Bobo Doll Experiment
By: Olivia Miller, Jake Berra and, Ajay Rana
Albert Bandura
Title: David Starr Jordan Professor Emritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University
Fields of Study:
- Social cognitive theory
- Therapy
- Personality psychology
- Behavorism
- Cognative psychology
Bandura is famous for being the origionator of the Social Learning Theory and Self-efficacy
Bandura's Experiment
72 cildren total split into 3 groups:
1. 24 kids with Non-Agressive role model
2. 24 kids with an Agressive role model
3. 24 kids with no model
- The first and second group tested the children with one female and one male role model, that had 6 girls and 6 boys.
- The third group put the children into a room with just the toys and no adult role model
Boy hitting doll with a hammer
Boy hitting, kicking, and throwing doll
Girl hitting doll with a hammer
Results:
Children exposed to the violet model tended to imitate the exact behavior they had observed when the adult was no longer present.
Bandura and his colleagues had also 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 exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who had observed an opposite-sex model behave non-aggressively were more likely than those in the control group to engage in violence.
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 the same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression.
- The researchers were also correct in their prediction that boys would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in more than twice as many acts of aggression than the girls.