In 1961, Albert Bandura at Stanford showed children a film of an adult aggressively attacking an inflatable Bobo doll — punching it, hitting it with a hammer, shouting at it. Then the children were placed in a room with the same doll.

The Results

Children who watched the aggressive model imitated the behavior closely — reproducing specific actions and words they had observed. Children who watched non-aggressive models showed significantly less aggression.

What It Established: Social Learning Theory

• Learning occurs through observation, not just direct reinforcement
• Children model behavior they observe in others — especially behavior that appears rewarded or unpunished
• Media, parents, and peers serve as behavioral models with real consequences

The Controversy

Critics noted that hitting an inflatable doll is not the same as real-world violence — the doll was designed to be hit. Later versions of the experiment addressed this by using more realistic scenarios.

Legacy

Bandura's Social Learning Theory became the dominant framework for understanding how children acquire behavior — and launched decades of research and debate on media violence.

Reference:

Wikipedia: Bobo Doll Experiment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment