct? What conclusions do you think he drew? ( Analysis )
• How can these results be used to explain and support Social Learning Theory? ( Application )
• What are the ethical considerations involved in this experiment? ( Analysis )
• What alternative explanations could there be for these results? ( Synthesis )
• What are the strengths and limitations of this experiment? ( Evaluation ) For example, how did his use of matched pairs control for confounding variables? Are there reasons why we might not expect these same results today, or in different groups of people?

Bandura, Albert. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol.1, No.6, June 1965 (accessed from uky.edu)

Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.

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Bobo doll experiment

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The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and studied patterns of behavior associated with aggression . Additional studies of this type were conducted by Bandura in 1963 and 1965 . A Bobo doll is an inflatable toy that is approximately the same size as a prepubescent child .

• 1 Introduction
• 5 Variations of the 'Bobo doll' experiment
• 6 Discussion
• 8 References
• 9 Further reading
• 10 External links

Introduction [ ]

Bandura carried out this study to look at social learning , where people learn through imitation . He used children, because they generally have no social conditioning . Bandura wanted to expose children to adult models exhibiting either aggressive or nonaggressive behaviors. Then, in a new environment without the adult model, he wanted to observe whether or not the children imitate these adult model aggressive (or nonaggressive) behaviors. Bandura made four predictions going into this experiment. First, he believed the subjects that witnessed the aggressive adult model behavior would attempt to imitate or act in similar aggressive ways even when the model is not present. Additionally, he believed that these children's behavior would differ greatly from that of the children who witnessed nonaggressive models or no models at all (the control group ). Second, he believed that, when the model was not present, the children who witnessed the nonaggressive adult behavior would not only show less aggression than those who witnessed the aggressive behavior but also less aggression than those who saw no model at all. Third, he predicted that the children would be more likely to imitate the model's behavior if the model is of the same sex. This is because children usually identify better with adults and parents of the same sex. Fourth, he hypothesized that because aggression tends to be a more male-oriented trait, the boys would be more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior especially for the boys with aggressive male models. This experiment is important to psychology because it was a precedent that sparked many more of the studies about the effects of viewing violence (whether in person or on the media ) on children.

The subjects studied in this experiment involved 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School ranging in age between 3 and 6 (with the average age being 4 years and 4 months). The control group was composed of 24 children. The first experimental group was comprised of 24 children exposed to aggressive model behavior. The second experimental group was comprised of 24 children exposed to nonaggressive model behavior. The first and second experimental group were divided again based on sex . Finally, the experimental groups were divided into groups exposed to same-sex models and opposite-sex models. In this test, there were a total of eight experimental groups and one control group . To avoid skewed results due to the fact that some children were already predisposed to being more aggressive, the experimenter and the teacher (both knew the children well) rated each child based on physical aggression, verbal aggression, and object aggression prior to the experiment. This allowed Bandura to group the children based on average aggression level.

It is important to note that each child was exposed to the experiment individually so as not to be influenced or distracted by their classmates. The first part of the experiment involved bringing a child and the adult model into a playroom. In the playroom, the child was seated in one corner filled with highly appealing activities such as potato prints and stickers and the adult model was seated in another corner containing a tinker toy set, a mallet, and an inflatable Bobo doll (which is about 5 feet tall). Before leaving the room, the experimenter explained that these particular toys were only for the model to play with.

After a minute of playing with the tinker toy set, the aggressive model would attack the Bobo doll by hitting it. For each subject, the aggressive model reacted identically with a sequence of physical violence and verbal violence. The mallet was also used to continually hit the Bobo doll on the head. After a period of about 10 minutes, the experimenter came back into the room, dismissed the adult model, and took the child into another playroom. The nonaggressive model simply played with the tinker toys for the entire 10 minute-period. In this situation, the Bobo doll was completely ignored by the model.

Following the 10 minute-period with the models, each child was taken into another playroom filled with highly entertaining toys including a fire engine, a jet, a complete doll set with clothes and carriage, and so on. In order to spark anger or frustration in the child, he or she was only allowed to play with the toys for a very short period of time before being told that these toys were reserved for other children. The children were also told that there were toys in the next room they could play with.

The final stage of the experiment took place in the last room in which the child was left alone for 20 minutes with a series of aggressive and nonaggressive toys to play with. The Bobo doll, a mallet, two dart guns, and tether ball with a face painted on it were among the aggressive toys to choose from. The nonaggressive toys the children could choose from were a tea set, paper and crayons, a ball, two dolls, cars and trucks, and plastic farm animals. Judges watched each child behind a one-way mirror and evaluated the subject based on various measures of aggressive behavior.

Although the experimenters judged the children based on eight different measures of aggression, this article only focuses on four of them. The first measure recorded was based on physical aggression. This included punching or kicking the Bobo doll, sitting on the Bobo doll, hitting it with a mallet, and tossing it around the room. Verbal aggression was the second measure. The judges counted each time the children imitated one of the phrases the aggressive adult model said and recorded their results. The third measure of aggression was based on how many times the child used the mallet in other forms of aggression besides hitting the Bobo doll. The fourth measurement calculated all nonimitative forms of aggression exhibited by the children that was not demonstrated by the adult model.

Results [ ]

Bandura found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in physically aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of imitative physical aggressions exhibited by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls. The same pattern applied to the instances of imitative verbal aggression exhibited by the child exposed to the aggressive model as opposed to those exposed to the nonaggressive model or no model at all. The number of imitative verbal aggressions exhibited by the boys was 17 times and 15.7 times by the girls. Both the imitative physical and verbal aggression were rarely, if ever, exhibited by the children exposed to the nonaggressive model or no model at all.

Bandura also predicted that the nonaggressive models would have an aggressive-inhibiting effect on the children. However, the results supporting this hypothesis were ambiguous. In certain instances, such as mallet aggression, the male subjects exposed to nonaggressive male models exhibited far less aggressive mallet behavior than the control male subjects but the male subjects exposed to nonaggressive female models exhibited more aggressive mallet behavior than the control male subjects. Because of this inconsistency, Bandura determined the results for this prediction inconclusive.

The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura's prediction that children are more influenced by same-sex models. Boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104 compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys exposed to aggressive female models. While the results for the girls shows similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7 compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls exposed to aggressive male models.

Lastly, the evidence strongly supports that males have a tendency to be more aggressive than females. When all instances of aggression are tallied, males exhibited 270 aggressive instances compared to 128 aggressive instances exhibited by females.

Critique [ ]

Scholars such as Ferguson (2010) [1] suggest the bo-bo doll studies are not studies of aggression at all, but rather that the children were motivated to imitate the adult in the belief the videos were instructions. In other words children were motivated by the desire to please adults rather than genuine aggression. Furthermore Ferguson has criticized the external validity of the study noting that bo-bo dolls are designed to be hit.

Hogben and Byrne stressed on the importance of onfoundations of social learning in place of tangibly measureable rewards. Reward is eminent to the Social Learning theory of aggression as innately we would repeat an action or behavior after receiving a desirable reinforcement. Unless the children were rewarded for their emulation of attacking the ‘bobo doll’ or the clown would become a personal habit to exert aggression? The experiment was also biased in several areas which weakened the internal validity [2]

1. Selection bias

2. Unclear history of subjects

3. Ambiguous temporal sequence

Bar-on, Broughton, Buttross, Corrigan, et al. (2001) explained that the underdeveloped frontal lobe of children below the age of 8 causes them to be unable to separate reality from fantasy. As an example, children up to the age of 12 believe that there are monsters in their closet or under the bed. They are also sometimes unable to distinguish dreams from reality. [3]

Furthermore, biological theorists argue that the social learning theory completely ignores individual’s biological state by ignoring the uniqueness of an individual’s DNA, brain development, and learning differences. [4]

According to Worthman and Loftus (1992), Bandura’s study was unethical and morally wrong as the subjects were manipulated to respond in an aggressive manner. They also find it to be no surprise that long-term implications are apparent due to the methods imposed in this experiment as the subjects were taunted and were not allowed to play with the toys and thus incited agitation and dissatisfaction. Hence, they were trained to be aggressive. [5]

Although there have been other research which examine the effects of violent movies and video games such as Plagens et al.’s 1991 study on violent movies, “Feshbach and R.D. Singer believed that television actually decreases the amount of aggression in children” (Islom, 1998) – Catharsis effect. A study was made on juvenile boys for six weeks. Half were made to view violent movies throughout the period of six weeks while another half viewed non-violent movies for six weeks. The boy’s behavior was then observed and the result was boys who viewed violent movies were less aggressive than those who viewed non-violent movies. The conclusion drawn by Feshback and Singer was that those who viewed violent movies were less aggressive as they were able to transmit all their feelings and thoughts of aggression into the movie.

Variations of the 'Bobo doll' experiment [ ]

Due to numerous criticisms, Bandura replaced the ‘Bobo doll’ with a live clown. The young woman beat up a live clown in the video shown to preschool children and in turn when the children were lead into another room where they found a live clown, they imitated the action in the video they had just watched. [6]

Variation 1:

Variation 2:

Variation 3:

Variation 4:

Discussion [ ]

From this experiment, Bandura established that there are 4 processes that are apparent in the modeling process [6]

1. Attention

2. Retention

3. Reproduction

4. Motivation

See also [ ]

• Aggression in children
• Observational learning
• Play styles

References [ ]

• ↑ "Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a Force for Good?", Christopher J. Ferguson, Review of General Psychology , 14, 68-81
• ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hart, K.E. (2006). Critical Analysis of an Original Writing on Social Learning Theory: Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models By: Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross and Sheila A.Ross (1963). Retrieved October 6, 2010 from the world wide web: http://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Hart,%20Karen%20E,%20Imitation%20of%20Film-Mediated%20Aggressive%20Models.pdf
• ↑ Sharon & Woolley (2004). Do Monsters Dream? Young Children’s Understanding of the Fantasy/Reality Distinction. Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22, 293-310. Retrieved October 4, 2010 from the British Psychological Society database.
• ↑ Isom, M.D. (1998). Albert Bandura: The Social Learning Theory. Retrieved October 6, 2010 from the world wide web: http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm
• ↑ Worthman, C., & Loftus, E. (1992), Psychology: McGraw-Hill: New York.
• ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Boeree, C.G. (2006). Personality Theories: Albert Bandura. Retrieved October 6, 2010 from the world wide web: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/bandura.html
• ↑ Yates, B.L. (1999). Modeling Strategies for Prosocial Television: A Review. Retrieved October 6, 2010 from the world wide web: http://www.westga.edu/~byates/prosocia.htm
• ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Bandura

Further reading [ ]

• Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggressions through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63 , 575-582. Full text
• Bandura, Albert, Ross, Dorothea, & Ross, Sheila A. (1961). Transmisssion of aggressions through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63, 575-582. Full text
• Drewes, A. A. (2008). Bobo revisited: What the research says: International Journal of Play Therapy Vol 17(1) Sum 2008, 52-65.
• Drewes, A. A. (2008). "Bobo revisited: What the research says": Correction to Drewes (2008): International Journal of Play Therapy Vol 17(2) Fal 2008, 101.
• Kosslyn, Stephen M. and Robin S. Rosenberg. Psychology: The Brain, The Person, The World. 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson, 2004. 246-248.

External links [ ]

• Albert Bandura: The Social Learning Theory
• WikEd Biography of Albert Bandura

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• 2 Race and intelligence (test data)

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Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment

The famous Bobo Doll experiment conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 is still widely cited and highly relevant today. It lends support to Bandura’s social learning theory which claims that learning occurs through observation and imitation of others behaviours. It could have widespread implications regarding the effects of the media. If celebrities are seen as role models, this could lead to many dangerous behaviours being imitated, such as extreme diets, drugs, hard-core partying and even violence. Since magazines and television tend to report scandalous conduct, this could affect the way youngsters as well as adults choose to behave.

The Experiment

There were 72 participants that took part in Bandura, Ross and Ross’s (1961) experiment, half of which were girls and the other half boys. The participants were aged between 3 and 6 years old and attended Stanford University Nursery School. The children were pretested on levels of aggression and were placed in one of three groups: adult aggressive model, adult non-aggressive model and no model. They were matched on how aggressive they were to ensure that each group had an average level of aggression. Each group had 24 children which was divided into groups of boys and girls. Each of the groups of boys and girls was then divided so that half of the participants viewed a same-sex model whereas the other half viewed an opposite sex model. This would give insight into how the role-model’s gender affects children’s behaviour.

During the experiment, the child individually went into a room and played with toys for 10 minutes. There was either a male or female adult present in the room.  In the aggressive condition, the adult would act violently towards a toy called the Bobo Doll. He/she would throw and kick the doll and sometimes used a hammer to beat it up. The adult would shout things at the doll such as “pow,” “kick him” and phrases such as “he sure is a tough fella.” In the non-aggressive condition the adult played peacefully with a tinker toy set and ignored the doll for the full 10 minutes. Finally, the children in the control condition were not exposed to an adult model playing with the toys and the children were left to play alone.

After this part of the experiment, children were exposed to the Mild Aggression Arousal Stage. This is when the child went into a room where there were fun toys to play with. However, once the child started playing with them, the experimenter told the child to leave them alone and that they were for other children to play with. This stage was intended to stir aggression or annoyance in the child. There was then the Delayed Imitation Test whereby the children went into a room where there were sets of aggressive and non-aggressive toys such as a hammer, dart guns and a Bobo Doll as well as a tea set, crayons, bears and plastic animals respectively. Each child spent 20 minutes in the room. The researchers watched and rated their behaviour through a one-way mirror.

It was found that children in the adult aggressive model group acted more violently than their counterparts in the other conditions. There was also more non-imitative aggression in the aggressive group meaning that children acted in aggressive ways that they had not observed the adult doing. Furthermore, the gender of the adult had an effect whereby male participants would act more aggressively than females when exposed to an aggressive male model. Boys were also more physically aggressive in general, engaging in more than twice as many aggressive acts than girls. Girls exposed to the aggressive female model were more verbally aggressive than boys. Moreover, boys were more likely to imitate a same-sex model than girls were.

In conclusion, this study supports the idea that children learn how to act based on their observations and interactions with others. When children see adults behaving in a certain way, they believe that their actions are acceptable and even desirable and therefore imitate them. This is supported by the fact that in the absence of the models, children behaved in ways that resembled the adult’s behaviour. Young children navigating their way in the world look to adults for guidance and support. Primary caregivers have the important role of teaching children how to regulate their emotions and behave accordingly. If the caregiver is aggressive, the child will learn that the only way to deal with frustration and anger is to act aggressively.

The consequences of behaviours also have potential reinforcing or aversive value. In Bandura’s follow up study (1965) he found that children were much more likely to imitate an adult if they saw the adult being rewarded for their behaviour. They were unlikely to imitate the behaviour if the adult was punished for it.

Limitations

While the current study has been extremely influential and insightful, it is not without limitations. It is low on ecological validity meaning that the results do not necessarily generalise to the outside world. The setting of the experiment was artificial; therefore, may not represent what occurs in the natural environment. Acting violently towards a doll is very different from acting violently in real life. Also it is unknown as to whether there were any long term effects regarding aggression. There was no follow up testing whether those who viewed the aggressive model were more aggressive later in life as opposed to being aggressive a few minutes after seeing an aggressive model. Furthermore, the participants all came from the same nursery; therefore, they had similar backgrounds in terms of race and social economic status. This makes it difficult to generalise the results to a wider, more diverse population. Finally, if there were long term negative effects, the study could be considered unethical.

Despite these limitations, it has proven to be a very significant study in the field of psychology. It makes us wonder how much everyday television violence, inane celebrity gossip and interactive aggressive video games are influencing children’s behaviour’s as well as ideas about what constitutes right and wrong.

References :

Cherry, K. (n.d.). Bobo Doll Experiment. About.com . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/bobo-doll-experiment.htm

McLeod, S. (2011). Bobo Doll Experiment. Simply Psychology . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html

Image credit: Everywhere Psychology (August 28, 2012). Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBqwWlJg8U

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