Observational Learning - Bobo Doll Experiment

Bobo Doll Experiment

In 1965, Albert Bandura claimed that children learned by observing a social model. Therefore, to validate this claim, Bandura conducted a perhaps famous experiment at Stanford University called the Bobo Doll experiment. This experiment was based on a study of aggression, where he used an inflatable plastic toy that looked like a cartoon clown. These bottom-weighted toys were then given to nursery school children. Each of the school children watched a short film in which a social model demonstrated aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll. These aggressive responses included hitting the doll and shouting "Bang bang!" and "Sockeroo!". The nursery children were divided into three experimental conditions. The three conditions consisted of model-rewarded, model-punished, and no-consequences. Children were then placed in a room with Bobo and other props used by the social model. Bandura discovered that children in the no-consequence and model-rewarded conditions imitated more aggressive actions than the children in the model punishment condition. Bandura did another experiment to investigate how much the children actually learned from observing. This time children were offered a juice box for reproducing the model's behavior. It was evident that all conditions learned the same amount by observing the model. This experiment is influential because it distinguishes between what a child learns through modeling and their willingness to perform these aggressive acts.