The Bobo Doll experiments:

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The Bobo Doll experiments

• Banduras social modelling approach to aggression

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Context and implications

• Bobo doll experiment

TV and violence -Williams (1986) -Huessmann
Eron -Parke et al. 1977

• Behaviourism
• Theory
• Method

Aggression -Instinct theories (Freud,
Lorenz) -Frustration-aggression hypothesis
(Dollard et al.)
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Outline

• Theoretical background behaviourism
• The behaviourist approach to experimentation
• Main theorists Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Bandura
• The Bobo Doll experiment
• Evaluation
• Implications of the Bobo Doll experiment
• Research on the impact of TV tackling
  confounding variables

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Behaviourism a response to Freud

• Watson, J.B. (1913) Psychology as the
  behaviorist views it
• (Behaviourist Manifesto)
• Psychology failed signally, I believe, during
  the fifty-odd years of its existence as an
  experimental discipline to make its place in the
  world as an undisputed natural science....
• The time seems to have come when psychology must
  discard all reference to consciousness when it
  need no longer delude itself into thinking that
  it is making mental states the object of
  observation.
• I believe we can write a new psychology and
  never go back upon our definition never use the
  terms consciousness, mental states, mind,
  content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and
  the like.
• It can be done in terms of stimulus and response,
  in terms of habit formation, habit integrations
  and the like.
• What we need to do is to start work upon
  psychology, making behavior, not consciousness,
  the objective point of our attack.

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Behaviourist assumptions

• Focus on the observable (behaviour)
• All that cannot be observed is ignored
• Nearly all behaviour is learned
• Focus on experimentation rather than speculation
• Commitment to discovery, not dogma
• Parsimony
• Environmental determinism tabula rasa, little
  importance attached to genes
• Animal research can be generalized to humans

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Evolution of behaviourism

• Pavlov Classical conditioning
• Unconditioned Stimulus (food) gt unconditioned
  response (dog salivates)
• Conditioning US paired with CS (bell) gt UR
  (salivation)
• CS (bell) gt CR (salivation)
• Skinner Operant conditioning
• Behaviour is not always learned on the basis of
  an unconditioned stimulus
• Behaviour is determined by past history of
  reinforcement
• Stimulus gt Response
• Shaping / Chaining
• Nothing that is learned cant be unlearned
  implication for therapy
• Bandura Social modelling

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Albert Bandura Social Modelling approach

• S-O-R
• Acquisition ? performance
• Behaviour can be learned in absence of
  reinforcement, by means of imitating others
• Social Modelling can account for learning complex
  behaviours such as language

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Design of the Bobo doll experiment

• Sample / Subjects / Participants
• 36 boys and 36 girls, from Stanford Nursery, mean
  age 4 years 4 months
• Independent Variable
• Exposure to aggressive model or non-aggressive
  model
• Dependent variable
• Imitation / behaviour after the exposure (clearly
  operationalised)
• Imitation of physical aggression striking
  the Bobo doll with the mallet, sitting on the
  doll and punching it in the nose, kicking the
  doll, and tossing it in the air.
• Imitative verbal aggression Subject repeats the
  phrases, "Sock him," "Hit him down," "Kick him,"
  "Throw him in the air," or "Pow"
• Imitative nonaggressive verbal responses Subject
  repeats, "He keeps coming back for more," or "He
  sure is a tough fella."
• Mallet aggression Subject strikes objects other
  than the Bobo doll aggressively with the mallet.
• Sits on Bobo doll Subject lays the Bobo doll on
  its side and sits on it, but does not aggress
  toward it.
• Control group

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Design of the Bobo doll experiment
Total 72 boys and girls
Aggressive condition 24
Non- aggressive condition 24
Control group 24
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Design of the Bobo doll experiment
Control group 24 participants
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Design of the Bobo doll experiment

• Inter-rater reliability
• In order to provide an estimate of interscorer
  agreement, the performance of half the subjects
  were also scored independently by second
  observer.
• Rater blind to the condition
• The male model scored the experimental sessions
  for all 72 children. Except for the cases in
  which he, served as the model, he did hot have
  knowledge of the subjects' group assignments.
• Matched-pairs design
• subjects in the experimental and control groups
  were matched individually on the basis of ratings
  of their aggressive behavior in social
  interactions in the nursery school.
• Pretest
• During the pretest, a number of the subjects
  imitated the essential components of the model's
  behavior but did not perform the complete act, or
  they directed the imitative aggressive response
  to some object other than the Bobo doll. Two
  responses of this type were therefore scored and
  were interpreted as partially imitative behavior.

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Hypotheses

• H1.Subjects exposed to aggressive models would
  reproduce aggressive acts resembling those of
  their models and would differ in this respect
  both from subjects who served nonaggressive
  models and from those who had no prior exposure
  to any models.
• H2. It was further predicted that observation of
  subdued nonaggressive models would have
  generalized inhibiting effect on the subjects'
  subsequent behavior, and this effect would be
  reflected in a difference between the
  nonaggressive and the control groups, with
  subjects in the latter group displaying
  significantly more aggression.
• H3. One would expect, on this basis, subjects to
  imitate the behavior of a same-sex model to a
  greater degree than a model of the opposite sex.
• H4. Since aggression, however, is a highly
  masculine-typed behavior, boys should be more
  predisposed than girls toward imitating
  aggression, the difference being most marked for
  subjects exposed to the male aggressive model.

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Results

• Scores of children in the aggressive condition
  were significantly higher than those of either
  the non-aggressive or control groups.
• Significance level
• H1 supported or rejected?

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Conclusions

• Aggression is a learned behaviour, not an
  in-built instinct
• Learning can take place in absence of any
  reinforcement, only via observation and modelling
• Modelling is a powerful and fast way of learning
• Implications for parents, teachers,
  psychotherapists (treatment of phobias)

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Banduras further research

• Bandura, Ross Ross (1963) children watched
  films with either an aggressive or non-aggressive
  model
• Filmed model produced even more aggression than
  live model
• Model rewarded or punished for aggression
• Children imitated the rewarded aggresive model
  the most
• Banduras research as the first generation of
  scientific research on the effects of media
  violence on children

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Implications of Banduras research

• January 15, 2007
• Saddam Video Is Blamed for Deaths of More
  Children, by Tom Zeller Jr
• According to the American Psychological
  Association, theres no question that a daily
  diet of violent media becomes part of the
  psycho-social mix in an individual. This is based
  largely on the work of psychologist Albert
  Bandura, who highlighted the important role
  social modeling and observational learning plays
  in human motivation and action. (Before that,
  psychologists had largely focused on a sort of
  Pavlovian model of learning, based on actions and
  consequences.)
• Dr. Banduras classic Bodo Doll Experiment , in
  which children who were shown film of an adult
  aggressively beating an inflatable doll were more
  likely to imitate and repeat that behavior when
  exposed to a Bobo Doll themselves, is often cited
  in describing the power of violence in the media.
  
• Of course, the science isnt exactly settled on
  all this. An essay at the Museum of Broadcast
  Communications, while acknowledging the
  groundbreaking work of Dr. Bandura, and the
  complex relationship between mind and media,
  suggests even among researchers who are
  convinced of a causal link between television and
  violence, explanations of when and why this
  occurs are varied.

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Implications of Banduras research

• What do the Bobo doll studies really tell us
  about the effects of TV on children?
• Films used in the study differ markedly from real
  movies (no plot, no causal justification for the
  models behaviour, which is quite bizzare)
• Participants in an experiment know they are
  expected to play a particular role Look, Mummy,
  this is the doll we have to hit (Nobel, 1975)
• Does not test long-term effects
• Aggresion towards an inanimate toy only, not a
  living being
• What else can you do with the Bobo doll?
• Children in the experiment are not punished for
  their behaviour
• Problems with ecological validity and hence
  generalization
• Led to phase 2 research on the effects of media
  violence

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Research on effects of media exposure on children

• There has been a tremendous amount of research on
  the effects of media violence on children and
  adolescents over the past 40 years.
• Yet theorists still do not agree on this. Why?
• September 17, 2000
• Hollow Claims about Fantasy Violence by Richard
  Rhodes
• Is there really a link between entertainment
  and violent behavior?
• The American Medical Association, the American
  Psychological Association, the American Academy
  of Pediatrics and the National Institute of
  Mental Health all say yes. They base their claims
  on social science research that has been sharply
  criticized and disputed within the social science
  profession, especially outside the United States.
  In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure
  to mock violence in the media and subsequent
  violent behavior has ever been demonstrated, and
  the few claims of modest correlation have been
  contradicted by other findings, sometimes in the
  same studies.

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Research on effects of media exposure on children

• Brainstorming What effects would you like to
  test?
• Formulate hypothesis
• How would you test this hypothesis?
• Who would be your participants?
• How would you define your independent variable?
• How would you define and measure your dependent
  variable?
• How would you test long-term effects?
• Would it be a laboratory experiment or a field
  (real life) study?
• How would you establish a causal relationship?

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Research on effects of media exposure problems

• Correlational studies do not establish causation
• The importance of other variables difficult to
  assess
• Weaknesses of laboratory experiments
• Difficulties with field experiments
• Difficulties with defining and measuring
  aggression reliably
• Studies use different measures, difficult to
  compare
• Little known about the mechanism
• Even if media violence can cause aggression, how
  do you reduce the violence?

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Readings

• Key reading
• Bandura, Ross Ross (1961). Transmission of
  aggression through imitation of aggressive
  models. Journal of Abnormal and Social
  Psychology, 63, 575-582
• To view vide footage from the experiment, go to
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?vpDtBz_1dkuk

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Readings

• Additional reading
• Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the
  behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20,
  158-177. Available at http//psychclassics.yorku.
  ca/Watson/views.htm
• Murray, J.P. (1994). Impact of televised
  Violence. Hofstra Law Review, 22(4), 809-825.
  Available at http//www.johnmurray.org/murray_a.h
  tm
• Anderson, et al. (2003). The influence of media
  violence on youth. Psychological Science in the
  Public Interest, 4(3), 81-110.
• Freedman, J.L. (2001) Evaluating the Research on
  Violent Video Games. Paper devlivered at Playing
  By the Rules The cultural policy challenges of
  video games. University of Chicago. (Available
  online at http//culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf
  2001/papers/freedman.html
• Zeller, T. Jr (September 15 2007). Saddams Video
  is Blamed for Deaths of More Children. New York
  Times. Available at http//thelede.blogs.nytimes.
  com/2007/01/15/saddam-video-is-blamed-for-deaths-o
  f-more-children/
• Rhodes, R. (September 17, 2000). Hollow claims
  about fantasy fiolence. New York Times, Section
  4, p 19. Available at http//query.nytimes.com/gs
  t/fullpage.html?res9F02EFD81138F934A2575AC0A9669C
  8B63nTop/Reference/Times20Topics/Organizations/
  A/American20Academy20of20Pediatrics