Observational Learning of Aggression: Bandura's Bobo Doll Study

Video Summary

On television, in movies, and in videogames we see a lot of aggressive behaviors acted out. We may find it ludicrous to think that we’d act out what we see, but might seeing such aggression affect us in some fashion? Albert Bandura thinks so.

Questions

Question 1

Bandura’s Bobo doll study can best be said to be built around children’s use of what psychological principle?

A. Negative reinforcement.

B. Positive reinforcement.

C. Observational learning.

D. Classical conditioning.

Correct!

Sorry, your answer is incorrect. The correct answer is observational learning.

In negative reinforcement, a negative condition is removed in order to increase the probability of repeating a prior behavior. One might argue that the removal of social opprobrium is at work here, but that still wouldn’t explain the fact that the children mimicked the model’s behaviors prior to receiving any direct reinforcement.

Note that children’s behaviors may be positively reinforced after they engage in them, but their mimicry of the exact behavior of the models prior to any personal reinforcement best places this study as an example of observational (or vicarious) learning.

Classical conditioning refers to the connection of neutral stimulus to a naturally occurring stimulus (or unconditioned stimulus) in a stimulus-response pairing. There is no naturally occurring stimulus-response pairing on which to build in the study.

Question 2

Why did Bandura choose to use the inflatable Bobo doll as the target for aggression?

A. It is roughly equal in height to the child participants, offering a better extrapolation to real peer aggression.

B. It is a well-known fact that many people hate and fear clowns.

C. Bandura simply needed a safe (i.e.; non-human) target for children to aggress against so no one was really hurt.

D. The human-like features of the doll served as a good target for the aggressive behavior of the participants.

Correct!

Sorry, your answer is incorrect. Bandura simply needed a safe (i.e.; non-human) target for children to aggress against so no one was really hurt.

Bandura wasn’t studying peer aggression per se, and in any case we see that the doll was taller than some of the participants.

While clowns are indeed terrifying to some, coulrophobia’s prevalence rate is rather low, and there’s no evidence Bandura had this specific phobia.

There’s no indication that the modeling of aggression is limited to human targets.

Question 3

Alexia is stressed out after a hard day at work, so her friend invites her to see an action-packed movie, saying it will help “vent her aggression.” Based on his Bobo doll study, Bandura’s response to this is likely to be:

A. Whatever. It won’t matter either way.

B. Careful; you may end up feeling more aggressive

C. Go for it! Catharsis has a long and storied history.

D. You might be more aggressive, but only in the ways shown in the film.

Correct!

Sorry, your answer is incorrect. His response to this is likely to be careful.

Bandura’s research does show a definite effect, not the null finding this answer would suggest.

Catharsis does has a long history, but what it doesn’t have is evidence. Witnessing aggressive actions do not appear to drain violent impulses.

Remember, Bandura noted that children watching the model engage in novel aggressive play behaviors, not just repeating the ones they saw (although they do that as well).

Question 4

Question 5

The outcome Bandura claims to be most interested in for the experiment seen on the video was:

A. The mimicry of the model’s language.

B. The number of aggressive responses.

C. Sex differences in aggressive responding.

D. The generation of novel aggressive behaviors.

Correct!

Sorry, your answer is incorrect. He is most interested in the generation of novel aggressive behaviors.

Children do mimic the language of the model – Bandura acknowledges that—but that is not the specific focus of the study.

Bandura never mentions counting the number of aggressive behaviors.

The video showed both a boy and a girl acting aggressively, but Bandura never mentions which (if any) is expected to be more aggressive.

Introduction

Observational Learning of Aggression: Bandura's Bobo Doll Study

Introduction

Video Summary

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