The Bobo doll experiment

The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and studied patterns of behaviour associated with aggression.Bandura hoped that the experiment would prove that aggression can be explained, at least in part, by social learning theory. The theory of social learning would state that behaviour such as aggression is learned through observing and imitating others.The experiment is important because it sparked many more studies about the effects that viewing violence had on children.

In this experiment three groups of children saw a film which showed the adult attacking an inflatable doll with a stick. The doll was thrown across the room, sat on, punched and kicked. Bandura provided three alternative endings to the film:
Group A - Saw only the doll being hit. Group B - Saw the adult being praised and rewarded for hitting the doll. Group C - Saw the adult being punished for hitting the doll. When the children had seen the film, they were given the same doll. Bandura observed their behavior which showed that groups A and B imitated the aggressive behaviour they had witnessed, while group C were less aggressive.

This experiment showed that males are drastically more inclined to physically aggressive behaviours than females. Bandura explains that in our society, aggression is considered to be a distinct male trait. Because of this, boys are raised to be more aggressive it is therefore more acceptable when males exhibit this trait. Girls, not confident of displaying physical aggression, almost matched the boys in Bandura's experiments in terms of verbal aggression.