Bandura: Bobo Doll, An Experiment Of Children Imitate A Trusted Adult Behaviour

Albert Bandura was born December 4th 1925 in a place called Mundare, a small Canadian village that populated four hundred residents in northern Alberta. He was the youngest child and only boy of six children. (Bandura 2006) He attended a small primary and secondary school which happened to be the only settings in his town. Although his parents were not the best educated people, they did place a high value on education itself, in fact, his father taught himself three different languages, Polish, Russian, and German. The school he attended had only two teachers that taught the curriculum however, most of the learning was down to the pupils themselves. (Pajares 2004). He graduated the University of British Columbia after three years in 1949, receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology. In 1951, he received a M.A degree and a year later he was awarded his PHD at the University of Iowa. In 1953 he was offered a position to teach at Stanford University. (Boreree G.C. 2006)

The most research carried out was an experiment called the ‘Bobo doll’. It was performed in 1961 and 49 years later, it is still being debated over. He carried this experiment out to prove that children would imitate a trusted adult’s behaviour. Children between the age of 3 and 6 became the subjects as it was discussed that children were less socially conditioned compared to adults. This would allow a better study to test. The 72 children were selected from the local Stanford University, 36 of each sex were chosen to test whether boys were more prone to aggression than girls. For the experiment the children were split into three groups. They were all tested alone and individually. This was so they could not have imitated fellow classmates. The groups consisted of a control group, a passive adult group and an aggressive adult group. The control group did not have any adult present to observe. The passive group had an adult present who played pleasantly with the toys and ignored the doll. The...