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Concept
Bobo doll experiment
Summary
The Bobo doll experiment (or experiments) is the collective name for a series of experiments performed by psychologist Albert Bandura to test his social learning theory. Between 1961 and 1963, he studied children's behavior after watching an adult model act aggressively towards a Bobo doll. The most notable variation of the experiment measured the children's behavior after seeing the adult model rewarded, punished, or experience no consequence for physically abusing the Bobo doll.
The social learning theory proposes that people learn largely through observation, imitation, and modeling. It demonstrates that people learn not only by being rewarded or punished, but they can also learn from watching someone else being rewarded or punished. These studies have practical implications, such as providing evidence of how children can be influenced by watching violent media.
The participants in these experiments consisted of 72 children from the Stanford University nursery school between the ages of 37 months and 69 months. For the experiments, a third of the children were exposed to an aggressive model. Another third were exposed to a non-aggressive model. The rest of the participants formed the control group.
For the experiment, each child was exposed to the scenario individually to avoid being 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 sitting 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 and then start to show aggressive behavior towards the doll. Examples of this aggressive behavior include hitting or punching the Bobo doll and using the toy mallet to hit the Bobo doll in the face.
Official source
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