Observational Learning - Bobo Doll Experiment

·      Often called ‘modelling’

·      Observational learning occurs when someone uses their observations of another person’s actions to guide their future actions.

·      The person who you are observing is referred to as the ‘model’

Vicarious Conditioning

This occurs when an individual watches another person displaying behaviour that is either reinforced or punished, and then subsequently behaves in the same way, or a slightly modified way, or they may refrain from a certain behaviour due to what they have observed.

EXAMPLE: Mr Tippet – How I thought that I was in love with Mr Tippet, my grade 2 teacher and I had seen on television how a girl got a guy to fall in love with her by swinging her hips and fluttering her eyelashes. SO I thought that if I imitated this behaviour it would get Mr Tippet to propose to me. So I did. I swung my hips and fluttered my eyelashes (In a slightly modified way). Needless to say, it did not work.

Vicarious Reinforcement

When a model’s behaviour is reinforced, this increases the likelihood that the observer will behave in a similar way.

EXAMPLE: If you see a student in class get reinforced with praise or a reward when they help the teacher clean the whiteboard at the end of the day, this will increase the LIKELIHOOD that you will behave in similar way in the future.

Vicarious Punishment

When the model is punished for a certain behaviour, the likelihood of the observer performing that behaviour is decreased.

EXAMPLE: If you see a student get a detention for swearing at another student in class, this will decrease the likelihood that you perform that behaviour in the future.

Albert Bandura – Bobo Doll Experiment

AIM: To see if children who saw a model behave aggressively would be more likely to imitate that behaviour.

AIM: To see if the behaviour had been learnt, even though the children did not imitate the behaviour.

Participants:

·      72 children (Stanford University nursery school)

·      36 boys & 36 girls

·      Age range 3 years – 5  ½ years

·      Mean age  4 ½ years

There were three conditions:

24 children in each condition.

12 males and 12 females.

In ALL three conditions the participants saw a film of a model beating and yelling at a blow up clown (Bobo).

However all three conditions had a different ending to the film….

Condition One:

The aggressive model was rewarded with lollies, soft drink and praise by another adult.

Condition Two:

The aggressive model was punished with a spanking and verbal criticisms such as:

‘Hey there you big bully! Quit picking on that clown!’

Condition Three:

The model was neither rewarded or punished.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:

Each child was placed in a room with a Bobo doll by themselves.

They were monitored behind two-way glass.

In each condition (rewarded/punished/no consequence) half of the participants were offered a reward for imitating the aggressive behaviour.

WHAT THEY FOUND:

·      Children who were offered a reward for imitating the behaviour were more likely to act aggressively and imitate the models behaviour (even those who saw the model getting punished).

·      Learning can occur regardless of whether the model is punished or rewarded.

·      The differences in aggressive behaviours was very small when the offer of a reward was made.

·      Suggests that learning may have taken place even though the observer did not imitate the aggressive behaviour (performance).

·      This can be seen by how the children were more likely to act aggressively when offered a reward.

·      Some children did not show that they have learnt the behaviour until they were offered a reward.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE GENDERS:

Males were more likely to act aggressively across all conditions, even when they were in the condition in which the model was punished.

HOWEVER, when the children were offered rewards of juice and stickers (in all conditions), the females all showed an increase in aggressive behaviours IN ALL CONDITIONS.