Here is a video of the famous "Bobo Doll Experiment" by Albert Bandura. We discussed it in class as an example of observational learning.

Bandura and his associates came to the conclusion that children observing adult behavior are influenced to think that this type of behavior is acceptable thus weakening the child's aggressive inhibitions. Do you agree with Bandura? Do you think that these reduced inhibitions will lead children to respond to future situations in a more aggressive manner?

Also important in this experiment is the result that males are drastically more inclined to physically aggressive behaviors than females. Bandura explains that in our society, aggression is considered to be a distinct male trait.Girls, however, almost matched the boys in Bandura's experiments in terms of verbal aggression. What do you theorize could explain this result?

The 1963 experiment found that observing aggressive behavior via video playback is less influential on a subject than is observing the same aggressive act in person. Again, any theories to explain this result?

In a follow-up study, Bandura (1965) found that when children viewed aggressive behaviour and then viewed that behaviour being either rewarded or punished that children were less likely to emit aggressive behaviours when they had viewed an adult model being punished for aggressive behavior. Children who saw the model rewarded did not differ in aggressive behaviors from those that saw a model receive no reward.