Bobo Doll Study

Dr. Bandura’s hypothesis when conducting the Bobo doll study was to investigate if social behaviors, specifically aggression, can be learned by observation and imitation.
The research study that Dr. Bandura conducted during this study was both correlational and naturalistic observation. Naturalistic observation is defined as “a measurement strategy that involves directly watching and coding behaviors” (Belsky, 2016, p. 25). Dr. Bandura accomplished this process by video recording and analyzing the behavior of the children. Correlational study is defined by Belsky as “a research strategy that involves relating two or more variables” (2016, p. 25). In Dr. Bandura’s study the variables were the exposure to violent behavior (independent variable) and the acting out with violent behavior (dependent variable).
The method was a lab experiment. The experimental group were the children that viewed the violent behavior of an adult acting aggressively towards the bobo doll, and the control group were the children who did not observe the violent behavior. The independent variable was the exposure to the violence, and the dependent variable was the children’s’ violent

behavior.
In this type of study, I do not think it is possible to determine causality because the researcher cannot control the variables.

There could be other variables that are the actual causation, with observing the adult violence being a spurious correlation. For example, the children’s diets may impact their acting out violently, or the way they are raised by their parents may cause them to be more likely to engage in violent acts. If causality can be concluded, the take-away should be that violence in children can be a learned trait through observing others acting violently. If this causation is correct, all parents should listen to this message because it would support the idea that watching violent movies or playing violent video games may lead to increased violence for children acting out towards

others.
You could change this study to have a correlation if you tracked the behavior of the children as it naturally occurs rather than having them watch a staged act of the adult hitting the bobo doll. For example, a researcher could gather data on how many hours of violent videos/movies the children watch per week and how many hours they play violent video games. The researcher would also gather data on any violent outbreaks the children have by having the children’s parents and teachers document these instances. Then the researcher could determine if there is a correlation between these variables.
The study could be further changed into a longitudinal one by tracking this data for the same group of children over several years. Because the same children are being tracked and studied over time, the researcher can better determine if there is a causality relationship between these variables.