Preschool aged children were left in a room alone to view a video of an adult acting in a very aggressive manner toward an inflatable blow up doll.  The children were split into three study groups: seeing the adult praised for their behavior, seeing the adult yelled at for their behavior, and a control group in which there was no reaction to their behavior. Next, the children were individually left in a room with an assortment of toys to see if they would imitate any of the behavior they previously witnessed.

Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment Methods

Vicarious reinforcement is a key component of motivation in observational learning. It occurs when an observer's motivation to imitate a model's behavior increases because they have seen the model receive a reward or positive consequence, such as praise, for that behavior. For example, if a child observes a teacher being praised for acting aggressively toward a Bobo doll, the child is more likely to imitate those aggressive actions.

Vicarious Reinforcement

Reciprocal determinism is the active role children take when interacting with their environment.  Albert Bandura believes these types of interactions determine the future social and external choices (likes/dislikes, peer relationships, etc.).

Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment Take Away

The results of the Bobo doll experiment demonstrated that children's imitation of a model's aggressive behavior was contingent on the consequences the model received. When children observed the teacher being punished for her actions, their tendency to act aggressively decreased. In contrast, when the teacher's aggression was either praised or ignored, the children imitated the behavior, replicating actions like punching and kicking the doll, and even repeating what the teacher said.

Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment Results

In Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment, children observed a teacher model aggressive behavior towards a five-foot inflatable doll, including hitting, throwing, and punching it. The study found that the consequences for the teacher's actions directly influenced the children's behavior. Children were less likely to imitate the aggression if they saw the teacher being punished. Conversely, if the teacher was praised or ignored, the children imitated the aggressive actions, including punching, kicking, and yelling at the doll.

Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment Summary

The Bobo Doll experiment is well-documented through video footage that captures parts of the experimental process. This footage is often accompanied by interviews with Albert Bandura, offering his direct perspective on the study.

Visual Documentation of the Bobo Doll Experiment

In an experiment, three groups of children watch a video of an adult model interacting aggressively with an inflatable doll. Group A sees the model being praised for the aggressive behavior. Group B sees the model being punished for the aggressive behavior. Group C sees the model's aggressive behavior receive no consequences. After viewing the video, which group of children is predicted to show the *least* amount of aggressive behavior towards the doll, and what is the most likely reason for this outcome?

In Bandura's Bobo doll experiment, researchers operationally defined physical aggression by observing children interact with a clown-shaped punching bag and counting specific aggressive acts over a ____-minute period.

Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment provides a famous example of a behavioral measure used to operationally define physical aggression in a naturalistic setting. Researchers allowed children to play in a room containing a clown-shaped punching bag and counted the specific number of aggressive acts—such as hitting with a mallet, punching, or kicking—that each child committed during a $$20$$-minute period.

Google

Columbia University

University of Chicago

Haverford College in Pennsylvania

Observational learning can produce both positive (prosocial) and negative (antisocial) outcomes. Individuals may adopt helpful behaviors by observing positive role models, leading to prosocial effects. Conversely, observing aggressive or harmful actions can result in antisocial effects, where negative behaviors are imitated. Classic experiments, like Bandura's Bobo Doll study, demonstrate how observed consequences influence whether prosocial or antisocial behaviors are replicated.

Prosocial and Antisocial Effects of Observational Learning

A behavioral measure is a category of operational definitions in which some aspect of a participant's behavior is observed and recorded. This can include tracking performance in highly structured laboratory tasks, such as measuring working memory capacity using the backward digit span task, or observing people's behavior in more natural settings, such as counting acts of physical aggression.

Behavioral Measure

Aggression is defined as any behavior intended to cause harm or pain to another person. It is a core topic in social psychology, encompassing a range of actions with different underlying motivations.

Aggression

Siegler, R., Saffran, J. R., Eisenberg, N., Deloache, J., &amp; Gershoff, E. (2017). How Children Develop (5th ed.). Worth Publishers, Inc.

How Children Develop Textbook

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/

KPU Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition

People are more likely to help others in a variety of ways after being exposed to media promoting prosocial behavior (i.e playing a prosocial video game or listening to a song with prosocial lyrics)

Effects of Media on Prosocial Behavior

Priming: The process of spreading activation in one area of the brain that deals with external observed stimulus excites another part of the brain that represents cognition, emotion, or behavior. The external stimulus is connected to cognition. The primed concepts allow for behaviors to be attached easily. If media violence excites aggressive concepts, then it is likely that aggression occurs. 

Arousal: Aggressive behavior arouses the observer briefly based on excitation transfer and general arousal. A stimulus arousing an emotion is more severe due to the emotional response being wrongfully identified. If an increase in arousal is stimulated, then the inhibition of inappropriate responses decreases, and dominant responses are exhibited in social problem-solving. 

Mimicry: This process is seen as a particular case of observational learning. Children observing social behaviors around them are likelier to mimic or copy them. This can be attributed to mirror neurons that start when a behavior is seen or copied.

Short-Term Effects of Media Violence

Observational Learning: A person's social behavior is controlled by the interaction between a situation and their emotional state, schemas of the world, beliefs on what is appropriate, and how to behave socially. Throughout childhood, children encrypt what behaviors to reenact into their memory based on observing others around them. They create individual beliefs as they engage in activities and view their world.

Desensitization: There is an increase in long-term effects based on mass media, video games, and emotions. Continuous exposure to specific media or video games leads to tolerance and a lack of natural reactions to the content. For a person to become desensitized to violent media or games, they consume enough for there to be a lack of negative responses. 

Enactive Learning: Children learn how to act in specific ways by interacting with different media types. Engaging in violent behaviors through violent games can have long-term effects on arousal in comparison to other forms of media.

Long-Term Effects of Media Violence

An example of the antisocial effects of observational learning is a scenario where a mother, frustrated with her son's misbehavior, disciplines him by hitting him with a belt. Later, she observes her younger daughter imitating this exact aggressive action by whipping a teddy bear with a belt. This demonstrates how a child can model a parent's punitive behavior, leading the parent to realize the negative impact of her actions and seek alternative discipline methods.

Observational Learning: A Child Imitating a Parent's Aggressive Discipline

Prosocial models are individuals who demonstrate positive, socially acceptable behaviors. According to Bandura's findings, observing these models can encourage learners to adopt similar helpful and constructive actions.

Prosocial Models in Observational Learning

Observational learning provides a framework for understanding the intergenerational cycle of abuse. Research indicates that children who witness parents using violent or aggressive acts to manage anger and frustration can learn these behaviors themselves. This modeling helps explain why a notable percentage of child abuse victims, approximately 30%, later become abusive parents, as they tend to replicate the behaviors they know.

Observational Learning and the Cycle of Abuse

Analyze the following scenario. Identify one potential prosocial outcome and one potential antisocial outcome for the observer. Explain your reasoning for each, specifically referencing the model's behavior and its perceived consequence.

Observational Learning in the Classroom

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

The backward digit span task is a highly structured laboratory procedure used as a behavioral measure of working memory capacity. In this task, a researcher reads a sequence of digits to a participant, who must then repeat the sequence in reverse order. The length of the longest correctly recalled sequence serves as the operational definition of their working memory capacity.

Backward Digit Span Task

Which of the following best describes a behavioral measure in psychological research?

- Observed in most vertebrates, related to mating
- Men are more physically aggressive than women
- The large sex differences indicate that sex hormones play a role

Intermale aggression

- Classical psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud considers aggressive impulses to be innate and derived from what he considered a death instinct
- Many non-Freudian psychoanalysts and most nonpsychoanalytically oriented psychologists view aggression as socially learned or as a reaction to frustration

Aggression in Psychoanalysis 

Based on the underlying motivation, human aggression can be categorized into two primary forms: hostile and instrumental. This distinction hinges on whether the aggression is driven by emotional anger with the intent to cause pain (hostile) or by the pursuit of a separate goal (instrumental).

Types of Aggression Based on Motive

Various theories have been proposed to explain the origins and functions of human aggression. These theories offer different perspectives, including evolutionary and psychological explanations for why individuals engage in harmful behavior.

Theories of Aggression

Bullying is a form of repeated, intentional aggression aimed at inflicting harm on a victim, who is often an adolescent. Recognized as a significant international public health issue, this behavior can manifest as physical, psychological, emotional, or social abuse.

Bullying

Aggression is classified into two main types based on its underlying motivation. Hostile aggression is driven by anger with the direct intent to cause pain. In contrast, instrumental aggression is goal-oriented, where inflicting pain is not the primary objective but may occur as a means to achieve a different outcome.

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