bandura's bobo doll 1961

• Aim:  investigate whether children will imitate behaviour they have seen at a later time, even if it is not rewarded.
• 72 children aged 3-5yrs matched for aggression before the study started.

  Groups of 3 male and female children were assigned to one of the three conditions.
• Condition 1 = aggression group, observed an aggressive model punching and kicking the bobo doll (carefully controlled so that imitation could be measured later).
• o   Condition 2 = non-aggressive group, observed non-aggressive model assembling mechanical toys.
• Condition 3 = control group, no model was observed.
• Children taken to a room and observed playing with or without a model present. (through a one-way mirror).

  Children deliberately frustrated by being taken to another room with brand new toys they were not allowed to play with.

  Taken to a playroom with a range of toys including the bobo doll and child was observed through a one-way mirror.
• Child observed for 20 minutes.

  Behaviour was recorded every 5 seconds over a 20-minute period.

  Recorded imitations of physical aggression on bobo doll (punched bobo doll), imitations of verbal aggressing (“kick him…”), and imitations of non-aggressive verbal responses.
• Findings: children in condition 1 showed highest aggression levels however the children were least likely to be aggressive when they saw the adult being punished. Boys were more likely to imitate aggression shown by a same-sex model than an opposite sex model and more likely overall to imitate physical aggression but not verbal aggression.
• Conclusion: children watching adults behaving aggressively are more likely to imitate aggression so observational learning does take place. A male adult showing aggressive behaviour is copied more than a female adult aggressive model. Girls are more verbally aggressive.
• A strength of this study is that the findings can be influential in finding out whether media violence has an impact on children’s behaviours. It can be applied to social settings such as schools to condition children to behave in a more socially acceptable way. As the children in banduras study did not need to see rocky get punished or rewarded, we can influence children by acting what we want children to imitate and over time they would replicate it.
• A weakness of the studies is that all the behaviour was in a laboratory setting which is not a natural setting in which to observe aggression. For example, children are rarely left to play alone, and it is likely that in a real situation, parents or teachers would intervene to stop any negative behaviour before it become aggressive.
• Since the children in the study were not told that their behaviour is ‘wrong’ they may have felt that they were supposed to continue and therefore they may have been exhibiting demand characteristics. Therefore, the researchers may not have observed ‘real-life’ aggression at all meaning that it is difficult to make claims about how children may behave in real-life situations such as viewing aggressive behaviour on TV.