8.2: Bandura’s Classic Experiment

Albert Bandura (1965) conducted the pivotal research on observational learning, and you likely already know all about it. In Bandura’s experiment, 66 children (33 boys, 33 girls) aged 42 to 71 months, were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, each with 11 boys and 11 girls. The experiment started with an exposure procedure. Children were brought individually into a room and watched a film of about 5 minutes. It began with a model (an adult male) walking up to an adult-sized plastic Bobo doll and ordered it to clear the way. After glaring for a bit at the non-compliant doll, the model made one of four novel aggressive responses followed by a distinct verbalization.

First, the model laid the Bobo doll on its side, sat on it, and punched it in the nose. While doing this he said, “Pow, right in the nose, boom, boom.” The model then stood it up and pommeled it on the head with a mallet. This response was accompanied by, “Sockeroo…stay down.” The model then kicked the doll around the room and said, “Fly away.” Finally, rubber balls were thrown at the Bobo doll and “Bang” was uttered with each hit. The sequence included both physical and verbal aggression and was repeated twice.

Remember that children were assigned to one of three conditions. In the model-rewarded condition, a second adult male appeared with candies and soft drinks. He told the model that he was a “strong champion” and that his aggressive behavior deserved a generous treat. He poured the model a glass of 7-Up and gave him chocolate bars, Cracker Jack popcorn, and candy. The model ate the treats while being showered with additional positive social reinforcement.

In the model-punished condition, the second adult male appeared on the scene “shaking his finger menacingly and commenting reprovingly, “Hey there, you big bully. You quit picking on that clown. I won’t tolerate it.” The model moved back, tripped and fell, and the other adult sat on him and spanked him with a rolled-up magazine while reminding him that his aggressive behavior was wrong. The model ran off and the other man yelled, “If I catch you doing that again, you big bully, I’ll give you a hard spanking. You quit acting that way” (pg. 591).

Finally, children in the no-consequences condition just viewed the film the children in the other two groups did. There was no reinforcement ending though.

Once the exposure session ended, children were taken to an experimental room which had in it a “Bobo doll, three balls, a mallet and pegboard, dart guns, cars, plastic farm animals, and a dollhouse equipped with furniture and a doll family” (pg. 591). The variety of objects allowed the children to make imitative or nonimitative behaviors. The experimenter told the children they could play with the toys freely and left the room to obtain additional toys. Children were left in the room for 10 minutes, though the experimenter returned about halfway through to tell the children she was still looking for the toys. Two observers recorded the children’s behavior every 5 seconds using predetermined imitative response categories.

The experimenter than returned to the room with an assortment of fruit juices in a colorful juice-dispensing fountain. She also had booklets of sticker-pictures. After a brief juice treat, the children were told that for each imitative response they reproduced, they would receive a pretty sticker-picture to place on a pastoral scene on the wall and the experimenter wanted to see how many stickers they might be able to get. They were also offered additional juice treats. The children were asked to demonstrate what Rocky did in the TV program and to say what he said. Rewards were delivered immediately for correct, matching responses.

Results showed that children who witnessed a model behave aggressively to the Bobo doll tended to do so themselves. The consequences of that action were important too. When the children saw the model get punished for his aggressive behavior, they were less likely to make the same response. If the model was reinforced, they were more likely to engage in aggressive behavior of their own. When children were offered incentives to act in an aggressive manner, they did so.

The authors note though, “Exposing a person to a complex sequence of stimulation is no guarantee that he will attend to the entire range of cues, that he will necessarily select from a total stimulus complex only the most relevant stimuli, or that he will even perceive accurately the cues to which is attention is directed. Motivational variables, prior training in discriminative observation, and the anticipation of positive or negative reinforcements contingent on the emission of matching responses may be highly influential in channeling, augmenting, or reducing observing responses, which is a necessary precondition for imitative learning” (pg. 593; see also Bandura & Walters, 1963 and Bandura, 1962). Let’s further examine factors affecting observational learning.