The Bobo Doll Experiment: Overview
In the study of child psychology and behaviour, one of the most prominent experiments was the Bobo doll experiment. This was defined to be a groundbreaking study that was led by Albert Bandura, a psychologist. The study concluded that children were able to learn and imitate the behaviour exhibited by adults. A team of researchers was gathered to conduct the experiment who then proceeded to verbally and physically abuse a certain inflatable doll in the presence of pre-school-aged children.
It led to the children mimicking the behaviour exhibited by the adults and they attacked the same doll in a similar manner. Here there is a detailed bobo doll experiment summary for the students to understand the topic better.
The Bobo Doll Experiment: Methodology
The bobo doll experiment was basically a normal study on aggressive behaviour that is seen in children. Albert Bandura is best known for this particular experiment. The bobo doll experiment was conducted at Stanford University in the year 1961. It was during that time that Bandura was a professor at the college. For the experiment, he made use of 1-meter and 1.5-meter inflatable toys that were known as Bobo dolls then.
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These dolls were then painted in order to resemble the cartoon clowns. They were bottom-weighted as well in order to make sure that they would pop back up when they got knocked down. Preschool kids were chosen to be the subject of the experiment and then 3 groups were created. One group would observe the aggressive model of behaviour, the other one would observe the nonaggressive model of behaviour and the 3rd group won’t be seeing any models of behaviour at all.
From these three groups, 6 other subgroups were created for the bobo doll experiment based on gender. Half of these subgroups would see a same-sex pattern and model of behaviour and the other half would see opposite-sex behaviour and pattern. The experiment had 3 stages.
The Different Stages of The Bobo Doll Experiment
For the first stage of the experiment, the children were gathered in the experimental room and made to sit at a table. They were presented with different diverting activities that are supposedly interesting to the kids such as prints, stickers, and pictures. The main purpose of that was to encourage more observation in the children. Then the behaviour models were stored in the opposite corner next to the table and chair containing a Tinkertoy set, a mallet, and the bobo doll. The children were asked to play with these materials. In the aggressive behaviour groups, the model would abuse the bobo dolls both physically and verbally. After some time, the behaviour models exited the room.
In the second stage, the children were individually taken to different experimental rooms and provided with other appealing toys such as trains, fire engines, airplanes, and others. In order to test the hypothesis of aggressive behaviour, the children were then told that they would only be allowed to play with the toys for just 2 minutes. After that, the children were asked to go to another room and asked to play with toys that were both of aggressive nature and of a non-aggressive nature.
The final stage of the experiment was just observing the behaviour of the children. In a time period of 20 minutes, it was seen that the aggressive behaviour exhibited by the children who were made to see the aggressive behaviour model was significantly higher in rates when compared to the ones who observed the non-aggressive model. The children who exhibited the aggressive behaviour would punch and kick the bobo doll and that proved that children were actually mimicking the behaviour of the model that they saw. The aftermath also showed that about 40% of the children retained their behaviour even after months had passed of the experiment.
The study proved to provide similar results when it came to gender. However, it was suggested that at least there were certain differences that were based on a certain degree to which these behaviours were exhibited. The behaviour was more appropriate and common for a specific gender. The study suggested that the rate of physical aggression was higher in the males when compared to the females. However, there was no difference when it came to verbal aggression as both the genders showed the same amount of aggression verbally.
The bobo doll experiment summary suggests that children are prone to mimic the behaviour that they see in adults. Hence, it was a very important form of experiment and study to prove that children raised in a more friendly and peaceful environment will show lesser signs of aggression than the ones who are raised in environments that are less peaceful and more aggressive.
FAQs on Bobo Doll Experiment
1. What exactly was the bobo doll experiment?
The bobo doll experiment was a study conducted by Albert Bandura on aggression in children. It was perhaps one of the most important experiments to be done in the field of child psychology. According to the bobo doll experiment, children were more likely to mimic the actions that they see in adults from a very young age. This was proved through an experiment conducted on pre-school kids. Two groups were made to observe the non-aggressive and aggressive behaviour of adult models on a bobo doll. After the experiment, it was seen that children that observed the aggressive behaviour model showed more signs of aggression than the ones that didn’t.
2. What were the bobo doll experiment results?
After the study was conducted, the bobo doll experiment description methodology results showed that the children who were made to observe the behaviour of an aggressive model on the bobo dolls were more likely to be more aggressive than the children who were made to observe the non-aggressive behaviour model. This study further proved the hypothesis that children can be influenced through the action of adults. Not to mention that it also showed that when it came to a more physical type of aggressive behaviour, the rate exhibited by male children was significantly more than the female ones. However, there was no difference in the rate of verbal aggression shown by both genders.
