The Bobo doll experiment was the name of two experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and 1963 studying patterns of behavior associated with aggression.
Bandura hoped that the experiments would prove that aggression can be explained, at least in part, by social learning theory. The theory of social learning would state that behavior such as aggression is learned through observing and imitating others.
The experiments are important because they sparked many more studies on the effects of violent media on children.
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The subjects studied in the experiment involved 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School ranged between the ages of 3 and 6. The total of 72 children were split into 3 groups of 24. One group was put into an aggressive model scenario with half of that group observing a same-sex adult model and half observing a different-sex adult model. Another group was exposed to a non-aggressive adult model and the final group would be used as a control group and would not be exposed to any adult model at all. The children were pre-selected and sorted to ensure an even spread of personality types across the test groups. Some of these children were already known to be more aggressive than others.
Aggressive adult model scenario (24 children) Same-sex adult model
Different-sex adult model
Non-aggressive adult model (24 children) Same-sex adult model
Different-sex adult model
Control Group (24 children)
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 highly appealing activities such as stickers and stamps.[1] The adult model was seated in another corner containing 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 by playing with the toys for approximately one minute. After this time the adult begins to show aggression towards the Bobo doll. Examples of this include hitting the Bobo doll and using the toy mallet to hit the Bobo doll in the face. 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 small 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 placed the child and experimenter into another room filled with interesting toys: a truck, dolls, and spinning top. There, the child was invited to play with the toys. After about 2 minutes the experimenter decides that the child is no longer allowed to play with the toys. This was done to build up frustration. The experimenter says that the child may play with the toys in the experimental room including both 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.[1]
The first measure recorded was based on physical aggression. This included punching or kicking the Bobo doll, sitting on the Bobo doll, hitting it with a mallet, and tossing it around the room. Verbal aggression was the second measure recorded. The judges counted each time the children imitated the aggressive adult model and recorded their results. The third measure was the amount of times the mallet was used to display other forms of aggression than hitting the doll. The final measure includes modes of aggression shown by the child that were not direct imitation of the role-model’s behavior.
Bandura found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in physically aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of imitative physical aggressions exhibited by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura's prediction that children are more influenced by same-sex models. Boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104 compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys exposed to aggressive female models.
While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7 compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls 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. In addition, the results indicated that the boys and girls who observed the nonaggressive model exhibited far less non-imitative mallet aggression than in the control group, which had no model.
The experimenters came to the conclusion that children observing adult behavior are influenced to think that this type of behavior is acceptable thus weakening the child’s aggressive inhibitions. The result of reduced aggressive inhibitions in children means that they are more likely to respond to future situations in a more aggressive manner.
Lastly, the evidence strongly supports that males have a tendency 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.[1]
Scholars such as Ferguson (2010) [2] suggest the bo-bo 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. In other words children were motivated by the desire to please adults rather than genuine aggression. Furthermore Ferguson has criticized the external validity of the study noting that bo-bo dolls are designed to be hit.
Hogben and Byrne stressed on the importance of onfoundations of social learning in place of tangibly measureable rewards. Reward is eminent to the Social Learning theory of aggression as innately we would repeat an action or behavior after receiving a desirable reinforcement. Unless the children were rewarded for their emulation of attacking the ‘bobo doll’ or the clown would become a personal habit to exert aggression? The experiment was also biased in several areas which weakened the internal validity[3]
1. Selection bias
2. Unclear history of subjects
3. Ambiguous temporal sequence
Bar-on, Broughton, Buttross, Corrigan, et al. (2001) explained that the underdeveloped frontal lobe of children below the age of 8 causes them to be unable to separate reality from fantasy. As an example, children up to the age of 12 believe that there are monsters in their closet or under the bed. They are also sometimes unable to distinguish dreams from reality.[4]
Furthermore, biological theorists argue that the social learning theory completely ignores individual’s biological state by ignoring the uniqueness of an individual’s DNA, brain development, and learning differences.[5]
According to Worthman and Loftus (1992), Bandura’s study was unethical and morally wrong as the subjects were manipulated to respond in an aggressive manner. They also find it to be 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.[6]
Although there have been other research which examine the effects of violent movies and video games such as Plagens et al.’s 1991 study on violent movies, “Feshbach and R.D. Singer believed that television actually decreases the amount of aggression in children” (Islom, 1998) – Catharsis effect. A study was made on juvenile boys for six weeks. Half were made to view violent movies throughout the period of six weeks while another half viewed non-violent movies for six weeks. The boy’s behavior was then observed and the result was boys who viewed violent movies were less aggressive than those who viewed non-violent movies. The conclusion drawn by Feshback and Singer was that those who viewed violent movies were less aggressive as they were able to transmit all their feelings and thoughts of aggression into the movie.
Due to numerous criticisms, Bandura replaced the ‘Bobo doll’ with a live clown. The young woman beat up a live clown in the video shown to preschool children and in turn when the children were lead into another room where they found a live clown, they imitated the action in the video they had just watched.[7]
Variation 1:
Variation 2:
Variation 3:
Variation 4:
From this experiment, Bandura established that there are 4 processes that are apparent in the modeling process[7]
1. Attention
2. Retention
3. Reproduction
4. Motivation