Psychology Atlas

How The Mind Works
Studies and Experiments

The Bobo Doll Experiment

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In 1961, with follow-up studies in 1963 and 1965, Albert Bandura divided 72 Stanford nursery-school children into groups that watched an adult model act aggressively or non-aggressively toward an inflatable Bobo doll, or saw no model. Mildly frustrated afterward, children who had watched the aggressive model were far more likely to imitate physically aggressive behavior toward the doll. The results were widely credited with helping shift academic psychology's focus from pure behaviorism toward cognitive psychology.

Facts
Key Finding
Children who observed an adult behave aggressively toward a Bobo doll were significantly more likely to imitate that aggression than children who saw a non-aggressive model or no model, demonstrating observational learning. 1
Study Year
1961 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Conducted By

In Branch

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Bobo doll experiment
Wikimedia Foundationstudy description
Quote, study description
1961 (with follow-up studies in 1963 and 1965)
Wikipedia: Albert Bandura
Wikimedia FoundationConducted By: Albert Bandura, Research section
Quote, Conducted By: Albert Bandura, Research section
He was responsible for the theoretically influential Bobo doll experiment (1961)
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