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Social cognitive theory is developed by the renowned Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. He is well known for the classic “Bobo doll experiment”.

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What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression

• The Experiment

The question of how children learn to engage in violent behavior has been of great interest to parents and researchers alike. In the 1960s, psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues conducted what is now known as the Bobo doll experiment, and they demonstrated that children may learn aggression through observation.

Aggression lies at the root of many social ills ranging from interpersonal violence to war. It is little wonder, then, that the subject is one of the most studied topics within psychology.

This article covers what the Bobo doll experiment is, its findings on childhood aggression, as well as its impact on psychology.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

The participants for the experiment were 36 boys and 36 girls enrolled at the Stanford University Nursery School. The children ranged in age between 3 and almost 6 years.

The experiment involved exposing one group of 24 children to an adult modeling aggressive behavior, and another group of 24 children to an adult modeling non-aggressive behavior. The final group of 24 children acted as the control group that was not exposed to adult models.

These groups were divided again into groups of boys and girls. Each of these subgroups was then divided so that half of the participants would be exposed to a same-sex adult model and the other half would be exposed to an opposite-sex adult model.

Each child was tested individually to ensure that their behavior would not be influenced by other children. The child was first brought into a playroom where there were a number of different activities to explore. The experimenter then invited the adult model into the playroom.

In the non-aggressive condition, the adult model simply played with the toys and ignored the Bobo doll for the entire period. In the aggressive model condition, however, the adult models would violently attack the Bobo doll.

The aggressive models would punch Bobo, strike Bobo with a mallet, toss the doll in the air, and kick it around the room. They would also use " verbally aggressive phrases" such as "Kick him" and "Pow." The models also added two non-aggressive phrases: "He sure is a tough fella" and "He keeps coming back for more."

After the ten-minute exposure to the adult model, each child was then taken to another room that contained a number of appealing toys including a doll set, fire engine, and toy airplane.

The children were permitted to play for a brief two minutes, then told they were no longer allowed to play with any of these tempting toys. The purpose of this was to build up frustration levels among the young participants.

Finally, each child was taken to the last experimental room. This room contained a number of "aggressive" toys including a mallet, a tether ball with a face painted on it, dart guns, and, of course, a Bobo doll. The room also included several "non-aggressive" toys including crayons, paper, dolls, plastic animals, and trucks.

Each child was then allowed to play in this room for a period of 20 minutes. During this time, researchers observed the child's behavior from behind a one-way mirror and judged each child's levels of aggression.

Predictions

Bandura made several key predictions about what would occur during the Bobo doll experiment.

• Boys would behave more aggressively than girls.
• Children who observed an adult acting aggressively would be likely to act aggressively, even when the adult model was not present.
• Children would be more likely to imitate models of the same sex rather than models of the opposite sex.
• The children who observed the non-aggressive adult model would be less aggressive than the children who observed the aggressive model; the non-aggressive exposure group would also be less aggressive than the control group.

The results of the experiment supported some of the original predictions, but also included some unexpected findings:

• Bandura and his colleagues had predicted that children in the non-aggressive group would behave less aggressively than those in the control group. The results indicated that while children of both genders in the non-aggressive group did tend to exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who had observed a non-aggressive, opposite-sex model were more likely than those in the control group to engage in violence.
• Children exposed to the violent model tended to imitate the exact behavior they had observed when the adult model was no longer present.
• Researchers were correct in their prediction that boys would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in more than twice as many acts of physical aggression than the girls.
• There were important gender differences when it came to whether a same-sex or opposite-sex model was observed. Boys who observed adult males behaving violently were more influenced than those who had observed female models behaving aggressively.
• Interestingly, the experimenters found in same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression.

Impact of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Results of the experiment supported Bandura's social learning theory.

According to Bandura's social learning theory, learning occurs through observations and interactions with other people. Essentially, people learn by watching others and then imitating these actions.

Bandura and his colleagues believed that the Bobo doll experiment demonstrates how specific behaviors can be learned through observation and imitation.

According to Bandura, the violent behavior of the adult models toward the dolls led children to believe that such actions were acceptable.

Bandura also suggested that as a result, children may be more inclined to respond to frustration with aggression in the future.

In a follow-up study conducted in 1965, Bandura found that while children were more likely to imitate aggressive behavior if the adult model was rewarded for his or her actions, they were far less likely to imitate if they saw the adult model being punished or reprimanded for their hostile behavior.

The conclusions drawn from the Bobo doll experiment may help explain human behavior in many areas of life. For instance, the idea that children will imitate the abusive behavior that they witness may provide insight into domestic violence .

Adolescents who grow up witnessing abuse in their homes may be more likely to display violent behavior themselves, and view aggression as an appropriate response to solve interpersonal problems.

Research has found that the Bobo doll experiment and its follow-up study shed light on bullying . For instance, when leadership doesn't give negative consequences for workplace bullying, the bullying is more likely to persist.

Therefore, it's important that aggressive or violent behavior is not tolerated by those with power—whether it's at the workplace, in schools, or at home—or else the aggression is likely to continue and may influence young people who witness it.

Criticism of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Critics point out that acting violently toward a doll is a lot different than displaying aggression or violence against another human being in a real-world setting.

In other words, a child acting violently toward a doll doesn't necessarily indicate they'll act violently toward a person.

Because the experiment took place in a lab setting, some critics suggest that results observed in this type of location may not be indicative of what takes place in the real world.

It has also been suggested that children were not actually motivated to display aggression when they hit the Bobo doll; instead, they may have simply been trying to please the adults. It's worth noting that the children didn't actually hurt the Bobo doll, nor did they think they were hurting it.

In addition, by intentionally frustrating the children, some argue that the experimenters were essentially teaching the children to be aggressive.

It's also not known whether the children were actually aggressive or simply imitating the behavior without aggressive intent (most children will imitate behavior right after they see it, but they don't necessarily continue it in the long term).

Since data was collected immediately, it is also difficult to know what the long-term impact might have been.

Additional criticisms note the biases of the researchers. Since they knew that the children were already frustrated, they may have been more likely to interpret the children's actions as aggressive.

The study may also suffer from selection bias. All participants were drawn from a narrow pool of students who share the same racial and socioeconomic background. This makes it difficult to generalize the results to a larger, more diverse population.

A Word From Verywell

Bandura's experiment remains one of the most well-known studies in psychology. Today, social psychologists continue to study the impact of observed violence on children's behavior. In the decades since the Bobo doll experiment, there have been hundreds of studies on how observing violence impacts children's behavior.

Today, researchers continue to ponder the question of whether the violence children witness on television, in the movies, or through video games translates to aggressive or violent behavior in the real world.

Bandura A. Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1965;1:589-595. doi:10.1037/h0022070

Xia Y, Li S, Liu TH. The interrelationship between family violence, adolescent violence, and adolescent violent victimization: An application and extension of the cultural spillover theory in China . IJERPH. 2018;15(2):371. doi:10.3390/ijerph15020371

Hollis LP. Lessons from Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments: Leadership’s deliberate indifference exacerbates workplace bullying in higher education . JSPTE. 2019;4:085-102. doi:10.28945/4426

Altin D, Jablonski J, Lyke J, et al. Gender difference in perceiving aggression using the Bobo doll studies . Modern Psychological Studies. 2011;16:2.

Bandura A, Ross D, Ross SA. Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models . Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1961;63:575-82. doi:10.1037/h0045925

Ferguson CJ. Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can violent video games be a force for good? Review of General Psychology. 2010;14(2) : 68-81. doi:10.1037/a0018941

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Bobo doll experiment

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• Academia - Bobo Doll Experiment
• Frontiers - Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique
• Simply Psychology - Bobo Doll Experiment
• University of Central Florida Pressbooks - Psych in Real Life: The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Verywell Mind - What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression

Bobo doll experiment , groundbreaking study on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

Bandura’s study on aggression—the experiment for which he is perhaps best known—was carried out in 1961 at Stanford University , where Bandura was a professor. For this study he used 3- and 5-foot (1- and 1.5-metre) inflatable plastic toys called Bobo dolls, which were painted to look like cartoon clowns and were bottom-weighted so that they would return to an upright position when knocked down. The subjects were preschoolers at Stanford’s nursery school and were divided into three groups: one group observed aggressive adult behaviour models; another group observed nonaggressive behaviour models; and the third group was not exposed to any behaviour models.

The three groups were then divided by gender into six subgroups in which half of the subgroups would observe a same-sex behaviour model and half would observe an opposite-sex behaviour model. In the first stage of the experiment, the children were individually seated at a table in one corner of an experimental room and presented with diverting activities that had previously been shown to be of high interest to the children (e.g., stickers, pictures, prints) in order to discourage active participation and encourage mere observation. The behaviour model was then taken to the opposite corner—which contained another table and chair, a mallet, a Tinkertoy set, and a 5-foot Bobo doll—and was told he or she could play with these materials. In the aggressive behaviour model groups, the model abused the Bobo doll both physically (e.g., kicked, punched, threw, and assaulted with various objects) and verbally (e.g., made aggressive statements such as “Sock him in the nose” and “Pow” or nonaggressive statements such as “He sure is a tough fella” and “He keeps coming back for more”). In the nonaggressive behaviour model groups, the model ignored the Bobo doll and instead quietly assembled the Tinkertoys. After 10 minutes had elapsed, the behaviour models in both groups left the room.

In the second phase of the experiment, the children were taken individually into a different experimental room, where they were presented with a new group of appealing toys (e.g., train, fire engine, cable car, jet airplane, spinning top , doll with wardrobe, baby crib, and doll carriage). To test the hypothesis that the observation of aggression in others would increase the likelihood of aggression in the observer, the children were subjected to aggression arousal in the form of being told after two minutes that they could no longer play with the toys. The children were then told that they could, however, play with the toys in another room, where they were presented with various toys that were considered both aggressive (e.g., 3-foot Bobo doll, mallet, and dart guns) and nonaggressive (e.g., crayons, paper, farm animals, tea set, ball, and dolls).

In the final stage of the experiment, the children’s behaviour was observed over the course of 20 minutes and rated according to the degree of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour they modeled, the results of which yielded significantly higher scores for children in the aggressive behaviour model groups compared with those in both the nonaggressive behaviour model and control groups. Subsequent experiments in which children were exposed to such violence on videotape yielded similar results, with nearly 90 percent of the children in the aggressive behaviour groups later modeling the adults’ behaviour by attacking the doll in the same fashion and 40 percent of the those children exhibiting the same behaviour after eight months.

Although the study yielded similar results for both genders, it nonetheless suggested at least some difference depending on the degree to which a behaviour is sex-typed—that is, viewed as more common of or appropriate for a specific gender. For example, the data suggest that males are somewhat more prone to imitate physical aggression—a highly masculine-typed behaviour—than are females, with male subjects reproducing more physical aggression than female subjects; there were, however, no differences in the imitation of verbal aggression, which is less sex-typed. Additionally, both male and female subjects were more imitative of the male behaviour models than of the female models in terms of physical aggression but were more imitative of the same-sex models in terms of verbal aggression.

Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment (Explained)

The Bobo Doll Experiment was a study by Albert Bandura to investigate if social behaviors can be learned by observing others in the action. According to behaviorists, learning occurs only when a behavior results in rewards or punishment. However, Bandura didn't believe the framework of rewards and punishments adequately explained many aspects of everyday human behavior.

According to the Social Learning Theory, people learn most new skills through modeling, imitation, and observation. Bandura believed that people could learn by observing how someone else is rewarded or penalized instead of engaging in the action themselves.

In the hit television show Big Little Lies, tensions run high as an unknown child is accused of choking another student. The child is revealed as Max throughout the series (spoiler alert!). Max has an abusive father, and once Max’s mother realizes that her child is learning behaviors from her husband, she decides to take action. 

This cycle of abuse is sad but extremely common. Many abusers were abused themselves or grew up in an abusive household. These ideas seem obvious, but in the mid-20th century, evidence that supports these ideas was becoming known. 

What is the Bobo Doll Experiment?

In 1961, Albert Bandura conducted the Bobo doll experiment at Stanford University. He placed children in a room with an adult, toys, and a five-foot Bobo Doll. (Bobo Dolls are large inflatable clowns shaped like a bowling ball, so they  roll upward if punched or knocked down.)

Who Conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment?

This experiment made Albert Bandura one of the most renowned psychologists in the history of the world. He is now listed in the ranks of Freud and B.F. Skinner, the psychologist who developed the theory of operant conditioning . 

How Was The Bobo Doll Experiment Conducted?

Let’s start by discussing Bandura’s first Bobo doll experiment from 1961. Bandura conducted the experiment in three parts: modeling, aggression arousal, and a test for delayed imitation. 

Stage 1: Modeling 

The study was separated into three groups, including a control group. An aggressive adult behavior model was shown to one group, a non-aggressive adult behavior model to another, and no behavior models were shown to the third group. In the group with the aggressive adult, some models chose to hit the Bobo doll over the head with a mallet. 

The group with a nonaggressive adult simply observed the model playing with blocks, coloring, or doing non-aggressive activities. 

Stage 2: Aggression Arousal 

After 10 minutes of being in the room with the model, the child was taken into another room. This room had attractive toys; the researchers briefly allowed the children to play with the toys of their choice. Once the child was engaged in play, the researchers removed the toys from the child and took them into yet another room. It’s easy to guess that the children were frustrated, but the researchers wanted to see how they would release that frustration. 

Stage 3: Test For Delayed Imitation 

The third room contained a set of “aggressive” and “non-aggressive toys.” The room also had a Bobo doll. Researchers watched and recorded each child’s behavior through a one-way mirror. 

So what happened?

As you can probably guess, the children who observed the adults hitting the Bobo doll were more likely to take their frustration out on the Bobo doll. They kicked, yelled at, or even used the mallet to hit the doll. The children who observed the non-aggressive adults tended to avoid the Bobo doll and take their frustration out without aggression or violence. 

The Second Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura did not stop with the 1961 Bobo doll experiment. Two years later, he conducted another experiment with a Bobo doll. This one combined the ideas of modeling with the idea of conditioning. Were people genuinely motivated by consequences, or was there something more to their behavior and attitudes? 

In this experiment, Bandura showed children a video of a model acting aggressively toward the Bobo doll. Three groups of children individually observed a different final scene in the video. The children in the control group did not see any scene other than the model hitting the Bobo doll. In another group, the children observed the model getting rewarded for their actions. The last group saw the model getting punished and warned not to act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. 

All three groups of children were then individually moved to a room with toys and a Bobo doll. Bandura observed that the children who saw the model receiving a punishment were less likely to be aggressive toward the doll. 

A second observation was especially interesting. When researchers asked the children to act aggressively toward the Bobo doll, as they did in the movie, the children did.

This doesn’t sound significant, but it does make an interesting point about learned behaviors. The children learn the behavior by watching the model and observing their actions. Learning (aka remembering) the learning of the model’s actions occurred simply because the children were there to observe them.

Consequences simply influenced whether or not the children decided to perform the learned behaviors. The memory of the aggression was still present, whether or not the child saw that the aggression was rewarded or punished. 

Is The Bobo Doll Experiment An Example of Operant Conditioning or Classical Conditioning?

Neither! Since operant and classical conditioning rely on explicit rewards or penalties to affect behavior repetition, they fall short of capturing the full scope of human learning. Conversely, observational learning is not dependent on these rewards. Albert Bandura's well-known "Bobo Doll" experiment is a striking example.

This experiment proved that without firsthand experience or outside rewards and penalties, people might learn only by watching others. The behaviorist ideas of the time, which were primarily dependent on reinforcement, faced a severe challenge from Bandura's research.

Criticism of the Bobo Doll Experiment

A Reddit user on the TodayILearned subreddit made a good point on how the Bobo Doll Experiment was conducted: 

"A significant criticism of this study is that the Bobo doll is MEANT to be knocked around. It’s an inflatable toy with a weight at the bottom, it rocks back and forth and stands back up after it is hit.

How do we know that the kids didn’t watch the adults knock over the toy and say, 'That looks fun!' and then mimic them? These types of toys are still often sold as punching bag toys for kids. This study would have much more validity if they had used a different type of toy."

Bobo Doll Impact

There’s one more piece of the 1963 study that is worth mentioning. While some children in the experiment watched a movie, others watched a live model. Did this make a huge difference in whether or not the child learned and displayed aggressive behaviors?

Not really.

The Bobo Doll experiment has frequently been cited in discussions among psychologists and researchers, especially when debating the impact of violent media on children. A wealth of research has sought to determine whether children engage with violent video games and consume violent media, does it increase their likelihood to act out violently? Or, as suggested by the Bobo Doll experiment, do children merely internalize these behaviors and still maintain discretion over whether to act on them or not?

Multiple studies have aimed to tackle this question. For instance, research from the American Psychological Association has pointed to a link between violent video games and increased aggression, though not necessarily criminal violence. However, other sources, such as the Oxford Internet Institute , have found limited evidence to support a direct link between game violence and real-world violent actions. Despite the varying findings, the influence of Albert Bandura's introduction of observational learning and social learning theory cannot be understated. His Bobo Doll experiments remain pivotal in psychology's rich history.

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• Albert Bandura (Biography + Experiments)
• 3 Theories of Aggression (Psychology Explained)

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• Sep 24, 2023

From the Bobo Doll Experiment to Modern Psychology

The Social Cognitive Theory, also known as the Social Learning Theory, was introduced by Albert Bandura in 1961. This theory suggests that much of human learning is acquired through the indirect observation of behaviors performed by role models and the consequences of these behaviors. Bandura laid the groundwork for the Social Learning Theory with his renowned Bobo Doll experiment. In this experiment, he categorized 72 children into three groups and closely observed their interactions with the Bobo Doll toy, which he subsequently named the experiment after. This groundbreaking study marked the transition from pure behaviorism to cognitive psychology, laying the foundations for modern psychology.

Over time, however, the Bobo Doll experiment and the Social Learning Theory faced criticism. As a result, Bandura emphasized the cognitive and personal aspects of behavior in his theory and shifted the focus from conditioning to learning through observation. Consequently, he renamed the theory to «Social Cognitive Theory». This shift highlighted the importance of cognitive processes and personal factors in the learning process, distinguishing it from traditional behaviorist perspectives. The following will delve into the fundamentals of learning theory, and how the Bobo Doll revolutionized behaviorism and observational learning.

The Social Learning Theory is a learning theory that suggests learning occurs through interaction, observation, and imitation, involving processes of “operant conditioning“ and “modeling and imitation“. Within the Social Learning Theory, there are three core components (Cherry, 2021). Firstly, individuals can learn through observation. Secondly, the theory acknowledges the significance of internal mental states as an integral part of this process. Lastly, it is emphasized that the mere acquisition of knowledge does not always lead to changes in behavior.

The Bobo Doll experiment, conducted by Albert Bandura, is a seminal study within the framework of the Social Cognitive Theory. This research contributed to the literature on social learning theory and helped define its core elements. The study provided significant evidence that aggression is a learned behavior rather than an instinctual one.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

In this experiment, a sample of 72 children, aged 3 to 6 years, were selected, including both girls and boys in the preschool age group. These children were divided into three groups. The first experimental group was shown a video featuring adults engaging in aggressive behavior with the Bobo Doll plastic toy. The second experimental group also watched adults playing with the Bobo Doll toy, but this time, the adults did not display aggressive behavior. The third (control) group was not shown any videos and was thus not exposed to any models.

Additionally, within the first and the second group, half of the children observed same-sex adult models, while the other half observed opposite-sex adult models. After this phase of the experiment, the children's interactions with the Bobo Doll toy, in an environment without any models, were examined. Subsequently, the initial video was shown to the children again, but this time, the displayed aggressive behavior was either punished, rewarded for gentle behavior, or met with no feedback at all.

As a result, the group that witnessed the punishment of aggressive behavior showed changes in their own behavior. This study concluded that children in the developmental process tend to emulate models they encounter in their social environment (Tatlıoğlu, 2021).

Observational Learning, Memory and Motivation

In his Bobo Doll study, Bandura defined three essential models for learning through observation. According to Bandura (1965), observational learning can occur through three main models: a live model involving a real individual demonstrating or enacting a behavior, a verbal instructional model that provides descriptions and explanations of a behavior, and symbolic models that feature real or fictional characters exhibiting behaviors in books, films, television programs, or online media.

Additionally, Bandura emphasized that external reinforcement is not the sole factor influencing learning and behavior. He highlighted those internal mental states such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of achievement also play a role in this process, serving as internal reinforcement (Artino, 2007).

However, not all observed behaviors are effectively learned. For effective learning through observation, factors involving both the model and the observer play a crucial role, and these factors entail specific requirements and steps. According to the Social Learning Theory, for observational learning to take place, the first requirement is that the observer must pay attention to the model. If the observer's attention is not focused on the model, it implies that the model has not entered their perceptual field, which can have a negative impact on learning. Therefore, if the model is interesting for various reasons or if there is a novel aspect to the situation, the observer is more likely to allocate their full attention to learning.

Furthermore, the ability to retain information and retrieve it from memory plays a significant role in the observational learning process. Remembering the correct information is vital for subsequently performing the correct behavior. The application of the learned behavior leads to the development of skills in that area.

Lastly, for observational learning to be successful, the observer must have the motivation to imitate the modeled behavior. Motivation is influenced by reinforcement and punishment, which are acquired through experience or observation (Cherry, 2021).

Observational learning is driven by three types of motivators for one's performance. Firstly, when someone successfully imitates a behavior they observed, they are directly motivated by reinforcement. Secondly, when they witness others being rewarded for a behavior, they are indirectly motivated through reinforcement. Lastly, individuals shape their behavior based on their personal preferences, imitating behaviors they find rewarding and avoiding those they dislike.

Moreover, modeling behavior goes beyond mere imitation. People can create new behavior patterns by blending what they've seen with their own actions (Bandura, 1989). In essence, it involves more than straightforward copying (Bandura, 1977, as mentioned in Artino, 2007).

The Influence of Social Factors on Behavior: Insights from Workplace Bullying

Social factors play a significant role in shaping behavior through modeling and motivation in our daily lives. Individuals often experience social pressure, which can motivate them to conform to this pressure. This motivation extends not only to themselves but also to others who, through social learning via observation and imitation, are influenced by the same social pressure. The Social Learning Theory is particularly crucial in understanding the acquisition of aggressive behaviors within the context of fundamental concepts related to the development and alteration of expectations and how individuals interpret the social world. It is also essential in explaining instrumental aggression (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Hermann, 2019, as cited in Sevim, 2021). Social pressure can be observed across various ecological systems, for example, workplaces.

Within this environment, a hierarchical structure exists, with a supervisor or manager at the top, followed by subordinate employees. Drawing a parallel to the Bobo Doll experiment, children imitated aggressive behaviors they witnessed in adults, underlining the central role of models. Adult models influence children's actions, while in workplace bullying, leaders and colleagues can serve as models for aggressive or bullying behavior. Thus, employees may replicate hostile or aggressive conduct they observe within the workplace environment.

As we examine the literature, workplace bullying is observed to occur among colleagues or across organizational levels, with its primary source often attributed to leaders displaying avoidance and indifferent styles (Glambek et al., 2018). From a social cognitive theory perspective, leaders who do not intervene in workplace bullying behaviors contribute to the observation and motivation for such behaviors in the work environment, even if these behaviors are not rewarded. Witnessing a colleague engage in aggressive behaviors without being cautioned or corrected is likely to lead to the repetition of aggressive behavior by other employees (Hollis, 2019).

Simultaneously, when a leader or supervisor in the workplace fails to address and rectify aggressive behaviors, they not only realize that the environment tolerates their aggressive conduct but also teach others within the organizational culture that such behaviors are acceptable. This is because people learn behavior standards through observation, and the observation and application of behavior are closely linked. Especially when leaders fail to intervene in verbal or physical aggressive behaviors, those behaviors become normalized (Bandura, 1961, as cited in Hollis, 2019).

In situations where leaders engage in aggressive behaviors, employees learn which behaviors and language are accepted or rejected by observing the norms. According to the results of a study conducted by Hollis (2019) among higher education faculty on workplace bullying, data collected between 2012 and 2018 revealed that two-thirds of participants claimed to have experienced workplace bullying. They alleged that leaders, human resources, and other individuals in positions of power deliberately remained indifferent and knowingly allowed bullying to persist at the expense of employees. The researcher speculated that long-standing managers and faculty members in higher education, such as a participant who said, “I have never had a healthy workplace experience throughout my career in higher education“. may have succumbed to an accepting indifference regarding the prevalence of bullying culture in higher education.

The researcher emphasized that the only way to curb workplace bullying is through leaders addressing these issues, punishing undesirable behaviors, reinforcing positive behaviors in line with the requirements of social cognitive theory, and potentially changing the culture and norms prevailing in the workplace (Hollis, 2019).

From the Social Learning Theory to the Social Cognitive Theory

The Bobo Doll experiment and the Social Cognitive Theory have significantly contributed to the evolution of modern psychology, marking a shift from pure behaviorism to cognitive psychology and fostering studies on subjects like communication, violence, and gender roles. However, it is essential to acknowledge the criticisms and debates surrounding both the Bobo Doll experiment and the Social Cognitive Theory in the literature.

One key criticism, as pointed out by Bilici (2017), revolves around the interpretation of children directing their anger towards the Bobo Doll in the experiment. It raises questions about whether this behavior should be seen as a means of venting anger or as a way of teaching aggression as a natural response. Furthermore, Cherry (2020) conducted a literature review regarding the Bobo Doll experiment and highlighted various criticisms. One significant argument is that applying violence to a toy differs substantially from displaying aggression or violence towards another human being in the real world. Critics contend that because the experiment occurs in a controlled laboratory setting, the results may not necessarily reflect real-world behaviors. It has also been suggested that when children hit the Bobo Doll, they may not necessarily be motivated by aggression; instead, they might simply be attempting to please the adults present. Additionally, due to the immediate data collection, it is challenging to predict the long-term effects. Some critics argue that the study itself is ethically questionable, as experimenters may manipulate children into behaving aggressively, essentially teaching them aggression. Finally, the fact that all participants were selected from a narrow student pool sharing the same race and socioeconomic background raises concerns about the generalizability of the results to a broader and more diverse population.

In a study conducted by Evdokimov and Garfagnini (2020) that examined the effectiveness of individual learning alongside social learning, individuals in the group supported by social learning did not outperform those in the group where only individual learning took place. The researchers highlighted that the reason behind this could be the inadequacy of the Social Learning Theory in explaining the interaction between social and private information not captured by the model. They further emphasized that when individuals are given the choice to measure how much information they can derive from others' decisions, even in suboptimal situations, they tend to prefer observing social information over private information. This observation aligns with the structural approach, an extension of Grether's (1980) theory, which suggests that, in the presence of social information, private information is asymmetrically updated.

The study conducted by Evdokimov and Garfagnini underscores an interesting aspect of social learning and individual learning. It challenges the notion that social learning always enhances individual performance. Instead, it suggests that individuals may prioritize social information over private information in certain situations, even when it may not lead to optimal outcomes. This finding highlights the complexity of human learning and decision-making processes and how they can be influenced by various factors, including the availability of social and private information.

Moreover, it emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between social and individual learning, shedding light on scenarios where social learning might not necessarily result in improved performance. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion surrounding the Social Learning Theory and its applicability in explaining human behavior and learning, demonstrating the importance of considering the limitations and conditions under which social learning operates effectively.

In conclusion, according to the Social Learning Theory, for an individual to learn through observation, they need attention, memory, the ability to apply behavior and motivation. Bandura emphasized motivation as the most crucial step in this process, highlighting the importance of identification with a particular model and possessing a quality the individual desires. Failure to intervene in aggressive behavior, as seen in the Bobo Doll experiment, can also pave the way for the normalization of aggression and social pressure in environments. When examining research in the literature, especially in the realms of social pressure and bullying, unaddressed behaviors determine what is deemed acceptable and correct. Consequently, aggressive behaviors grow like a snowball in social settings, gradually becoming socially accepted and leading most people to behave in that manner. Despite criticisms in the current literature regarding the Bobo Doll experiment and the limitations of the Social Cognitive Theory, Bandura's work still holds a significant place in modern research.

Bibliographical References

Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual review of psychology , 53 , 27-51. Artino, A. (2007). Bandura, Ross, and Ross: Observational Learning and the Bobo Doll , 1-16. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED499095 Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 1 (6), 589-595. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022070 Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs . NJ: Prentice Hall. Bandura, A. (1989). Social cognitive theory . In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of child development. Vol. 6. Six theories of child development (pp. 1-60). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63 (3), 575-582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925 Bilici, İ. E. (2017). İnformal Öğrenme, Çocuk ve Suç Olgusu. Selçuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 37 , 21-31. Cherry, K. (2020). What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression . Retrieved 18 May 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/bobo-doll-experiment-2794993 Cherry, K. (2021). How Social Learning Theory Works . Retrieved 17 May 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/social-learning-theory-2795074 Evdokimov, P., & Garfagnini, U. (2020). Individual vs. Social Learning: An Experiment . SSRN Electronic Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3521347 Glambek, M., Skogstad, A., & Einarsen, S. (2018). Workplace bullying, the development of job insecurity and the role of laissez-faire leadership: A two-wave moderated mediation study. Work & Stress: An International Journal of Work, Health & Organizations, 32 (3), 297-312. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2018.1427815 Grether, D. M. (1980). Bayes rule as a descriptive model: The representativeness heuristic. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 95 , 537-557. Hermann, H. R. (2019). İnsanlarda ve Hayvanlarda Baskınlık ve Saldırganlık Büyük Yaşam Mücadelesi. Görkem Bir (Çev.) . İstanbul: The Kitap. Hollis, L. (2019). Lessons from Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiments: Leadership’s Deliberate Indifference Exacerbates Workplace Bullying in Higher Education. Journal For The Study Of Postsecondary And Tertiary Education, 4 , 85- 102. Sevim, B. (2021). Erken dönem uyumsuz şemaların ve şema modlarının saldırganlık türleri üzerindeki etkilerinin incelenmesi . Yayınlanmış yüksek lisans tezi. İstanbul kent üni̇versi̇tesi̇. Tatlıoğlu, S. (2021). Öğrenmeye sosyal- bi̇li̇şsel bi̇r bakiş: albert bandura. Sosyoloji Notları, 5 (1), 15-30.

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• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63 , 575-582.
• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66 (1), 3-11.
• Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of Models’ Reinforcement Contingencies on the Acquisition of Imitative Responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1 (6), 589.
• Huessmann, L. R., Lagerspetz, K. And Eron, L. D. (1984). Intervening Variables in the TV Violence-Aggression Relation: Evidence From Two Countries. Developmental Psychology , 20 (5), 746-775.

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Social Learning Theory

When you switch on the television to watch the latest episode of your favourite programme, follow an influencer’s tutorial on YouTube, listen to your friend’s essential playlist on Spotify, or scroll through a celebrity’s Instagram posts, you are critically observing the behaviour of other people. Once your mind processes that information, you might begin to imitate their actions and reactions, especially if you believe the behaviour will help you to achieve your individual needs and ambitions.

This process is called the social learning theory. Put simply, the theory proposes we learn how to behave by observing people and our environment.

Of course, we are most interested in the media’s influence on our behaviour, so our introduction to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory is designed to develop your understanding of this important concept in the audience effects debate.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

Created by the psychologist Albert Bandura, the famous Bobo doll experiment explored how we observe and learn from our environment and the behaviour of other people. 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School took part in the initial 1961 study.

Each child was invited into a playroom with lots of activities to enjoy. They were soon joined by an adult who was also asked to play with the toys.

Some adults ignored the Bobo doll. In the other group, however, the models verbally and physically attacked the doll. Bandura was then able to compare the children’s aggression levels after being exposed to either of these conditions.

If the child saw the adult being aggressive towards the doll, such as striking the doll with a mallet or tossing it up in the air, they were then more likely to act violently in the final part of the experiment. In this way, Bandura was able to conclude children learn specific behaviours by observing the actions of their role models.

Mediational Processes

Definitions of the media’s influence on the audience have moved from the passive descriptions of our consumption of texts, such as the hypodermic needle theory , to the active audience models which recognise we are not easily brainwashed by the backlit images we see in our black mirrors. Stuart Hall’s encoding / decoding model of communication is a great example of how audiences critically assess the representations of people and places and form our own reading of the media texts.

Bandura also argued we do not simply observe a model’s behaviour and then imitate their actions. We interpret the behaviour according to our own framework of knowledge, which the psychologist called the mediational process . He identified four categories of intervention:

• Attention: if we are going to learn from a model’s behaviour, their actions have to grab our attention for us to even consider some sort of imitation. We ignore behaviour if it is not relevant to our own needs, or we don’t value the model’s input.
• Retention: the behaviour has to be worth remembering for us to reproduce it.
• Reproduction: we also have to be able to actually perform the various features of the behaviour – we are limited by our physical abilities and our environment.
• Motivation: after considering the risks and rewards, we have to want to perform the behaviour.

If each of these steps is satisfied, we might begin to imitate the model’s behaviour.

The evidence from the experiment supported several conclusions. Most importantly, the study suggested children who are exposed to violent models are more likely to behave aggressively. The researchers also identified some interesting gender differences. For example, boys engaged in twice the number of physical aggressions compared to girls and, if the model was same-sex, girls were more likely to copy verbal aggressions.

Symbolic Modelling

Bandura (1963) explored how “film-mediated aggressive models” could also be a source of imitative behaviour. One group of subjects watched a projection of a colour movie with a tape recording of a role model punching the Bobo doll on the nose, pommeling it on the head with a mallet, and kicking it around the room. Another group of subjects watched a cartoon on television with Herman the Cat performing the same sequence of aggressive acts on the Bobo doll.

The data suggested “exposure to humans on film portraying aggression was the most influential in eliciting and shaping aggressive behaviour”. They also “engaged in significantly more aggressive gun play”. Even the subjects who viewed the cartoon model “exhibited nearly twice as much aggression than did the subjects in the control group who were not exposed to the aggressive film content”.

The characters, or stimulus, can be real or fictional. Either way, the behaviour we see on the screen can shape our own identity.

To illustrate this concept of symbolic modelling in real life, Bandura referred to an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1961. It described a group of boys re-enacting the switchblade knife scene from “Rebel Without a Cause” they had seen on television the previous evening. Unfortunately, one of the boys was seriously injured during their fight.

Lots of politicians and social commentators are quick to connect violence in the media and violent behaviour in real life. Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments seems to provide some scientific backing to this widely-held opinion. George Gerbner’s cultivation theory also suggested there was a link between heavy users of television and their negative view of the world, which he called mean world syndrome .

However, these theories do not explain the full complexity of human behaviour. Just because we see violence on television does not mean we are going to commit violent acts in real life. Bandura acknowledged this limitation and renamed his concept the social cognitive theory in 1986.

There are also issues with the methodology of the experiment. For instance, the children came from a very narrow racial and socioeconomic group which makes it difficult to apply the conclusions to the wider population. Perhaps the children were fooled into believing such violent behaviour was acceptable. Were the participants manipulated into behaving aggressively because they thought they had to please the adults? Was the experiment on children even ethical?

Bandura, A., Ross, D., Ross, S. A. (1961). “Transmission of aggression through the imitation of aggressive models”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology Vol.63. Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1963) “Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology Vol.66.

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Social Learning Theory: How Bandura’s Theory Works

Categories Development , Theories

Social learning theory, also known today as social cognitive theory, is a theory proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura that explains how people learn through observation, imitation, and modeling. This model of learning suggests that both environmental and cognitive factors play a critical role in the acquisition of knowledge.

In this article, learn more about the basics of social learning theory and how people learn by observing others.

Table of Contents

What Is Social Learning Theory?

Behaviorism was the dominant school of thought in psychology for much of the first half of the 20th century, advocated by thinkers such as John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner . According to the behavioral perspective, learning is the result of conditioning through association reinforcement . 

While Bandura agreed that classical conditioning and operant conditioning were important for learning, he noted that these processes alone could not account for all examples of learned behavior. For example, people are often able to demonstrate that they have learned something even if they have no direct experience with it. 

According to Bandura’s social learning theory, people can also learn simply by observing the actions of others.

This theory extended behavioral ideas about learning by adding a social component. As Bandura once suggested, learning would be time-consuming, laborious, and even dangerous if you could only acquire knowledge through direct experience.

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment

During the 1960s, Bandura conducted a series of famous experiments that came to be known as the Bobo doll experiment. The experiments involved having children observe an adult interact with a Bobo doll, a large inflatable toy that resembles the shape of a bowling pin. If tipped over, the doll returns to its original upright position.

When children observed the adult acting aggressively or violently toward the doll, the kids were more likely to imitate these behaviors when they were later allowed to interact with the doll.

The research served as a basis for Bandura’s social learning theory and the important role that observational learning plays. The study also had an impact on the conversation about how the violence that children observe in the media may impact their behavior.

Bandura dubbed his approach social learning theory when it was first introduced in 1977. He continued to develop his ideas and renamed his approach social cognitive theory in 1986. 

Components of Social Learning Theory

Bandura proposed that some key elements were essential for the social learning process. 

Observational Learning

The observational learning process is the cornerstone of Bandura’s model of learning. While this might immediately call to mind direct observation, you don’t necessarily have to actually witness an action being performed to learn through observation.

There are three primary types of observational modeling situations:

• Directly observing a live model perform and action, such as watching an instructor teach how to cook a dish
• Symbolically observing a character perform an action, such as reading about a fictional character
• Verbal instructions that explain how behavior might be performed, such as listening to a podcast that explains how to do something

It’s important to note that not all learning is easily observable . People can learn information even if they do not have to demonstrate that knowledge by performing it directly.

Emotion, Motivation, and Self-Efficacy

Bandura also believed that inner states could affect the social learning process. Cognitive influences, including your emotional states, moods, and thoughts, can affect your attention, motivation, and willingness to learn.

Social experiences can also affect your sense of self-efficacy , which is your belief in your ability to perform a test or achieve a goal. Having a strong sense of self-efficacy can help you choose goals, initiate actions, and persist in the face of obstacles.

Observing people do something successfully can influence your sense of self-efficacy. When you watch them succeed, it can inspire your own belief in your ability to be successful as well.

Factors That Affect Social Learning

Several factors can affect how observational occurs. Not everything we see or hear is learned or learned well. According to Bandura, some important elements affect the observational learning process:

• Attention: To learn something through observation, it needs to be the focus of your attention. Being distracted during the learning process can affect how well the information is learned.
• Retention : Observational learning also hinges on your ability to remember what you have observed.
• Reproduction : The next step of the process involves reproducing the behavior you have observed. While not all observational learning requires demonstrating the behavior, practicing can be helpful for the learning process.
• Motivation : Observational learning is also affected by motivation. This can include behavioral processes such as reinforcement and punishment . If you observe somebody else being rewarded for performing a behavior, it is more likely that you will also perform that behavior again in the future.

Uses for Social Learning Theory

As you might imagine, social learning theory has a number of practical applications. Some of these include:

• Parenting: Parents can use social learning to model behaviors that they want their children to learn.
• Education: Teachers can utilize principles of social learning theory to help teach children in classroom settings. Not only can the teacher serve as a model, pure models can also play an important part in observational learning.
• Therapy: social learning can also be important in the therapeutic process. Therapists can model appropriate behaviors, and peers can also model these behaviors in group therapy settings.
• Media messages: Social modeling also has the potential to have a positive effect on persuasive public health messaging. Encouraging people to engage in healthy behaviors can often be effective. However, researchers also suggest that media influencers can sometimes play a negative role. The debate over the impact of violence in mass media is one example of how observational learning might have a detrimental impact on behavior.

Social learning theory is a major theory of development that explains the importance of social factors in the learning process. While Bandura felt that behavioral factors such as conditioning processes did play an important role in learning, he felt that behaviorism neglected other important parts of this process, including social influences and cognition. 

Social learning theory continues to play an important role in psychology today. Bandura proposed that this approach could play a part in helping people adopt healthier behaviors and inspire people to take action to address problems such as climate change.

Bandura A, Ross D, Ross SA. Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models . The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1963;66(1):3-11. doi:10.1037/h0048687

Bandura A. Social Learning Theory . Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall; 1977.

Bandura A. The Social and Policy Impact of Social Cognitive Theory. In M https://doi.org/10.1037/h004868710.1037/h0048687 . Mark, S. Donaldson, & B. Campbell (Eds.), Social Psychology and Evaluation. (pp. 33-70). New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2011.

Cook DA, Artino AR. Motivation to learn: an overview of contemporary theories. Med Educ. 2016;50(10):997-1014. doi:10.1111/medu.13074

Fryling MJ, Johnston C, Hayes LJ. Understanding observational learning: an interbehavioral approach . Anal Verbal Behav. 2011;27(1):191-203. doi:10.1007/bf03393102

Overskeid G. Do we need the environment to explain operant behavior ? Front Psychol. 2018;9:373. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00373

Bobo Doll Experiment

In this post

This study, carried out by Bandura and his colleagues, is an example of how social learning theory is researched. The study, also known as the ‘ Bobo Doll’ study, has been extremely influential since it was carried out in the 1960s.

Social learning theory is based on the idea that people will learn from watching role models. It is argued, especially with regards to children, that the behaviour of a role model will be repeated if that behaviour is not seen to be punished. Behaviour is thought to be even more likely to be repeated if children identify with the role models that they are observing.

Let’s now consider the research of Bandura in more detail. You are likely to be asked about this or the following research study in the appropriate section in the exam, so it is important that you know how the experiment was carried out, as well as its relative strengths and weaknesses.

Bandura, Ross and Ross aimed to find out if aggressive behaviours could be acquired by observation and imitation.

Thirty-six boys and 36 girls aged between three and five years took part in the experiment. In each of the three groups, half of the participants were boys and half were girls.

Twenty-four of the children were exposed to role models, who interacted with the life-size inflatable Bobo doll clown in an aggressive way. These children witnessed adults kicking the doll, hitting it on the head and shouting at it.

After this, the experimenter deliberately irritated and frustrated the children who had observed the aggressive behaviour by not allowing them to play with new toys that they had seen. Instead they were taken into a room with other older toys, which included the Bobo doll.

Another 24 of the children witnessed adults interacting in a non-aggressive way with the Bobo doll, they saw the adults simply ignore the Bobo doll and play with other toys instead.

The final 24 children acted as the control group and were not exposed to the Bobo doll at all.

• Children who witnessed aggressive adult behaviour were far more likely to imitate this kind of behaviour than in the other two groups

• Children who witnessed non-aggressive behaviour and those who were in the control group showed almost no aggression at all towards the Bobo doll
• Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls, although both sexes were equally likely to use verbal aggression.

The findings support the social learning theory because the results show that children who observed aggressive role models were far more likely to imitate this behaviour than those who did not.

Strengths of the study

• The findings from the study have been very influential in finding out whether media violence has an impact on children’s behaviour
• The experiment took place in a laboratory, therefore all variables were well controlled
• The experiment has proven easy to replicate and has been carried out many times, with similar results since the 1960s.

Weaknesses of the study

• Children may have shown demand characteristics, which means that they displayed the behaviour that they thought the researcher was looking for
• The study lacks ecological validity, as it took part in a laboratory
• The research only looks at short-term behaviour and may not reflect children’s behaviour in the long term
• The study took place with an imitation doll; aggression may have been different with a real person who would likely have retaliated.

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Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

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Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.

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Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Key Takeaways

• Social cognitive theory emphasizes the learning that occurs within a social context. In this view, people are active agents who can both influence and are influenced by their environment.
• The theory was founded most prominently by Albert Bandura, who is also known for his work on observational learning, self-efficacy, and reciprocal determinism.
• One assumption of social learning is that we learn new behaviors by observing the behavior of others and the consequences of their behavior.
• If the behavior is rewarded (positive or negative reinforcement), we are likely to imitate it; however, if the behavior is punished, imitation is less likely. For example, in Bandura and Walters’ experiment,  the children imitated more the aggressive behavior of the model who was praised for being aggressive to the Bobo doll.
• Social cognitive theory has been used to explain a wide range of human behavior, ranging from positive to negative social behaviors such as aggression, substance abuse, and mental health problems.

How We Learn From the Behavior of Others

Social cognitive theory views people as active agents who can both influence and are influenced by their environment.

The theory is an extension of social learning that includes the effects of cognitive processes — such as conceptions, judgment, and motivation — on an individual’s behavior and on the environment that influences them.

Rather than passively absorbing knowledge from environmental inputs, social cognitive theory argues that people actively influence their learning by interpreting the outcomes of their actions, which, in turn, affects their environments and personal factors, informing and altering subsequent behavior (Schunk, 2012).

By including thought processes in human psychology, social cognitive theory is able to avoid the assumption made by radical behaviorism that all human behavior is learned through trial and error. Instead, Bandura highlights the role of observational learning and imitation in human behavior.

Numerous psychologists, such as Julian Rotter and the American personality psychologist Walter Mischel, have proposed different social-cognitive perspectives.

Albert Bandura (1989) introduced the most prominent perspective on social cognitive theory.

Bandura’s perspective has been applied to a wide range of topics, such as personality development and functioning, the understanding and treatment of psychological disorders, organizational training programs, education, health promotion strategies, advertising and marketing, and more.

The central tenet of Bandura’s social-cognitive theory is that people seek to develop a sense of agency and exert control over the important events in their lives.

This sense of agency and control is affected by factors such as self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, and self-evaluation (Schunk, 2012).

Origins: The Bobo Doll Experiments

Social cognitive theory can trace its origins to Bandura and his colleagues, in particular, a series of well-known studies on observational learning known as the Bobo Doll experiments .

In these experiments, researchers exposed young, preschool-aged children to videos of an adult acting violently toward a large, inflatable doll.

This aggressive behavior included verbal insults and physical violence, such as slapping and punching. At the end of the video, the children either witnessed the aggressor being rewarded, or punished or received no consequences for his behavior (Schunk, 2012).

After being exposed to this model, the children were placed in a room where they were given the same inflatable Bobo doll.

The researchers found that those who had watched the model either received positive reinforcement or no consequences for attacking the doll were more likely to show aggressive behavior toward the doll (Schunk, 2012).

This experiment was notable for being one that introduced the concept of observational learning to humans.

Bandura’s ideas about observational learning were in stark contrast to those of previous behaviorists, such as B.F. Skinner.

According to Skinner (1950), learning can only be achieved through individual action.

However, Bandura claimed that people and animals can also learn by watching and imitating the models they encounter in their environment, enabling them to acquire information more quickly.

Observational Learning

Bandura agreed with the behaviorists that behavior is learned through experience. However, he proposed a different mechanism than conditioning.

He argued that we learn through observation and imitation of others’ behavior.

This theory focuses not only on the behavior itself but also on the mental processes involved in learning, so it is not a pure behaviorist theory.

Stages of the Social Learning Theory (SLT)

Not all observed behaviors are learned effectively. There are several factors involving both the model and the observer that determine whether or not a behavior is learned. These include attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation (Bandura & Walters, 1963).

The individual needs to pay attention to the behavior and its consequences and form a mental representation of the behavior. Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model.

This means that the model must be salient or noticeable. If the model is attractive, prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention. And if the model seems more like yourself, you pay more attention.

Storing the observed behavior in LTM where it can stay for a long period of time. Imitation is not always immediate. This process is often mediated by symbols. Symbols are “anything that stands for something else” (Bandura, 1998).

They can be words, pictures, or even gestures. For symbols to be effective, they must be related to the behavior being learned and must be understood by the observer.

Motor Reproduction

The individual must be able (have the ability and skills) to physically reproduce the observed behavior. This means that the behavior must be within their capability. If it is not, they will not be able to learn it (Bandura, 1998).

The observer must be motivated to perform the behavior. This motivation can come from a variety of sources, such as a desire to achieve a goal or avoid punishment.

Bandura (1977) proposed that motivation has three main components: expectancy, value, and affective reaction. Firstly, expectancy refers to the belief that one can successfully perform the behavior. Secondly, value refers to the importance of the goal that the behavior is meant to achieve.

The last of these, Affective reaction, refers to the emotions associated with the behavior.

If behavior is associated with positive emotions, it is more likely to be learned than a behavior associated with negative emotions. Reinforcement and punishment each play an important role in motivation.

Individuals must expect to receive the same positive reinforcement (vicarious reinforcement) for imitating the observed behavior that they have seen the model receiving.

Imitation is more likely to occur if the model (the person who performs the behavior) is positively reinforced. This is called vicarious reinforcement.

Imitation is also more likely if we identify with the model. We see them as sharing some characteristics with us, i.e., similar age, gender, and social status, as we identify with them.

Features of Social Cognitive Theory

The goal of social cognitive theory is to explain how people regulate their behavior through control and reinforcement in order to achieve goal-directed behavior that can be maintained over time.

Bandura, in his original formulation of the related social learning theory, included five constructs, adding self-efficacy to his final social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986).

Reciprocal Determinism

Reciprocal determinism is the central concept of social cognitive theory and refers to the dynamic and reciprocal interaction of people — individuals with a set of learned experiences — the environment, external social context, and behavior — the response to stimuli to achieve goals.

Its main tenet is that people seek to develop a sense of agency and exert control over the important events in their lives.

This sense of agency and control is affected by factors such as self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, and self-evaluation (Bandura, 1989).

To illustrate the concept of reciprocal determinism, Consider A student who believes they have the ability to succeed on an exam (self-efficacy) is more likely to put forth the necessary effort to study (behavior).

If they do not believe they can pass the exam, they are less likely to study. As a result, their beliefs about their abilities (self-efficacy) will be affirmed or disconfirmed by their actual performance on the exam (outcome).

This, in turn, will affect future beliefs and behavior. If the student passes the exam, they are likely to believe they can do well on future exams and put forth the effort to study.

If they fail, they may doubt their abilities (Bandura, 1989).

Behavioral Capability

Behavioral capability, meanwhile, refers to a person’s ability to perform a behavior by means of using their own knowledge and skills.

That is to say, in order to carry out any behavior, a person must know what to do and how to do it. People learn from the consequences of their behavior, further affecting the environment in which they live (Bandura, 1989).

Reinforcements

Reinforcements refer to the internal or external responses to a person’s behavior that affect the likelihood of continuing or discontinuing the behavior.

These reinforcements can be self-initiated or in one’s environment either positive or negative. Positive reinforcements increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated, while negative reinforcers decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

Reinforcements can also be either direct or indirect. Direct reinforcements are an immediate consequence of a behavior that affects its likelihood, such as getting a paycheck for working (positive reinforcement).

Indirect reinforcements are not immediate consequences of behavior but may affect its likelihood in the future, such as studying hard in school to get into a good college (positive reinforcement) (Bandura, 1989).

Expectations

Expectations, meanwhile, refer to the anticipated consequences that a person has of their behavior.

Outcome expectations, for example, could relate to the consequences that someone foresees an action having on their health.

As people anticipate the consequences of their actions before engaging in a behavior, these expectations can influence whether or not someone completes the behavior successfully (Bandura, 1989).

Expectations largely come from someone’s previous experience. Nonetheless, expectancies also focus on the value that is placed on the outcome, something that is subjective from individual to individual.

For example, a student who may not be motivated to achieve high grades may place a lower value on taking the steps necessary to achieve them than someone who strives to be a high performer.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy refers to the level of a person’s confidence in their ability to successfully perform a behavior.

Self-efficacy is influenced by a person’s own capabilities as well as other individual and environmental factors.

These factors are called barriers and facilitators (Bandura, 1989). Self-efficacy is often said to be task-specific, meaning that people can feel confident in their ability to perform one task but not another.

For example, a student may feel confident in their ability to do well on an exam but not feel as confident in their ability to make friends.

This is because self-efficacy is based on past experience and beliefs. If a student has never made friends before, they are less likely to believe that they will do so in the future.

Modeling Media and Social Cognitive Theory

Learning would be both laborious and hazardous in a world that relied exclusively on direct experience.

Social modeling provides a way for people to observe the successes and failures of others with little or no risk.

This modeling can take place on a massive scale. Modeling media is defined as “any type of mass communication—television, movies, magazines, music, etc.—that serves as a model for observing and imitating behavior” (Bandura, 1998).

In other words, it is a means by which people can learn new behaviors. Modeling media is often used in the fashion and taste industries to influence the behavior of consumers.

This is because modeling provides a reference point for observers to imitate. When done effectively, modeling can prompt individuals to adopt certain behaviors that they may not have otherwise engaged in.

Additionally, modeling media can provide reinforcement for desired behaviors.

For example, if someone sees a model wearing a certain type of clothing and receives compliments for doing so themselves, they may be more likely to purchase clothing like that of the model.

Observational Learning Examples

There are numerous examples of observational learning in everyday life for people of all ages.

Nonetheless, observational learning is especially prevalent in the socialization of children. For example:

• A newer employee avoids being late to work after seeing a colleague be fired for being late.
• A new store customer learns the process of lining up and checking out by watching other customers.
• A traveler to a foreign country learning how to buy a ticket for a train and enter the gates by witnessing others do the same.
• A customer in a clothing store learns the procedure for trying on clothes by watching others.
• A person in a coffee shop learns where to find cream and sugar by watching other coffee drinkers locate the area.
•  A new car salesperson learning how to approach potential customers by watching others.
•  Someone moving to a new climate and learning how to properly remove snow from his car and driveway by seeing his neighbors do the same.
•  A tenant learning to pay rent on time as a result of seeing a neighbor evicted for late payment.
•  An inexperienced salesperson becomes successful at a sales meeting or in giving a presentation after observing the behaviors and statements of other salespeople.
•  A viewer watches an online video to learn how to contour and shape their eyebrows and then goes to the store to do so themselves.
•  Drivers slow down after seeing that another driver has been pulled over by a police officer.
•  A bank teller watches their more efficient colleague in order to learn a more efficient way of counting money.
•  A shy party guest watching someone more popular talk to different people in the crowd, later allowing them to do the same thing.
• Adult children behave in the same way that their parents did when they were young.
• A lost student navigating a school campus after seeing others do it on their own.

Social Learning vs. Social Cognitive Theory

Social learning theory and Social Cognitive Theory are both theories of learning that place an emphasis on the role of observational learning.

However, there are several key differences between the two theories. Social learning theory focuses on the idea of reinforcement, while Social Cognitive Theory emphasizes the role of cognitive processes.

Additionally, social learning theory posits that all behavior is learned through observation, while Social Cognitive Theory allows for the possibility of learning through other means, such as direct experience.

Finally, social learning theory focuses on individualistic learning, while Social Cognitive Theory takes a more holistic view, acknowledging the importance of environmental factors.

Though they are similar in many ways, the differences between social learning theory and Social Cognitive Theory are important to understand. These theories provide different frameworks for understanding how learning takes place.

As such, they have different implications in all facets of their applications (Reed et al., 2010).

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory . Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84 (2), 191.

 Bandura, A. (1986). Fearful expectations and avoidant actions as coeffects of perceived self-inefficacy.

Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American psychologist, 44 (9), 1175.

Bandura, A. (1998). Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory. Psychology and health, 13 (4), 623-649.

Bandura, A. (2003). Social cognitive theory for personal and social change by enabling media. In Entertainment-education and social change (pp. 97-118). Routledge.

Bandura, A. Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through the imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63, 575-582.

LaMort, W. (2019). The Social Cognitive Theory. Boston University.

Reed, M. S., Evely, A. C., Cundill, G., Fazey, I., Glass, J., Laing, A., … & Stringer, L. C. (2010). What is social learning?. Ecology and society, 15 (4).

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Social cognitive theory .

Skinner, B. F. (1950). Are theories of learning necessary?. Psychological Review, 57 (4), 193.

Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) – The Imitative Aggressive Experiment 

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Last Updated on August 2, 2021 by Karl Thompson

This classic example of a laboratory experiment suggests that children learn aggressive behaviour through observation – it is relevant to the Crime and Deviance module, and lends support to the idea that exposure to violence at home (or in the media) can increase aggressive and possibly violent behaviour in real life.

Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) aimed to find out if children learnt aggressive behaviour by observing adults acting in an aggressive manner.

Stage one – making some of the children watch violence 

In this stage of the experiment, children were divided into three groups of 24 (12 boys and 12 girls in each group), and then individually put through one of the following three processes. 

Stage two – frustrating the children and observing their reactions

The children were then taken to a room full of nice of toys, but told that they were not allowed to play with them, in order to ‘frustrate them’, and then taken onto another room full of toys which consisted of a number of ‘ordinary toys’, as well as a ‘bobo doll’ and a hammer. Children were given a period of time to play with these toys while being observed through a two way mirror.

The idea here was to see if those children who had witnessed the aggressive behaviour towards the doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards it themselves.

To cut a long story short, the children who had previously seen the adults acting aggressively towards the bobo doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards to the bobo doll in stage two of the experiment.

Strengths of the bobo-doll experiment 

Limitations of this laboratory experiment

Laboratory Experiments – advantages and disadvantages

Milgram’s Obedience Experiment – is the other ‘classic’ psychology experiment which usually gets wheeled out for use in sociology.

This post from Simply Psychology offers a much more detailed account of Bandura’s Imitative Aggressive experiment – NB if you’re an A-level sociology student, you don’t really need to know that much detail for this experiment, this link is just for further reading.

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