The Bobo Doll experiment

The Bobo Doll experiment was designed by Albert Bandura who studied behavior and aggression. He proved that children can copy an adult role model’s behavior. He put aggressive and non-aggressive actors and showed us how children imitate and learn from the behavior of the adults (actors). The result was that children who exposed to the aggressive model were more aggressive than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. Also, the experiment is the origin of the Modeling Theory (observation) because both talk about copying and imitating other models or actors.

The Modeling Theory

The Modeling Theory says that people are influenced by a model (other people). The theory operates in three steps. First the boys observe the model. Then they imitate the model’s actions. After that they get a consequence which sometimes it be positive or negative. From the observation of others, we learn what, when and how to do certain behaviors. After we observe the model, then we then imitate. After that when we get in a similar situation in the future that we had observed before, we behave the same behaviors that the model behaved before.