Bobo Doll Experiment | Simply Psychology

During the 1960s, Albert Bandura conducted a series of experiments on observational learning, collectively known as the Bobo doll experiments. Two of the experiments are described below:

Aim

Bandura (1961) conducted a controlled experiment study to investigate if social behaviors (i.e., aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation.

The study also aimed to examine if children were more likely to imitate a same-sex model and whether boys would display more aggression than girls if exposed to aggressive modeling.

Sample

The experiment involved 72 children (36 boys and 36 girls), ages roughly 3 to 6 years old, enrolled at the Stanford University Nursery School

The researchers pre-tested the children for how aggressive they were by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behavior on four 5-point rating scales.

It was then possible to match the children in each group so that they had similar levels of aggression in their everyday behavior. The experiment is, therefore, an example of a matched pairs design.

To test the inter-rater reliability of the observers, 51 of the children were rated by two observers independently, and their ratings were compared.

These ratings showed a very high-reliability correlation (r = 0.89), which suggested that the observers had a good agreement about the behavior of the children.

Method

Design

The Bobo doll experiment was a laboratory experiment with an independent groups design (each child experienced one of the conditions: aggressive model, non-aggressive model, or control).

The independent variable (IV) was the type of model behavior the child observed (aggressive, non-aggressive, or none), with sub-variations of the model’s gender.

• Aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• Non-aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• No model is shown (control condition) – 24 children

The dependent variable (DV) was the amount of aggressive behavior shown by the child in the subsequent test situation, measured through observational counts of specific actions and remarks.

Stage 1: Modeling

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 mindutes.

Children were randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups (24 children per condition):

1. Aggressive Model Condition:

Each child individually observed an adult model (either a man or a woman) behave aggressively toward a large inflatable Bobo doll.

In a room set up for play, the model first played quietly with tinker toys for about a minute, then proceeded to physically and verbally attack the Bobo doll for the remaining time.

The model’s aggressive repertoire included novel actions like punching the doll, hitting it with a mallet, tossing it, and kicking it, accompanied by distinctive aggressive phrases (e.g., “Sock him in the nose,” “Hit him down,” “Kick him,” and “Pow!”) which were not common playground behavior

This modeling session lasted about 10 minutes