During the 1960s, Albert Bandura conducted a series of experiments on observational learning, collectively known as the Bobo doll experiments. In 1961 Bandura conducted a controlled experiment study to investigate if social behaviors (i.e., aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation.
They tested 36 boys and 36 girls, 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. It was then possible to match the children in each group so that they had similar levels of aggression in their everyday behavior. A lab experiment was used, in which the independent variable 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.
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.
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 (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.
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.
The next room contained some aggressive toys and some non-aggressive toys 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.
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 physical aggressive responses if the model was male, but more verbal 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 the 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.
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.
In 1965 Bandura’s experiment had different consequences for the model’s aggression to the three groups of children. One group saw the model’s aggression being rewarded, another group saw the model being punished for the aggression, 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 of 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.