Bobo Doll Experiment Essay

For this report, I decided to pick the Bobo doll experiment that was conducted in 1961 by Badura, Ross, and Ross. The reason why I chose this specific experiment was because I have always loved children and I am always fascinated and sometimes a little horrified when I come across experiments that involve them. In 1961, Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A.Ross decided to find out “if aggression could be acquired by observation and imitation” (McLeod,2011). 72 children (36 boys and 36 girls) were selected from the Stanford University Nursery School ranging from the age of 3 to 6. The researchers used four rating scales out of which the maximum point you could score was five. They observed the kids in their everyday life to determine

A Bobo doll was introduced into a room where the kids were playing and the Bobo doll was subjected to three different kinds of behavior that the children were made to witness. In the aggressive model, the adult role model attacked the Bobo doll. Sometimes they used hammers and sometimes they “threw the doll up in the air and shouted “Pow, Boom”” (McLeod, 2011.) In the non-aggressive model, the adult role model ignored the Bobo doll and played in a restrained manner. In the control group, the children played by themselves and were left to do whatever they wanted. Out of the 24 kids who were shown the aggressive model, 6 boys and 6 girls were shown a female model performing the aggressive action and 6 boys and 6 girls were shown a male model doing the same act. Of the 24 that saw the non-aggressive role model, again 6 boys and 6 girls were exposed to a female model and 6 boys and 6 girls were exposed to a male model. The 24 children of the control group were exposed to neither female nor male models. It is important to note that all the children were induced to a “mild aggression arousal” (McLeod, 2011.) The children were allowed to play with a couple of toys and as soon as they made a selection, it was taken away from them and were told that those toys were meant for the other

In my new proposal, I would still try to prove that children learn aggression through observing the behaviors of others. But the first thing I would change is the research participant pool. The fact that all the children were from the same nursery and were from privileged backgrounds did not sit well with me. I would include children from multiple backgrounds and from different schools. Children are exposed to all sorts of things and having a diversification will only make the results more substantial. It is likely that the kids would act differently from the carefully selected initial participants. That could be the result of two things. It could be the fact that these kids would come from different socio-economic backgrounds, but we also have to consider that children these days are exposed to more violence and crimes thanks to media than they ever have been in the past. Also, even though the experiment is aptly named the Bobo doll experiment, I would have used an object that has more of a functional factor as opposed to something that looked like it was designed to be hit. The Bobo doll has no real purpose and I feel that could be confusing for the kids. There is a possibility that when these kids see the adults handling a Bobo doll a certain way, they are not really imitating them but they see that as its objective. So instead of the Bobo doll, I would use something else