Bobo doll experiment

Bobo doll

The participants of this experiment were 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University nursery school, all between the ages of 37 months and 69 months with a mean age of 52 months (here and following, Bandura, Ross & Ross 1961). For the experiments, 24 of the children were exposed to an aggressive model and 24 others were exposed to a non-aggressive model. Each group was coed, ensuring that half of the children were exposed to models of their own gender and the other half were exposed to models of the opposite gender. The remaining 24 children comprised a control group.

For the experiment, each child was exposed to the scenario individually, so as not to be influenced or distracted by 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 appealing activities such as stickers and stamps. The adult model was seated in another corner with a toy set, a mallet, and an inflatable Bobo doll. Before leaving the room, the experimenter explained to the child that the toys in the adult corner were only for the adult to play with.

During the aggressive model scenario, the adult would begin to play with the Bobo doll, then would start to show aggressive behavior towards the doll. Examples of this aggressive behavior include hitting/punching the Bobo doll and using the toy mallet to hit the Bobo doll in the face. The aggressive model would also verbally assault the Bobo doll yelling "Sock him", "Hit him down", "Kick him", "Throw him in the air", or "Pow". 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 non-aggressive adult model simply played with the other toys for the entire 10-minute period. In this situation, the Bobo doll was completely ignored by the model, then the child was taken out of the room.

The next stage of the experiment was performed with the child and experimenter in another room filled with interesting toys such as trucks, dolls, and a spinning top. The child was invited to play with them. In order to build frustration, the child was then told after two minutes that they're no longer allowed to play with the toys and that they were reserved for other children. They were told they could instead play with the toys in the experimental room (the aggressive and non-aggressive toys). In the experimental room the child was allowed to play for the duration of 20 minutes while the experimenter evaluated the child's play.

The first measure recorded was based on physical aggression such as punching, kicking, sitting on the Bobo doll, hitting it with a mallet, and tossing it around the room. The second measure recorded was verbal aggression. The judges counted each time the children imitated the aggressive adult model and recorded their results. The third measure was the number of times the mallet was used to display other forms of aggression than hitting the doll. The final measure included modes of aggression shown by the child that were not direct imitation of the role-model's behavior.[2]

Bandura found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to pursue physically aggressive behavior than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. In regards to the aggressive model, the number of imitative physical aggressions exhibited by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.[3] The results concerning gender differences strongly satisfied Bandura's prediction that children are more influenced by same-sex models. Results also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104 compared to 48.4 instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models. While the results for the girls show similar findings, they were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7 compared to 36.3 instances exhibited when exposed to aggressive male models.

Bandura also found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in verbally aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. The number of imitative verbal aggressions exhibited by the boys was 17 times and 15.7 times by the girls.[3] Additionally, the results indicated that the boys and girls who observed the non-aggressive model exhibited much less non-imitative mallet aggression than those in the control group, which did not have a model. Lastly, the evidence demonstrates that males tend 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.[4]

Albert Bandura followed his 1961 study two years later with another that again tested differences in children's learning/behavior or actual performance after seeing a model being rewarded, punished, or experiencing no consequences for aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll (here and following, Bandura, Ross & Ross 1963) .

The procedure of the experiment was very similar to the one conducted during 1961. Children between the ages of 2.5 to 6 years watched a movie of a mediated model punching and screaming aggressively at a Bobo doll. Depending on the experimental group, the movie ended with a scene in which the model was rewarded with candies or punished with the warning, "Don't do it again". In the neutral condition the movie ended right after the aggression scene toward the Bobo doll. Regardless of the experimental group the child was in, after watching the movie the child stayed in a room with many toys and a Bobo doll. The experimenter found that the children often showed less similar behavior toward the model when they were shown the movie that ended with the punishment scene as compared to the other conditions. Also, boys showed more imitative aggression than girls toward the Bobo doll. That is the measure of the performance and it confirms the results of the experiment of 1961.

Next, the experimenter asked the children to demonstrate what they had seen in the movie. The experimenter did not find differences in the children's demonstrated behavior based on which of the three movies the child watched. The results of the experiment shows that rewards or punishment don't influence remembering or learning information, they just influence whether or not the behavior is performed. The differences between girls and boys imitating behavior was smaller than in the 1961 experiment.[5]

For many years, media violence has created many discussions concerning the influence of children and their aggressive behavior. For the 1963 study, Albert Bandura used children between the ages 3 and 6 to test the extent to which movie-mediated aggressive models influenced imitative behavior.

For the experiment, 32 girls and 32 boys were divided into three groups and one control group. Group 1 watched a live model become aggressive towards a Bobo doll. Group 2 watched a movie version of the human model become aggressive to a Bobo doll, and group 3 watched a cartoon version of a cat become aggressive towards a Bobo doll. Each child watched the aggressive acts individually. After the exposure to the models all four groups of children were then placed individually in a room with an experimenter where they were exposed to a mildly frustrating situation to elicit aggression. Next the children were allowed to play freely in an adjoining room, which was full of toys, including the Bobo doll and the "weapons" that were used by the models. The researchers observed the children and noted any interaction with the Bobo doll.

Results showed that the children who had been exposed to the aggressive behavior, whether real-life, by realistic movie or cartoon, exhibited nearly twice as much aggressive behavior as the control group. It was also found that boys exhibited more overall aggression than girls. The results of this experiment have contributed to ongoing debates concerning media influences.

According to Hart & Kritsonis (2006), the original Bandura experiments were biased or otherwise flawed in ways that weakened their validity. The issues these researchers perceived were:^?

• Selection bias. Bandura's subjects, all from the Stanford University nursery, were necessarily the children of Stanford students. Students of a prestigious university like Stanford were almost exclusively caucasian during the 1960s, and largely from high-income families. Thus, bias in the study subjects was present, with regard to race and socioeconomics.
• Temporal sequence. The 1963 study used data concerning the "real life aggression and control group conditions" from the 1961 study;[11] hence, it is possible that the maturing of subjects and influences external to the studies, occurring during the period between the studies, could have contributed to the 1963 observations, results, and conclusions.

Some scholars suggest the Bobo 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.[12][13] In other words, the children may have been motivated by the desire to please adults or become adults rather than by genuine aggression. Furthermore, the same authors criticize the external validity of the study, noting that bobo dolls are designed to be hit.

Challenges have been made regarding the ethics of the original studies. In a university-level introductory general psychology text, Bandura's study is termed unethical and morally wrong, as the subjects were manipulated to respond in an aggressive manner.[14] They also state 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.

Bar-on et al. (2001) described the frontal lobe of children younger than the age of 8 as underdeveloped, which contributed to their being unable to separate reality from fantasy; for instance, children up to the age of 12 may believe that "monsters" live in their closets or under the beds. They are also sometimes unable to distinguish dreams from reality.[15]

Furthermore, biological theorists argue that the social learning theory ignores a person's biological state by ignoring the uniqueness of an individual's DNA, brain development, and learning differences.[16]