what made the bobo doll experiment unethical

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment on Social Learning

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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During the 1960s, Albert Bandura conducted a series of experiments on observational learning , collectively known as the Bobo doll experiments. Two of the experiments are described below:

Bandura (1961) conducted a controlled experiment study to investigate if social behaviors (i.e., aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation.

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) tested 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old.

The researchers pre-tested the children for how aggressive they were by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behavior on four 5-point rating scales.

It was then possible to match the children in each group so that they had similar levels of aggression in their everyday behavior. The experiment is, therefore, an example of a matched pairs design .

To test the inter-rater reliability of the observers, 51 of the children were rated by two observers independently, and their ratings were compared. These ratings showed a very high-reliability correlation (r = 0.89), which suggested that the observers had a good agreement about the behavior of the children.

A lab experiment was used, in which the independent variable (the type of model) was manipulated in three conditions:

• Aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• Non-aggressive model is shown to 24 children
• No model is shown (control condition) – 24 children

Stage 1: Modeling

In the experimental conditions, children were individually shown into a room containing toys and played with some potato prints and pictures in a corner for 10 minutes while either:

• 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) watched a male or female model behaving aggressively towards a toy called a “Bobo doll”. The adults attacked the Bobo doll in a distinctive manner – they used a hammer in some cases, and in others threw the doll in the air and shouted “Pow, Boom.”
• Another 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were exposed to a non-aggressive model who played in a quiet and subdued manner for 10 minutes (playing with a tinker toy set and ignoring the bobo-doll).
• The final 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were used as a control group and not exposed to any model at all.

Stage 2: Aggression Arousal

All the children (including the control group) were subjected to “mild aggression arousal.” Each child was (separately) taken to a room with relatively attractive toys.

As soon as the child started to play with the toys, the experimenter told the child that these were the experimenter’s very best toys and she had decided to reserve them for the other children.

Stage 3: Test for Delayed Imitation

• The next room contained some aggressive toys and some non-aggressive toys. The non-aggressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears and plastic farm animals. The aggressive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns, and a 3 foot Bobo doll.
• The child was in the room for 20 minutes, and their behavior was observed and rated though a one-way mirror. Observations were made at 5-second intervals, therefore, giving 240 response units for each child.
• Other behaviors that didn’t imitate that of the model were also recorded e.g., punching the Bobo doll on the nose.
• Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups.
• There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who had observed aggressive behavior, although the difference for non-imitative aggression was small.
• The girls in the aggressive model condition also showed more physically aggressive responses if the model was male, but more verbally aggressive responses if the model was female. However, the exception to this general pattern was the observation of how often they punched Bobo, and in this case the effects of gender were reversed.
• Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls. The evidence for girls imitating same-sex models is not strong.
• Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls. There was little difference in verbal aggression between boys and girls.

Bobo doll experiment demonstrated that children are able to learn social behavior such as aggression through the process of observation learning, through watching the behavior of another person. The findings support Bandura’s (1977) Social Learning Theory .

This study has important implications for the effects of media violence on children.

There are three main advantages of the experimental method .

• Experiments are the only means by which cause and effect can be established. Thus, it could be demonstrated that the model did have an effect on the child’s subsequent behavior because all variables other than the independent variable are controlled.
• It allows for precise control of variables. Many variables were controlled, such as the gender of the model, the time the children observed the model, the behavior of the model, and so on.
• Experiments can be replicated. Standardized procedures and instructions were used, allowing for replicability. In fact, the study has been replicated with slight changes, such as using video, and similar results were found (Bandura, 1963).

Limitations of the procedure include:

• Many psychologists are very critical of laboratory studies of imitation – in particular, because they tend to have low ecological validity. The situation involves the child and an adult model, which is a very limited social situation and there is no interaction between the child and the model at any point; certainly the child has no chance to influence the model in any way.
• Also, the model and the child are strangers. This, of course, is quite unlike “normal” modeling, which often takes place within the family.
• Cumberbatch (1990) found that children who had not played with a Bobo Doll before were five times as likely to imitate the aggressive behavior than those who were familiar with it; he claims that the novelty value of the doll makes it more likely that children will imitate the behavior.
• A further criticism of the study is that the demonstrations are measured almost immediately. With such snapshot studies, we cannot discover if such a single exposure can have long-term effects.
• It is possible to argue that the bobo doll experiment was unethical. For example, there is the problem of whether or not the children suffered any long-term consequences as a result of the study. Although it is unlikely, we can never be certain.

Vicarious Reinforcement Bobo Doll Study

An observer’s behavior can also be affected by the positive or negative consequences of a model’s behavior.

So we not only watch what people do, but we watch what happens when they do things. This is known as vicarious reinforcement. We are more likely to imitate behavior that is rewarded and refrain from behavior that is punished.

Bandura (1965) used a similar experimental set up to the one outlined above to test vicarious reinforcement. The experiment had different consequences for the model’s aggression to the three groups of children.

One group saw the model’s aggression being rewarded (being given sweets and a drink for a “championship performance,” another group saw the model being punished for the aggression (scolded), and the third group saw no specific consequences (control condition).

When allowed to enter the playroom, children in the reward and control conditions imitated more aggressive actions of the model than did the children in the punishment condition.

The children in the model punished group had learned the aggression by observational learning, but did not imitate it because they expected negative consequences.

Reinforcement gained by watching another person is known as vicarious reinforcement.

Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models” reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses . Journal of personality and social psychology, 1(6) , 589.

Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models .  Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63, 575-82.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models . The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66(1), 3.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Further Information

• Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
• Bobo Doll Study Summary
• BBC Radio 4 Programme: The Bobo Doll
• Bobo Doll Summary PowerPoint

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Bobo doll experiment

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• Academia - Bobo Doll Experiment
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Bobo doll experiment , groundbreaking study on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

Bandura’s study on aggression—the experiment for which he is perhaps best known—was carried out in 1961 at Stanford University , where Bandura was a professor. For this study he used 3- and 5-foot (1- and 1.5-metre) inflatable plastic toys called Bobo dolls, which were painted to look like cartoon clowns and were bottom-weighted so that they would return to an upright position when knocked down. The subjects were preschoolers at Stanford’s nursery school and were divided into three groups: one group observed aggressive adult behaviour models; another group observed nonaggressive behaviour models; and the third group was not exposed to any behaviour models.

The three groups were then divided by gender into six subgroups in which half of the subgroups would observe a same-sex behaviour model and half would observe an opposite-sex behaviour model. In the first stage of the experiment, the children were individually seated at a table in one corner of an experimental room and presented with diverting activities that had previously been shown to be of high interest to the children (e.g., stickers, pictures, prints) in order to discourage active participation and encourage mere observation. The behaviour model was then taken to the opposite corner—which contained another table and chair, a mallet, a Tinkertoy set, and a 5-foot Bobo doll—and was told he or she could play with these materials. In the aggressive behaviour model groups, the model abused the Bobo doll both physically (e.g., kicked, punched, threw, and assaulted with various objects) and verbally (e.g., made aggressive statements such as “Sock him in the nose” and “Pow” or nonaggressive statements such as “He sure is a tough fella” and “He keeps coming back for more”). In the nonaggressive behaviour model groups, the model ignored the Bobo doll and instead quietly assembled the Tinkertoys. After 10 minutes had elapsed, the behaviour models in both groups left the room.

In the second phase of the experiment, the children were taken individually into a different experimental room, where they were presented with a new group of appealing toys (e.g., train, fire engine, cable car, jet airplane, spinning top , doll with wardrobe, baby crib, and doll carriage). To test the hypothesis that the observation of aggression in others would increase the likelihood of aggression in the observer, the children were subjected to aggression arousal in the form of being told after two minutes that they could no longer play with the toys. The children were then told that they could, however, play with the toys in another room, where they were presented with various toys that were considered both aggressive (e.g., 3-foot Bobo doll, mallet, and dart guns) and nonaggressive (e.g., crayons, paper, farm animals, tea set, ball, and dolls).

In the final stage of the experiment, the children’s behaviour was observed over the course of 20 minutes and rated according to the degree of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour they modeled, the results of which yielded significantly higher scores for children in the aggressive behaviour model groups compared with those in both the nonaggressive behaviour model and control groups. Subsequent experiments in which children were exposed to such violence on videotape yielded similar results, with nearly 90 percent of the children in the aggressive behaviour groups later modeling the adults’ behaviour by attacking the doll in the same fashion and 40 percent of the those children exhibiting the same behaviour after eight months.

Although the study yielded similar results for both genders, it nonetheless suggested at least some difference depending on the degree to which a behaviour is sex-typed—that is, viewed as more common of or appropriate for a specific gender. For example, the data suggest that males are somewhat more prone to imitate physical aggression—a highly masculine-typed behaviour—than are females, with male subjects reproducing more physical aggression than female subjects; there were, however, no differences in the imitation of verbal aggression, which is less sex-typed. Additionally, both male and female subjects were more imitative of the male behaviour models than of the female models in terms of physical aggression but were more imitative of the same-sex models in terms of verbal aggression.

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What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression

• The Experiment

The question of how children learn to engage in violent behavior has been of great interest to parents and researchers alike. In the 1960s, psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues conducted what is now known as the Bobo doll experiment, and they demonstrated that children may learn aggression through observation.

Aggression lies at the root of many social ills ranging from interpersonal violence to war. It is little wonder, then, that the subject is one of the most studied topics within psychology.

This article covers what the Bobo doll experiment is, its findings on childhood aggression, as well as its impact on psychology.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

The participants for the experiment were 36 boys and 36 girls enrolled at the Stanford University Nursery School. The children ranged in age between 3 and almost 6 years.

The experiment involved exposing one group of 24 children to an adult modeling aggressive behavior, and another group of 24 children to an adult modeling non-aggressive behavior. The final group of 24 children acted as the control group that was not exposed to adult models.

These groups were divided again into groups of boys and girls. Each of these subgroups was then divided so that half of the participants would be exposed to a same-sex adult model and the other half would be exposed to an opposite-sex adult model.

Each child was tested individually to ensure that their behavior would not be influenced by other children. The child was first brought into a playroom where there were a number of different activities to explore. The experimenter then invited the adult model into the playroom.

In the non-aggressive condition, the adult model simply played with the toys and ignored the Bobo doll for the entire period. In the aggressive model condition, however, the adult models would violently attack the Bobo doll.

The aggressive models would punch Bobo, strike Bobo with a mallet, toss the doll in the air, and kick it around the room. They would also use " verbally aggressive phrases" such as "Kick him" and "Pow." The models also added two non-aggressive phrases: "He sure is a tough fella" and "He keeps coming back for more."

After the ten-minute exposure to the adult model, each child was then taken to another room that contained a number of appealing toys including a doll set, fire engine, and toy airplane.

The children were permitted to play for a brief two minutes, then told they were no longer allowed to play with any of these tempting toys. The purpose of this was to build up frustration levels among the young participants.

Finally, each child was taken to the last experimental room. This room contained a number of "aggressive" toys including a mallet, a tether ball with a face painted on it, dart guns, and, of course, a Bobo doll. The room also included several "non-aggressive" toys including crayons, paper, dolls, plastic animals, and trucks.

Each child was then allowed to play in this room for a period of 20 minutes. During this time, researchers observed the child's behavior from behind a one-way mirror and judged each child's levels of aggression.

Predictions

Bandura made several key predictions about what would occur during the Bobo doll experiment.

• Boys would behave more aggressively than girls.
• Children who observed an adult acting aggressively would be likely to act aggressively, even when the adult model was not present.
• Children would be more likely to imitate models of the same sex rather than models of the opposite sex.
• The children who observed the non-aggressive adult model would be less aggressive than the children who observed the aggressive model; the non-aggressive exposure group would also be less aggressive than the control group.

The results of the experiment supported some of the original predictions, but also included some unexpected findings:

• Bandura and his colleagues had predicted that children in the non-aggressive group would behave less aggressively than those in the control group. The results indicated that while children of both genders in the non-aggressive group did tend to exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who had observed a non-aggressive, opposite-sex model were more likely than those in the control group to engage in violence.
• Children exposed to the violent model tended to imitate the exact behavior they had observed when the adult model was no longer present.
• Researchers were correct in their prediction that boys would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in more than twice as many acts of physical aggression than the girls.
• There were important gender differences when it came to whether a same-sex or opposite-sex model was observed. Boys who observed adult males behaving violently were more influenced than those who had observed female models behaving aggressively.
• Interestingly, the experimenters found in same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression.

Impact of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Results of the experiment supported Bandura's social learning theory.

According to Bandura's social learning theory, learning occurs through observations and interactions with other people. Essentially, people learn by watching others and then imitating these actions.

Bandura and his colleagues believed that the Bobo doll experiment demonstrates how specific behaviors can be learned through observation and imitation.

According to Bandura, the violent behavior of the adult models toward the dolls led children to believe that such actions were acceptable.

Bandura also suggested that as a result, children may be more inclined to respond to frustration with aggression in the future.

In a follow-up study conducted in 1965, Bandura found that while children were more likely to imitate aggressive behavior if the adult model was rewarded for his or her actions, they were far less likely to imitate if they saw the adult model being punished or reprimanded for their hostile behavior.

The conclusions drawn from the Bobo doll experiment may help explain human behavior in many areas of life. For instance, the idea that children will imitate the abusive behavior that they witness may provide insight into domestic violence .

Adolescents who grow up witnessing abuse in their homes may be more likely to display violent behavior themselves, and view aggression as an appropriate response to solve interpersonal problems.

Research has found that the Bobo doll experiment and its follow-up study shed light on bullying . For instance, when leadership doesn't give negative consequences for workplace bullying, the bullying is more likely to persist.

Therefore, it's important that aggressive or violent behavior is not tolerated by those with power—whether it's at the workplace, in schools, or at home—or else the aggression is likely to continue and may influence young people who witness it.

Criticism of the Bobo Doll Experiment

Critics point out that acting violently toward a doll is a lot different than displaying aggression or violence against another human being in a real-world setting.

In other words, a child acting violently toward a doll doesn't necessarily indicate they'll act violently toward a person.

Because the experiment took place in a lab setting, some critics suggest that results observed in this type of location may not be indicative of what takes place in the real world.

It has also been suggested that children were not actually motivated to display aggression when they hit the Bobo doll; instead, they may have simply been trying to please the adults. It's worth noting that the children didn't actually hurt the Bobo doll, nor did they think they were hurting it.

In addition, by intentionally frustrating the children, some argue that the experimenters were essentially teaching the children to be aggressive.

It's also not known whether the children were actually aggressive or simply imitating the behavior without aggressive intent (most children will imitate behavior right after they see it, but they don't necessarily continue it in the long term).

Since data was collected immediately, it is also difficult to know what the long-term impact might have been.

Additional criticisms note the biases of the researchers. Since they knew that the children were already frustrated, they may have been more likely to interpret the children's actions as aggressive.

The study may also suffer from selection bias. All participants were drawn from a narrow pool of students who share the same racial and socioeconomic background. This makes it difficult to generalize the results to a larger, more diverse population.

A Word From Verywell

Bandura's experiment remains one of the most well-known studies in psychology. Today, social psychologists continue to study the impact of observed violence on children's behavior. In the decades since the Bobo doll experiment, there have been hundreds of studies on how observing violence impacts children's behavior.

Today, researchers continue to ponder the question of whether the violence children witness on television, in the movies, or through video games translates to aggressive or violent behavior in the real world.

Bandura A. Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1965;1:589-595. doi:10.1037/h0022070

Xia Y, Li S, Liu TH. The interrelationship between family violence, adolescent violence, and adolescent violent victimization: An application and extension of the cultural spillover theory in China . IJERPH. 2018;15(2):371. doi:10.3390/ijerph15020371

Hollis LP. Lessons from Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments: Leadership’s deliberate indifference exacerbates workplace bullying in higher education . JSPTE. 2019;4:085-102. doi:10.28945/4426

Altin D, Jablonski J, Lyke J, et al. Gender difference in perceiving aggression using the Bobo doll studies . Modern Psychological Studies. 2011;16:2.

Bandura A, Ross D, Ross SA. Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models . Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1961;63:575-82. doi:10.1037/h0045925

Ferguson CJ. Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can violent video games be a force for good? Review of General Psychology. 2010;14(2) : 68-81. doi:10.1037/a0018941

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique

Introduction.

In a series of innovative experiments, Bandura (1925–2021), renowned Psychology Professor at Stanford University, USA, and his collaborators (e.g., Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 , 1963 ; Bandura, 1965 , 1969 ) showed that young children exposed to adults' aggression tend to behave aggressively. In these experiments, children observed adults, in vivo or in vitro , as well as cartoons, behaving aggressively toward a large, inflated doll (clown) named “Bobo doll”, for about 10 min. The findings of these studies are considered to support modeling, observational learning, or learning by imitation and provide evidence for Bandura's social learning theory, which belongs to the behaviorism paradigm. In this paper, we offer a psychoanalytic critique of these experiments with the aim of shedding light on the unconscious processes of children's imitation of aggression. Although Bandura ( 1986 ) later formulated the so-called social cognitive theory and focused on less observable processes (e.g., self-regulation, self-efficacy, beliefs, expectations), in presenting these early experiments he clearly opposed the existing psychoanalytic interpretations of aggression.

Key findings of Bandura's experiments on aggression in children

The key findings of Bandura's experiments on aggression in children (Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 , 1963 ; Bandura, 1965 , 1969 ) are summarized below.

• Observation of an aggressive model is sufficient to elicit aggressive behavior in the young child. The model does not need to be a familiar or nurturant person. Moreover, there is no need to positively reinforce the aggression of either the adult model or the child. Because punishment does not follow the model's aggressive acts, the child receives the message that aggression is acceptable.
• The virtual world has great power. Children who watch a film showing aggressive people or cartoons tend to imitate this behavior.
• Imitation is inferred by the fact that children show verbal and/or physical aggressive acts that are very similar to those of the model.
• Children not only accurately imitate the observed behaviors but also show ingenuity, manifesting different, novice acts of aggression.
• Children transfer, by means of generalization, aggression into new, different contexts, even when the aggressive model is no longer present (delayed imitation).
• If the adult model is punished for his/her aggressive behavior, the probability that the child will show aggressive behavior is reduced. In contrast, positive reinforcement or no reinforcement of the model leads to increased aggression on the part of the child (vicarious/indirect learning).
• After observing the aggressive model, boys tend to exhibit more physical aggression than girls, whereas no gender difference is found for verbal aggression. Independent of gender, children are more likely to imitate a male physically aggressive model. According to gender stereotypes, this form of aggression is more acceptable for men than for women. In contrast, verbal aggression is more likely to be imitated when manifested by a same-sex model.

Taken together, these results imply that children's aggression can be caused—and probably eliminated—by external manipulations. However, are there interpretations other than this omnipotent behavioristic view?

Psychoanalytic views of children's aggression in Bandura's experiments

In the Bobo doll experiments, after presenting the aggressive model and before placing the child in the room with Bobo doll and other toys with the aim of recording the likelihood of imitation, the experimenters instigated the children's aggression. Specifically, an experimenter led children to another room, where she allowed them to enjoy some attractive toys. After a while, she told them that all toys were hers, that she would no longer let anyone play with them, and that she intended to give them to other children. After experiencing this frustration , the children were accompanied to the room where Bobo doll was.

Bandura (Bandura and Huston, 1961 ; Bandura et al., 1961 ) stated that he was seeking a more concise and parsimonious theoretical explanation than the one provided by identification with the aggressor , that is, the ego defense mechanism described by Anna Freud ( 1946 ), and attempted to outline alternative explanations (Bandura, 1969 ). However, if we look closely at specific aspects and manipulations of these experiments, we may discover that this mechanism may have more explanatory power for what happened in the laboratory than Bandura believed.

At first, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, in the eyes of the children, the experimenters were omnipotent adult figures with authority, prestige, and power. The strange laboratory setting may have elicited in children excessive arousal , associated with tension and anxiety. This overflow of excitation, that needed to be released, is likely to have resulted from the unprecedented experience, and, more specifically, from the following: separation from parents; presence in an unknown place with strange adults; alternation of unfamiliar rooms and buildings; many overwhelming stimuli, such as physical and verbal aggression exhibited by adults, in vivo or in vitro (i.e., film), or by cartoons within a colorful frame, full of imaginary stimuli; presence of new and exciting toys; and frustration and anger caused by adults who deliberately disrupted children's pleasurable play activity with the aim of provoking their aggressiveness. All these conditions imply that the experiments were not only about “observation of cues produced by the behavior of others” (Bandura et al., 1961 ; our emphasis). If only “cues” were given to children, then why it was assumed in another paper (Bandura et al., 1963 ) that vicarious learning had such a “cathartic function”? Indeed, Bandura may have aptly used this expression because catharsis implies release of tension caused by overwhelming vicarious experience such as in ancient Greek tragedy.

Second, identification with the aggressor is a defense mechanism that is typical of 3- to 6-year-old children—the participants' age in Bandura's experiments. Anna Freud ( 1946 , p. 113) argued that “by impersonating the aggressor, assuming his attributes or imitating his aggression, the child transforms himself from the person threatened into the person who makes the threat”. Children may have unconsciously experienced the aggressiveness of adults (quasi parental figures) toward a familiar playful object as a threat of punishment , possibly a threat of castration by proxy , for their own oedipal/incestuous and autoerotic/masturbatory phantasies, which usually prevail in this age period—the phallic phase of libidinal development (Freud, 1953 ). This explanation is further supported by the finding that males were more influential models regarding physical aggression. According to Anna Freud ( 1946 ), identification with the aggressor is the preliminary stage of superego formation, during which the aggressive drive is not yet directed against the subject but against the outer world. Projection of guilt, thus, supplements the immature superego and may interpret, at least partly, children's sadomasochistic relation with the doll.

Third, we contend that a seduction process of both caretakers and their children had taken place in the university laboratory. With their caretakers' consent, children were brought into an unknown adult place, where they were captivated by adults' passion, namely overt violence against a doll. The violent acts were exhibited in a ritualistic and self-reinforcing manner and in the context of symbolic play. According to Ferenczi ( 1949 ), who was not mentioned by Bandura but whose ideas on this issue inspired Anna Freud, when an adult becomes sexually seductive or violent against a child, a confusion of tongues between the two emerges, in other words, a confusion between child tenderness and adult passion . In these experiments, children experienced an indirect attack with a mild traumatic character: certain adults intruded and impinged on the territory of children's “innocent” play, and then coerced them to observe other adults having little control over their own instinctual (aggressive) drives toward an attractive object. Therefore, it was very likely that children reacted not just with imitation but with anxious identification with the adult. This introjection of the aggressor resulted in children exhibiting the same violent behavior. They seemed to “subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor” and “could only react in an autoplastic way by a kind of mimicry ” (Ferenczi, 1949 , p. 228, our emphasis), possibly introjecting the adults' unconscious guilt for their abusive behavior.

It is important to note that, contrary to identification with the aggressor, introjection of the aggressor is initially an automatic, organismic reaction to trauma—a mixture of rage, contempt and omnipotence—and only later becomes a defensive, agentic and purposeful process (Howell, 2014 ). In these experiments, children seemed to exhibit this automatic, procedural identification and mimicry. It has also been argued (Frankel, 2002 ) that identification with the aggressor is a universal and very common tactic used by people in mild traumatic situations and, generally, on several occasions where they are in a weak position relative to more powerful others. Although benign, this power may become a real threat: “If the adult got out of control and attacked the doll, could she attack me too?” Identification with the aggressor, then, serves an evolutionary function: survival is ensured if individuals conform to what others expect of them.

In the laboratory setting, children confronted what Lacan ( 1977 ) has called the enigma of the adults' desire : “Why are they behaving this way?”; “What do they want from me?”; “Why are they doing this to me?”. The laboratory setting and the adults' aggression toward the doll can be conceptualized as enigmatic signifiers , the Lacanian notion further elaborated by Laplanche ( 1999 ). These signifiers were verbal and non-verbal messages, doubly compromised and non-transparent to both sides of the communication because of the existence of the unconscious. The young participants found themselves in an asymmetrical relationship while their developmental abilities to metabolize what adults communicated to them were inadequate. They were somewhat helpless. Aggressive behavior was the way with which children attempted to translate adults' “alien” messages and derive meaning from the enigmatic situation.

The ingenuity and novelty—“creative embellishment” as Bandura said when describing the experiment in a short film 1 —which children showed in the aggressive use of toys may be regarded as proof of the playful character of the imitation. Children attempted to transform passivity into activity , to acquire mastery of new and challenging objects and experience pleasure in this play activity, as Freud ( 1955 ) argued, rather than be the subjects of uncanny, mildly traumatic experimental conditions and the spectators of adults' violence. Therefore, children seemed to compulsively repeat the activity in a ritualistic fashion. This view is in line with the emphasis given on transformation in Freud's ( 1946 ) definition of identification with the aggressor.

Bandura's experiments on aggression in children, après-coup

The aggression modeling experiments were conducted at a time when Psychology was striving, by “objective” measurements and laboratory experiments, to establish itself as a discipline. They have received criticism because they certainly raise the ethical issue of children's exposure to violence, with unknown short- and long-term consequences. Ethical concerns have also been expressed for other groundbreaking, or even notorious, experiments in the history of Psychology (e.g., Watson's Baby Albert experiment, Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority).

Despite the ethical and methodological flaws, these aggression experiments and the short films that depict them continue to have a great allure to the scientific community and the society at large. Besides, a degree of seduction, namely optimal seduction (Potamianou, 2001 ), is needed to awaken desire for scientific exploration and facilitate openness to the unknown. They inspired research and interventions and raised public awareness about the effects of children's exposure to violence (e.g., through media). These experiments are still regarded to provide indisputable evidence, by means of a “rigorous experimental design”, for young children's vulnerability to adults' violence. They also illustrate that, from early on, humans are capable of abusive acts, and that these acts can be easily provoked. Therefore, the work of civilization is to undertake every action to protect children from the transmission of violence.

However, the fact that scientists' reservations were not strong enough to prevent them from “using” children in such laboratory experiments, implies, paradoxically, that they believed in children's resilience to violence or trauma. Only a few years after World War II, Psychology seemed to engage in an unconscious attempt at reparation (Klein, 1975 ), perhaps on behalf of the whole humanity, through handling—at last!—violence within a controlled and protected but regressed-to-the-infantile laboratory setting.

Conclusions

This study aimed to approach Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children from the psychoanalytic perspective. A variety of psychoanalytic formulations were used to conceptualize the underlying processes and the phenomenology of children's imitation of aggressive acts. These formulations are not supported by research data, a fact that may be regarded also as a limitation of this study. However, they are based on the multitude and richness of clinical observations in the field of Psychoanalysis, which has an undeniably remarkable contribution to the understanding and treatment of human aggression.

Author contributions

EG conceived the idea and drafted the manuscript. KM reviewed key findings of Bandura's experiments and systematically edited the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqNaLerMNOE

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Ethics in the Bobo Doll Experiment

By charles clay / in health.

The bobo doll experiment was carried out in 1961 by Albert Bandura. He hoped to prove that human behaviour was learnt rather than inherited, and that the aggressive behaviour of children could be increased by exposing them to aggressive role models. While this study produced data that are still debated by psychologists and sociologists today, the design of the experiment brings up some important ethical concerns.

Experiment Design

Three groups of children aged 3 to 6 were selected from a nursery school. These children were placed, one at a time, in a room filled with toys. These toys included a bobo doll, an inflatable doll that would return to an upright position when knocked down. One group of children was accompanied by an adult who spent several minutes striking the bobo doll with a mallet while using aggressive language, then left the children alone to play. The second group was exposed to an adult who sat and played with them in a quiet and nonaggressive manner for several minutes, then left the children alone. The third group was left to play in the room without any adults present. Their activities were monitored through one-way glass, and video recordings were made.

• Three groups of children aged 3 to 6 were selected from a nursery school.
• The second group was exposed to an adult who sat and played with them in a quiet and nonaggressive manner for several minutes, then left the children alone.

The primary ethical concern in performing psychological experiments on children is the issue of consent. According to the American Psychological Association (APA) Code of Ethics, subjects of psychological experimentation must give informed consent to participate in the experiment. Children are considered incapable of giving informed consent. While it is possible for parents or guardians to give consent on behalf of their children, Bandura's paper suggests that consent was obtained only from the teachers of the children involved.

• The primary ethical concern in performing psychological experiments on children is the issue of consent.
• While it is possible for parents or guardians to give consent on behalf of their children, Bandura's paper suggests that consent was obtained only from the teachers of the children involved.

Confidentiality

All information regarding experimental subjects is considered confidential unless the subjects give their explicit consent to have it published. This includes names, photographs, videos and descriptions of how the subjects acted or responded during the study. Because the subjects in this case were all children, all this information should have remained confidential. Instead, videos of the children undertaking the experiment were published and widely circulated. This violates current ethical standards for both consent and privacy.

• All information regarding experimental subjects is considered confidential unless the subjects give their explicit consent to have it published.

The most basic rule of ethics in human experimentation is to minimise possible harm to the subjects. If there is any possibility of physical, mental or emotional harm, the subjects must be fully informed of the risks and their consent obtained. Bandura's stated goal in the experiment was to increase the aggressive tendencies in young children by exposing them to aggressive role models. This sort of behavioural modification would be considered mental harm by modern ethical codes, especially if the subjects are young children.

• The most basic rule of ethics in human experimentation is to minimise possible harm to the subjects.
• This sort of behavioural modification would be considered mental harm by modern ethical codes, especially if the subjects are young children.

Bandura and Bobo

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But when it was their own turn to play with Bobo, children who witnessed an adult pummeling the doll were likely to show aggression too. Similar to their adult models, the children kicked the doll, hit it with a mallet, and threw it in the air. They even came up with new ways to hurt Bobo, such as throwing darts or aiming a toy gun at him. Children who were exposed to a non-aggressive adult or no model at all had far less aggression toward Bobo.

Bandura’s findings challenged the widely accepted behaviorist view that rewards and punishments are essential to learning. He suggested that people could learn by observing and imitating others’ behavior.

Faye notes that the Bobo doll experiments were also influential outside of the scientific community. “Bandura’s findings were particularly important in 1960s America, when lawmakers, broadcasters, and the general public were engaged in serious debate regarding the effects of television violence on the behavior of children,” she says.

Today, questions about violent media and video games linger, so Bandura’s research on aggression remains relevant. His Bobo-inspired social learning theory also contributed to the development of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Bandura is a member of an elite group who received both APS lifetime achievement awards: the William James and James Mckeen Cattell Fellow Awards. He was also named among the top five most eminent 20 th century psychologists by the Review of General Psychology . It’s an impressive legacy for a project that began with a little creativity and an inflatable clown.

How can the Bobo experiment be a critique of behaviorism? Children cannot learn from watching unless they have experience, can they? And experience, obviously, is gained through behavior. Behaviorism appears to be merely a version of Russell´s knowledge by acquaintance as opposed to knowledge by description. Whilst description can probably substitute for behavior in a virtual world, it is less likely useful in the real world.

We perceive what we see, is that not an experience where acting out is the result of its cognitive beginning? I would say most people learn from watching, hearing, and doing. While the three are a classroom didactic exercise the other is a practical experience.

I agree with Brian, observation/vicarious learning as represented in the Bobo experiment shapes the behavior we assume will be called for in the future. The behavior is acted out immediately or the experience, our perception of the experience, is molded at that time for future enactment of the behavior, cognitive beginning most definitely.

I can imagine what it was like being one of those children watching the adult kicking and punching the crap out of the doll. Here was the exact opposite of what they had been taught their entire life. It must have been liberating and fun to have free license. Just as you or I might enjoy using a big hammer to smash a wall that has to come down. But not for a moment do I think it leads to aggression or violence. More like catharsis. If Bandura’s experiments had involved adults hurting cats, I do not believe those children would have imitated that

I DO AGREE With Albert Bandula’s That Man Tend To Imitate The Behaviours Of The Person He Observes Given That In The Social Learning Theory Man Is Bound To Copy The Behaviour Of Those Frequently With Them Hence Parents Adults And Teacher Need To Be Concious Of Their Actions.

I’m a Profesional Clown for 31 yrs. I grew up with that Clown Toy. I liked it. The problem with this Toy is many adults see a Clown as a Thing, not a Person. The symbolism of the Toy can bring out the Dark Side of some adults. “Pseudo Clown O Phobia” as I call it is fashionable. Some Unethical Media Shrinks actually are telling people that they should be scared. This is not about Clowns or Toys. As the Internet came in Junk Science has grown. I’m concerned about turning Clowns into evil characters & and the so-called Psychologists who are doing a major disservice, not just to Clowns but to the Real Science of Psychology.

Bandura and Bobo, is not about violence, but desensitization, in the manner media desensitizes the power of words, as well as actions. Yes children experiencing actual violence are more prone to participate in violence, but there is a percentage of desensitized children that “act out” what they have seen; “trauma trigger” this then effects the group by direct experience. This continues especially for those children mentioned above with no outlet for trauma; mass psychotherapy without boundaries, guidance, or professional observation; only the consequence of the penal system. It is proven society has had a large hand in creating the very individuals, that then fill the penal system with just this type of personality. Not everyone is effected, certainly not everyone is as sensitive, to the trigger: but the numbers are still alarming.

My friend and I want to do a science expo project on this issue of the Bobo Doll and Albert Bandura. And we think that adults should be conscious of their actions and their words because children will learn to be like them.

Hello all, does anyone know where I can purchase a vintage Bobo Doll or have a one made? I am a Psychology Major at Cedar Crest College and am doing a project for Psi Chi. We would love to purchase one but don’t know where to find one. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Evaluating the Bobo Doll experiment: Since the experiment was made using children and relying on these children’s judgement, in my humble opinion, is not a strong result. Children do not have a strong base of morality, they do not fully know what is right or wrong and merely rely and mimic what they hear and see (feeds)from adults. The experiment used a doll and this is understood by children as a toy (an inanimate object which could be deformed, thrown, etc). I believe that their actions were parts imitation and curiosity and at the same time liberation that they could do what they think they could do with the doll without being judged by the adult (since children’s actions are controlled by adults). Secondly, the experiment was a model of ‘conditioning’ and not free will. I think the result of this experiment would be different if adults were the participants. Even if the doll was substituted with a live cat (apologies-just an example), the children will still act out what adults did but it will not be true with adult participants. My conclusion for this experiment is that behaviour is truly learned from experiences (heard and seen) and the younger one learns an action, the more likely that it will be moulded into his being/behaviour/lifestyle. But an adult’s adaptation of new behaviour is his choice.

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What Are The Ethical Issues With Bandura’s Study

Table of Contents

What are the ethical issues with Bandura’s study?

There are many ethical issues with Bandura’s studies. The major issue is harm and the wellbeing of participants. The children may have been distressed by the aggressive behaviour they witnessed and the aggressive behaviour they learned from the study may have stayed with them, going on to become a behavioural problem.

How ethical was the Bobo doll experiment?

It is possible to argue that the bobo doll experiment was unethical. For example, there is the problem of whether or not the children suffered any long-term consequences as a result of the study. Although it is unlikely, we can never be certain.

What are the criticisms of the Bobo doll experiment?

Criticism of the experiments Laboratory studies of imitation often have low ecological validity, meaning key contextual features are absent; in a Bobo doll experiment, the child and the model do not have a prior relationship and do not interact with each other, even in the in-person environment.

What was the purpose of the Bobo doll experiment?

A Bobo doll is an inflatable toy that is approximately the same size as a prepubescent child. The aim of Bandura’s experiment was to demonstrate that if children were witnesses to an aggressive display by an adult they would imitate this aggressive behavior when given the opportunity. Bandura et al.

What are the ethical issues in an experiment?

These principles include voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, potential for harm, and results communication. Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from others.

What are three ethical issues in social research?

Seven basic ethical issues arise in social science research: informed consent, deception, privacy (including confidentiality and anonymity), physical or mental distress, problems in sponsored research, scientific misconduct or fraud, and scientific advocacy.

What were the consequences of the Bobo doll experiment?

Results. The results for the Bobo Doll Experiment showed, as expected by prediction one, that children who were exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to show imitative aggressive behavior themselves.

Was the Bobo doll experiment biased?

However, the Bobo doll studies have also drawn criticism for the methodology that Bandura and his colleagues used: Selection bias: The sample that Bandura used in his studies attended the nursery school at Stanford University, and so the study has been criticised for its selection bias.

Why was Bobo doll unethical?

In addition, by intentionally frustrating the children, some argue that the experimenters were essentially teaching the children to be aggressive.

What are the disadvantages of Bandura’s theory?

• Many of Bandura’s ideas were developed through children behaviour in lab settings and this increases the problem of demand characteristics.
• The main purpose of a Bobo doll is to hit it so the children in his study may have been behaving as they though was expected.

Is the Bobo doll experiment nature or nurture?

Nature vs. Nurture in Child Development This theory says that people learn by observing the behavior of others. In his famous Bobo doll experiment, Bandura demonstrated that children could learn aggressive behaviors simply by observing another person acting aggressively.

What are the main criticisms of Bandura’s study and its conclusions?

Criticisms to the Bandura Experiment Research ethics – Procedure incited aggression in children. Selection bias – Sample of the subjects made it difficult to generalize findings. Limited external validity – A narrow age range where older subjects may not have had the same results.

Can you think of two different ethical concerns of Bandura’s study?

Since the goal of the study was to get the children to show aggressive behaviour, one has to wonder if this will have a long-term effect on the children. Other ethical concerns include informed consent from the parents, debriefing of the parents and keeping the identifies of the children confidential.

What are ethical issues in observational research?

Researchers will typically have to provide detailed information on research purpose and contributions, participant selection and informed consent, potential risks and benefits, and dealing with privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity.

What are the ethical issues in observing children?

Ethical observation – key points Written consent should be provided by parents/carers. Children have an understanding of why we make notes and take photos. When observing children practitioners are mindful of the child’s rights. Writing an observation should never come in the way of supportive adult interaction.

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Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert bandura's influential bobo doll experiments reveal how children imitate tv violence and the behavior of others..

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• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63 , 575-582.
• Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A. (1961). Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66 (1), 3-11.
• Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of Models’ Reinforcement Contingencies on the Acquisition of Imitative Responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1 (6), 589.
• Huessmann, L. R., Lagerspetz, K. And Eron, L. D. (1984). Intervening Variables in the TV Violence-Aggression Relation: Evidence From Two Countries. Developmental Psychology , 20 (5), 746-775.

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What were the results and implications of the Bobo doll experiment?

The Bobo doll experiment, conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1960s, is a classic study in the field of social psychology. The experiment aimed to understand how children learn aggressive behavior by observing adults. In this study, Bandura and his colleagues observed the behavior of children who were exposed to aggressive and non-aggressive models and the results were significant. The experiment sparked a critical conversation about the impact of media, role models, and environmental influences on children’s behavior. This essay will discuss the results and implications of the Bobo doll experiment and its lasting impact on our understanding of human behavior.

The Bobo doll experiment was the name of two experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and 1963 studying patterns of behavior associated with aggression. Bandura hoped that the experiments would prove that aggression can be explained, at least in part, by social learning theory. The theory of social learning would state that behavior such as aggression is learned through observing and imitating others. The experiments are important because it sparked many more studies on the effects of violent media on children.

Method(1961)

The subjects studied in the experiment involved 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School ranged between the ages of 3 and 6. The total of 72 children were split into 3 groups of 24. One group was put into an aggressive model scenario with half of that group observing a same-sex adult model and half observing a different-sex adult model. Another group was exposed to a non-aggressive adult model and the final group would be used as a control group and would not be exposed to any adult model at all. The children were pre-selected and sorted to ensure an even spread of personality types across the test groups. Some of these children were already known to be more aggressive than others.

Aggressive adult model scenario (24 children) – Same-sex adult model – Different-sex adult model

Non-aggressive adult model (24 children) – Same-sex adult model – Different-sex adult model

Control Group (24 children)

For the experiment, each child was exposed to the scenario individually, so as not to be influenced or distracted by classmates. The first part of the experiment involved bringing a child and the adult model into a playroom. In the playroom, the child was seated in one corner filled with highly appealing activities such as stickers and stamps. The adult model was seated in another corner containing a toy set, a mallet, and an inflatable Bobo doll. Before leaving the room, the experimenter explained to the child that the toys in the adult corner were only for the adult to play with.

During the aggressive model scenario, the adult would begin by playing with the toys for approximately one minute. After this time the adult begins to show aggression towards the Bobo doll. Examples of this include hitting the Bobo doll and using the toy mallet to hit the Bobo doll in the face. After a period of about 10 minutes, the experimenter came back into the room, dismissed the adult model, and took the child into another playroom. The non-aggressive adult model simply played with the small toys for the entire 10 minute-period. In this situation, the Bobo doll was completely ignored by the model then the child was taken out of the room.

The next stage placed the child and experimenter into another room filled with interesting toys: a truck, dolls, and spinning top. There, the child was invited to play with the toys. After about 2 minutes the experimenter decides that the child is no longer allowed to play with the toys. This was done to build up frustration. The experimenter says that the child may play with the toys in the experimental room including both aggressive and non-aggressive toys. In the experimental room the child was allowed to play for the duration of 20 minutes while the experimenter evaluated the child’s play.

The first measure recorded was based on physical aggression. This included punching or kicking the Bobo doll, sitting on the Bobo doll, hitting it with a mallet, and tossing it around the room. Verbal aggression was the second measure recorded. The judges counted each time the children imitated the aggressive adult model and recorded their results. The third measure was the amount of times the mallet was used to display other forms of aggression than hitting the doll. The final measure includes modes of aggression shown by the child that were not direct imitation of the role-model’s behavior.

Results (1961)

Bandura found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in physically aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of imitative physical aggressions exhibited by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura’s prediction that children are more influenced by same-sex models. Boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104 compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys exposed to aggressive female models.

While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7 compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls exposed to aggressive male models.

Bandura also found that the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in verbally aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model. The number of imitative verbal aggressions exhibited by the boys was 17 times and 15.7 times by the girls. In addition, the results indicated that the boys and girls who observed the nonaggressive model exhibited far less non-imitative mallet aggression than in the control group, which had no model.

The experimenters 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. The result of reduced aggressive inhibitions in children means that they are more likely to respond to future situations in a more aggressive manner.

Lastly, the evidence strongly supports that males have a tendency to be more aggressive than females. When all instances of aggression are tallied, males exhibited 270 aggressive instances compared to 128 aggressive instances exhibited by females.

Hogben and Byrne stressed on the importance of onfoundations of social learning in place of tangibly measureable rewards. Reward is eminent to the Social Learning theory of aggression as innately we would repeat an action or behavior after receiving a desirable reinforcement. Unless the children were rewarded for their emulation of attacking the ‘bobo doll’ or the clown would become a personal habit to exert aggression? The experiment was also biased in several areas which weakened the internal validity.

1. Selection bias

Bandura’s subjects were all from the nursery of Stanford University. During the 1960s, the opportunity of studying in a university, especially one as prestigious as Stanford was a privilege that only the upper-middle class whites had. Besides, the racial bias and economic status of the whites and blacks were still very vast at that time. Generally only the upper-middle class and rich whites were able to afford putting their children in a nursery. Thus, the subjects would turn out to be mostly white and of similar backgrounds.

2. Unclear history of subjects

The ethnicities of the subjects were never documented but Bandura and his colleagues made sweeping statements on their findings when explaining the aggression and violence trait among subgroups and lower socioeconomic communities.

3. Ambiguous temporal sequence

As the data of the “real life aggression and control group conditions came from their 1961 study”, parallel ongoing events including the mental maturation of the subjects could have been confused with the observations and results of the 1963 study.

Bar-on, Broughton, Buttross, Corrigan, et al. (2001) explained that the underdeveloped frontal lobe of children below the age of 8 causes them to be unable to separate reality from fantasy. As an example, children up to the age of 12 believe that there are monsters in their closet or under the bed. They are also sometimes unable to distinguish dreams from reality.

Furthermore, biological theorists argue that the social learning theory completely ignores individual’s biological state by ignoring the uniqueness of an individual’s DNA, brain development, and learning differences.

According to Worthman and Loftus (1992), Bandura’s study was unethical and morally wrong as the subjects were manipulated to respond in an aggressive manner. They also find it to be no surprise that long-term implications are apparent due to the methods imposed in this experiment as the subjects were taunted and were not allowed to play with the toys and thus incited agitation and dissatisfaction. Hence, they were trained to be aggressive.

Although there have been other research which glamorized the effects of violent movies and video games such as Plagens et al.’s 1991 study on violent movies, “Feshbach and R.D. Singer believed that television actually decreases the amount of aggression in children” (Islom, 1998) – Catharsis effect. A study was made on juvenile boys for six weeks. Half were made to view violent movies throughout the period of six weeks while another half viewed non-violent movies for six weeks. The boy’s behavior was then observed and the result was boys who viewed violent movies were less aggressive than those who viewed non-violent movies. The conclusion drawn by Feshback and Singer was that those who viewed violent movies were less aggressive as they were able to transmit all their feelings and thoughts of aggression into the movie.

Variations of the ‘Bobo doll’ experiment

Due to numerous criticisms, Bandura replaced the ‘Bobo doll’ with a live clown. The young woman beat up a live clown in the video shown to preschool children and in turn when the children were lead into another room where they found a live clown, they imitated the action in the video they had just watched.

Variation 1:

In Friedrich and Stein (1972)’s ‘The Mister Rogers’ study:

Procedures: A group of preschoolers watched Mister Rogers every weekday for four consecutive weeks.

Result: Children from lower socioeconomic communities were easier to handle and more open about their feelings.

Variation 2:

Loye, Gorney & Steele (1977) conducted variation of the ‘Bobo Doll’ Experiment using 183 married males aged between 20 to 70 years old.

Procedure: The participants were to watch one of five TV programs for 20 hours over a period of one week while their wives secretly observed and recorded their behavior; helpful vs. hurtful behaviors when not watching the program.

Result: Participants of violent programs showed significant increase in aggressive moods and “hurtful behavior” while participants who viewed pro-social programs were more passive and demonstrated a significant increase of “emotional arousal”.

Variation 3:

Black and Bevan’s research (1992) had movie-goers fill out an aggression questionnaire either before they entered the cinema and after the film; a violent film and a romantic film.

Procedure: Subjects were randomly selected as they went to view violent and romantic film. They were asked to fill out pretest and posttest questionnaires on their emotional state.

Result: Those who watched violent films were already aggressive before viewing the film but it was aggravated after the viewing while there was no change in those who viewed romantic films.

Variation 4:

Numerous research done using violent video games have also led to aggressive behaviors. Anderson & Dill (2000) randomly assigned college students to play two games; Wolfenstein, a science fiction first-person shooter game and Tetris. At the end of the games, those who played Wolfenstein showed more aggressive thoughts and feelings than those who played Tetris.

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment showed that aggressive behaviors may be learned through observation, for instance children will imitate an adults aggressive behavior. This can result in a child using aggression to solve future problems. It was also shown that aggression is considered a male trait, in today’s society male aggression is seen as acceptable and in turn in praised. Girls, not confident of displaying physical aggression, almost matched the boys in Bandura’s experiments in terms of verbal aggression.

From this experiment, Bandura established that there are 4 processes that are apparent in the modeling process.

1. Attention

One has to be paying attention and not distracted to be able to absorb knowledge. Physical factors such as being tired, having a hangover, being sick, nervous, extremely excited or distracted by a competing stimuli would mar one’s focus on a subject. For example, when a student is in love, he or she would only be thinking of his/her loved one. All else is a blur; hear but not listening, see but not looking, eat but not tasting, breathing but not smelling and so on.

2. Retention

The proof that one has been paying attention is when one is able to remember the intended stimuli. Imagery and language play a great part here. Memory is stored in “the form of mental images or verbal descriptions.” Once it is stored, the memory can be recalled later and be replicated in one’s actions and behavior.

3. Reproduction

This stage of modeling another requires one to have the ability to duplicate the action or/and behavior. A wheelchair bound person would not be able to duplicate a person doing cartwheels but one who is able to use all their limbs might be able to improve their cartwheel techniques after watching the video of a gymnast doing cartwheels. Similarly, after acquiring the ability to draw, one can improve their skills by watching an expert drawing or by emulating the instructions in a drawing book.

However, this does not mean that day-dreaming is useless. It in fact plays a part in refining our skills. “Our abilities improve even when we just imagine ourselves performing! Many athletes, for example, imagine their performance in their mind’s eye prior to actually performing”

4. Motivation

a. Nonetheless, the most important part of the modeling process is motivation! If one is not motivated to emulate an action or behavior, attention would not be there to start with. According to Bandura, there are two categories of motives -positive [Past reinforcements, Promised reinforcements and Vicarious reinforcements] and negative [Past punishment, Promised punishment and vicarious punishment] both of which are based on traditional behaviorism such as BF Skinner’s Operant Conditioning and Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning.

However, there are as many experiments conducted which support as well as nullify Bandura’s hypothesis. So far, all the variations of Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment have only focused on a maximum of three important factors; a combination of background, personal temperament, environment, interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships. Yet, a pretest of phobias and daily mood assessment were not assessed before the experiment. Thus, we can safely say that until an experiment takes all the factors into consideration and conducts a longitudinal assessment, Bandura’s hypothesis is still on the fence.

Ethical Issues in Bobo Doll Study

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Moral standards are principles guiding how researchers conduct their research. According to the American Psychological Association, adhering to ethical standards is an indicator of research competency. Bandura conducted a study to investigate how behaviors are acquired. His experiment is one of the most recognized and praised researches in psychology. However, his analysis has a lot of ethical issues that raise significant concerns.

It was unethical for Bandura to exhibit aggressive behaviors on children. In his hypothesis, Bandura suggested that new behaviors can be acquired through observation. Therefore, when he exposed children to the experiment, he knew that children will learn the seen behavior. In this case, Bandura failed to recognize the long term effect of the violent images on children. Many studies have shown that visual images are stored in the brain longer than audio images. What the children saw in the experiment may have a long-lasting effect on their future life. Also, there are other non-effect experiments that Bandura could have used to investigate the same hypothesis. For example, he could have to study how children learn to play instruments or how they learn to mimic adult’s voices. Using aggression was a malicious act. Lastly, Bandura failed to consider what he would have felt if his child was subjected to such a study. Very few parents, including Bandura, would want their children to be exposed to such violence.

Bobo doll experiment could not have been conducted without breaking the APA ethical standards. Bandura prevented the children from withdrawing from the study. The APA guidelines require an individual to be allowed to withdraw from the study at any time.  During the study, someone stood at the door to prevent the children from going out of the room. The children were underage and, therefore, could not give consent. It is an assumption that parents were aware of the experiment since the nursery school teacher gave permission. One of the statements included in the consent form is the effect of an analysis on the participant. If the parents were given the consent forms, they could have seen the long-lasting impact of the research on their children. Therefore, they could not have given the consent form. The code of conduct requires an individual to come out of an experiment in the same state they were before the test. The violence images that the children saw may have affected their behavior.

Various ethical principles need to be added. Children should not be allowed to participate in any experiment that may harm them no matter how famous the test is. The policy will protect children from psychological trauma. Utilitarianism should not be used in research. The theory suggests that an action is considered good or bad, depending on its effects on the majority. Bandura may have argued that his work was beneficial to the majority, and therefore it was not wrong. Such a theory fails to cater for the well-being of the minority.

In conclusion, Bandura’s experiments still raise questions on how well researchers are following ethical standards. His analysis posed a psychological pain to the individual, and there is no evidence of the children going for counseling. Bandura failed to adhere to the ethical standards when he denied the children their right to withdraw from the experiment. His choice of research was misguided because there were other safe experiments that he could have done to test the same hypothesis. Lastly, there is a need for the revision of ethical principles to include those ideas that will ensure the minority are protected.

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The Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura is known for his theory of Observational Learning . As a part of his theory, Bandura conducted an experiment in 1961 in order to observe if social behaviors can be acquired through the process of imitation and observation. The behavior in question was aggression. Bobo doll experiment can also be considered as one of the many observational learning examples .

The study conducted by Bandura and his colleagues involved 72 children aged between 3 to 6 years old. Among them, 36 of them were boys and other 36 were girls. All the children who were involved in the experiment were separately tested before hand in order to check how aggressive they were, and they were rated on four 5-point rating scales. Since all children were taken from Stanford University Nursery School, it was easier for Bandura and others to observe the children in the nursery. After carefully observing the daily behavior of the children in terms of levels of aggression, children were matched in groups. This is an example of matched pairs design.

In order to assess the inter-reliability of the observers, two observers were made to independently assess 51 kids and their ratings were compared. Ratings showed the high reliability correlation (r = 0.89). This meant that observers were in good agreement regarding the behavior of the children.

A lab experiment was conducted as a first method of the experiment. The children were divided into three different groups of 24 children each.

• Aggressive model shown to 24 children
• Non-aggressive model shown to 24 children
• No model shown (control condition) – 24 children

Step 1: Modeling

Each of the children were individually taken into a room and left to play with different toys and pictures while

• 24 children (the first group of 12 boys and 12 girls) watched either a male or a female model displaying aggressive towards the bobo doll (a form of a toy). The adults (models) abused the bobo doll both verbally and physically, hitting with hammer and shouting “pow, boom, hit him, etc”.
• The next group of 24 children (the second group of 12 boys and 12 girls) are also taken in the room full of toys, where they are exposed to a model playing quietly in non-aggressive manner, ignoring the bobo-doll.
• The last group of remaining 24 children was control group, who were not exposed to any models.

Step 2: Aggression Arousal

In the second stage, the experimenter used the aggression arousal technique for all 72 children. Each of the children was taken to the room full of attractive toys individually. And, as soon as the child started to play with the toys, the experimenter told the kids that those particular toys were off limits. This was repeated to each of the 72 children.

Step 3: Delayed Imitation Test

The children were then taken to the next room individually where they had access to different kinds of aggressive and non-aggressive toys. Non-aggressive toys like tea set, bears, plastic animals, crayons and aggressive toys like peg board, dart guns, and a bobo doll were in the room.

Each child was left in the room for 20 minutes and their behaviors were observed at 5-second intervals. Observations were made through a one-way mirror.

Children were also found to display independent behaviors that weren’t displayed by the model. One of which included punching the 3 feet bobo doll on the nose.

• The group that was exposed to the aggressive model imitated aggressive responses in comparison to the other groups.
• Children who were exposed to aggressive model were also seen to show non-imitative and partial aggression.
• Girls in the aggressive model group showed physical expression if the model was male and verbal aggression if the model was female.
• Girls weren’t very keen in imitating the same-sex models (female models), while boys on the other hand were more likely to imitate same-sex models.
• Physically aggressive responses were imitated by boys more than the girls. In the case of verbally aggressive responses, there was virtually no difference between boys and girls.

Albert Bandura succeeded in what he set out to prove. As per the bobo doll experiment, children were likely to learn social behavior such as aggression through observational learning.

In the later years, the experiment has been a base for those who argue that media violence has serious effects on shaping up the behaviors of the children.

Critical Evaluation

There are various benefits to the experimental method conducted by the experimenter. Since the experiment was established with cause and effect relationship in a controlled environment, it was clearly absorbed regarding what caused the child to act in the particular manner.

Variables like model’s gender, the room, toys, time interval for child to observe the model, were all controlled. Also, the experiment used precise procedures and instructions. This means that the experiment can be easily replicated using the same variables and procedures as the original experiment. There have been different studies replicating the original bobo doll experiment with slight changes, such as using video (Bandura, 1963). The results found were quite similar.

The experiment, however, isn’t without limitations . Here are some of the limitations as pointed out by expert psychologists.

• Ecological validity of this lab experiment has been questioned by many. It’s not always likely that the model will be an adult for the child, also the experiment shows strangers, which of course isn’t normal since children are more likely to observe models within the family. The lack of interaction between the observer and the model is another limitation.
• In 1990, Cumberbatch discovered that children who had previously played with Bobo Doll before the experiment were more likely to imitate the aggressive response in compared to the children who were only playing with the bobo doll for the first time.
• The whole experiment was measured immediately based on the immediate demonstrations of the actions of the observer. Long-term effects were not taken into account.
• There have also been arguments that the experiment was unethical. For instance, there is always a chance that the children involved in the experiment might have suffered long-term consequences as a result of the study.

Bobo Doll Study with Vicarious Reinforcement

In 1965, Bandura replicated the experiment in order to measure vicarious reinforcement.

Reinforcement obtained by observing another person is referred to as vicarious reinforcement. In simple terms, we not only watch what other people do, but we also evaluate what happens (consequences) of the actions other people perform. An observer is more likely to imitate rewarded behavior and refrain from punished behavior.

In the similar experimental setup , the first group saw the model’s aggression being rewarded with sweets and drink. The second group observed the model being scolded for the aggressive actions. The third group, in a controlled condition, did not see any consequences.

The children in the group where the model was punished had clearly observed the behavior but did not imitate it because of the expected negative consequences. On the other hand, the group who saw the model being rewarded for his violent actions responded with aggressive actions too when presented with a similar situation.

What are other people reading?

Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment

The famous Bobo Doll experiment conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 is still widely cited and highly relevant today. It lends support to Bandura’s social learning theory which claims that learning occurs through observation and imitation of others behaviours. It could have widespread implications regarding the effects of the media. If celebrities are seen as role models, this could lead to many dangerous behaviours being imitated, such as extreme diets, drugs, hard-core partying and even violence. Since magazines and television tend to report scandalous conduct, this could affect the way youngsters as well as adults choose to behave.

The Experiment

There were 72 participants that took part in Bandura, Ross and Ross’s (1961) experiment, half of which were girls and the other half boys. The participants were aged between 3 and 6 years old and attended Stanford University Nursery School. The children were pretested on levels of aggression and were placed in one of three groups: adult aggressive model, adult non-aggressive model and no model. They were matched on how aggressive they were to ensure that each group had an average level of aggression. Each group had 24 children which was divided into groups of boys and girls. Each of the groups of boys and girls was then divided so that half of the participants viewed a same-sex model whereas the other half viewed an opposite sex model. This would give insight into how the role-model’s gender affects children’s behaviour.

During the experiment, the child individually went into a room and played with toys for 10 minutes. There was either a male or female adult present in the room.  In the aggressive condition, the adult would act violently towards a toy called the Bobo Doll. He/she would throw and kick the doll and sometimes used a hammer to beat it up. The adult would shout things at the doll such as “pow,” “kick him” and phrases such as “he sure is a tough fella.” In the non-aggressive condition the adult played peacefully with a tinker toy set and ignored the doll for the full 10 minutes. Finally, the children in the control condition were not exposed to an adult model playing with the toys and the children were left to play alone.

After this part of the experiment, children were exposed to the Mild Aggression Arousal Stage. This is when the child went into a room where there were fun toys to play with. However, once the child started playing with them, the experimenter told the child to leave them alone and that they were for other children to play with. This stage was intended to stir aggression or annoyance in the child. There was then the Delayed Imitation Test whereby the children went into a room where there were sets of aggressive and non-aggressive toys such as a hammer, dart guns and a Bobo Doll as well as a tea set, crayons, bears and plastic animals respectively. Each child spent 20 minutes in the room. The researchers watched and rated their behaviour through a one-way mirror.

It was found that children in the adult aggressive model group acted more violently than their counterparts in the other conditions. There was also more non-imitative aggression in the aggressive group meaning that children acted in aggressive ways that they had not observed the adult doing. Furthermore, the gender of the adult had an effect whereby male participants would act more aggressively than females when exposed to an aggressive male model. Boys were also more physically aggressive in general, engaging in more than twice as many aggressive acts than girls. Girls exposed to the aggressive female model were more verbally aggressive than boys. Moreover, boys were more likely to imitate a same-sex model than girls were.

In conclusion, this study supports the idea that children learn how to act based on their observations and interactions with others. When children see adults behaving in a certain way, they believe that their actions are acceptable and even desirable and therefore imitate them. This is supported by the fact that in the absence of the models, children behaved in ways that resembled the adult’s behaviour. Young children navigating their way in the world look to adults for guidance and support. Primary caregivers have the important role of teaching children how to regulate their emotions and behave accordingly. If the caregiver is aggressive, the child will learn that the only way to deal with frustration and anger is to act aggressively.

The consequences of behaviours also have potential reinforcing or aversive value. In Bandura’s follow up study (1965) he found that children were much more likely to imitate an adult if they saw the adult being rewarded for their behaviour. They were unlikely to imitate the behaviour if the adult was punished for it.

Limitations

While the current study has been extremely influential and insightful, it is not without limitations. It is low on ecological validity meaning that the results do not necessarily generalise to the outside world. The setting of the experiment was artificial; therefore, may not represent what occurs in the natural environment. Acting violently towards a doll is very different from acting violently in real life. Also it is unknown as to whether there were any long term effects regarding aggression. There was no follow up testing whether those who viewed the aggressive model were more aggressive later in life as opposed to being aggressive a few minutes after seeing an aggressive model. Furthermore, the participants all came from the same nursery; therefore, they had similar backgrounds in terms of race and social economic status. This makes it difficult to generalise the results to a wider, more diverse population. Finally, if there were long term negative effects, the study could be considered unethical.

Despite these limitations, it has proven to be a very significant study in the field of psychology. It makes us wonder how much everyday television violence, inane celebrity gossip and interactive aggressive video games are influencing children’s behaviour’s as well as ideas about what constitutes right and wrong.

References :

Cherry, K. (n.d.). Bobo Doll Experiment. About.com . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/bobo-doll-experiment.htm

McLeod, S. (2011). Bobo Doll Experiment. Simply Psychology . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html

Image credit: Everywhere Psychology (August 28, 2012). Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBqwWlJg8U

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While Some Unethical, These 4 Social Experiments Helped Explain Human Behavior

How have we learned about human behavior some studies caused a baby to fear animals — and other experiments helped us explore human nature..

From the CIA’s secret mind control program, MK Ultra, to the stuttering “Monster” study, American researchers have a long history of engaging in human experiments. The studies have helped us better understand ourselves and why we do certain things.

These four experiments did just this and helped us better understand human behavior. However, some of them would be considered unethical today due to either lack of informed consent or the mental and/or emotional damage they caused.

1. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

After proposing the concept of cognitive dissonance , psychologist Leon Festinger created an experiment to test his theory that was also known as the boring experiment. 

Participants were paid either $1 or $20 to engage in mundane tasks, including turning pegs on a board and moving spools on and off a tray. Despite the boring nature of the activities, they were asked to tell the next participant that it was interesting and fun.

The people who were paid $20 felt more justified lying to others because they were better compensated — and they experienced less cognitive dissonance . Participants who were paid $1 felt greater cognitive dissonance due to their inability to rationalize lying.

In an attempt to reconcile their dissonance, they convinced themselves that the tasks were actually enjoyable.

2. The Little Albert Experiment  

In 1920, psychologist John. B. Watson and graduate student (and future wife) Rosalie Rayner wanted to see if they could produce a response in humans using classical conditioning — the way Pavlov did with dogs.  

They decided to expose a 9-month-old baby, whom they called Albert, to a white rat. At first, the baby displayed no fear and played with the rat. To startle Albert, Watson and Rayner would then make a loud noise by hitting a steel bar with a hammer. 

Each time they made the loud sound while Albert was playing with the rat, he became frightened, started crying, and crawled away from the rat. He had become classically conditioned to fear the rat because he associated it with something negative. He then developed stimulus generalization, where he feared other furry white objects — including a rabbit, white coat, and a Santa mask. 

3. Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo designed a study to examine societal roles and situational power — through an experiment that recreated prison conditions. 

Zimbardo created a mock prison in a building on Stanford’s campus. He assigned study participants to be either guards or prisoners. Prisoners were given numbers instead of names, had a chain attached to one leg, and were dressed in smocks and stocking caps.

Those assigned to the role of a guard quickly conformed to their new position of power. They became hostile and aggressive toward the prisoners, subjecting them to psychological and verbal abuse — despite never having previously demonstrated such attitudes or behavior. The experiment was slated to last two weeks but needed to be ended after only six days. 

4. The Facial Expression Experiment

In 1924, psychology graduate student Carney Landis wanted to study how people’s emotions were reflected in their facial expressions, exploring whether certain emotions caused the same facial expressions in everyone.

Landis marked participants’ faces with black lines to study the movement of their facial muscles as they reacted. At first, he had them do innocuous tasks, such as listening to jazz music or smelling ammonia. 

As Landis grew frustrated that their responses weren’t strong enough, he had participants engage in increasingly shocking acts, such as sticking their hands into a bucket with live frogs in it. Eventually, Landis instructed participants to decapitate a live mouse. If they refused, he decapitated the mouse himself to elicit a strong reaction from them.

Read More: 5 Unethical Medical Experiments Brought Out of the Shadows of History

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

Advance Research Journal of Social Science . Cognitive dissonance: its role in decision making

New Scientist. How a baby was trained to fear

Stanford Prison Experiment. Philip G. Zimbardo

Incarceration . The dirty work of the Stanford Prison Experiment: Re-reading the dramaturgy of coercion

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Studies of emotional reactions. I. 'A preliminary study of facial expression."

The American Journal of Psychology. Carney Landis: 1897-1962

Allison Futterman is a Charlotte, N.C.-based writer whose science, history, and medical/health writing has appeared on a variety of platforms and in regional and national publications. These include Charlotte, People, Our State, and Philanthropy magazines, among others. She has a BA in communications and a MS in criminal justice.

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• 20 Most Unethical Experiments in Psychology

Humanity often pays a high price for progress and understanding — at least, that seems to be the case in many famous psychological experiments. Human experimentation is a very interesting topic in the world of human psychology. While some famous experiments in psychology have left test subjects temporarily distressed, others have left their participants with life-long psychological issues . In either case, it’s easy to ask the question: “What’s ethical when it comes to science?” Then there are the experiments that involve children, animals, and test subjects who are unaware they’re being experimented on. How far is too far, if the result means a better understanding of the human mind and behavior ? We think we’ve found 20 answers to that question with our list of the most unethical experiments in psychology .

Emma Eckstein

Electroshock Therapy on Children

Operation Midnight Climax

The Monster Study

Project MKUltra

The Aversion Project

Unnecessary Sexual Reassignment

Stanford Prison Experiment

Milgram Experiment

The Monkey Drug Trials

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Facial expressions experiment.

Little Albert

Bobo Doll Experiment

The Pit of Despair

The Bystander Effect

Learned Helplessness Experiment

Racism Among Elementary School Students

UCLA Schizophrenia Experiments

The Good Samaritan Experiment

Robbers Cave Experiment

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10 Bizarre Psychology Experiments That Completely Crossed the Line

• Published Apr 11, 2014
• Updated Nov 22, 2023
• In Psychology & Pop Culture

Experimental psychology and psychological experiments can be key to understanding what makes people tick. Cognitive dissonance, false consensus effect, and classical conditioning are important parts of psychological experiments. However, some individuals have gone about their research and famous psychology experiments in rather unusual, and sometimes morally dubious, ways. These researchers’ findings may increase the sum of knowledge on human behavior; however, the methods that a number of psychologists have used in order to test theories have at times overstepped ethical boundaries. Some might even appear somewhat sadistic. Those taking part in such studies have not always escaped unscathed. In fact, as a result some have suffered lasting emotional damage, or worse. Here are ten bizarre psychology experiments that totally crossed the line.

10. Milgram Experiment (1961)

The Milgram Experiment is one of the controversial experiments. Yale University social psychology professor Stanley Milgram embarked on his now infamous series of experiments in 1961. Prompted by the trial of high-ranking Nazi and Holocaust-coordinator Adolf Eichmann, Milgram wished to assess whether people really would carry out acts that clashed with their conscience if so directed by an authority figure. For each test, Milgram lined up three people, who were split into the roles of “experimenter” (or authority figure), “teacher” and “learner” (actually an actor). After that, the teacher was separated from the learner. They were then told to comply with the experimenter. The teacher would attempt to tutor the learner in sets of word pairs. The penalty for wrong answers by the learner was shocking in more ways than one. The learner pretended to receive painful and increasingly strong jolts of electricity that the teacher thought they were delivering. Even though no real shocks were inflicted, the ethics of the experiment came under close scrutiny owing to the severe psychological stress placed on its volunteer subjects.

9. Little Albert Experiment (1920)

The Little Albert Experiment is one of the psychological experiments gone wrong . Things were different in 1920. Back then, you could take a healthy baby and scare it silly in the name of science. That is exactly what American social psychologist John B. Watson did at Johns Hopkins University. Watson was interested to learn if he would be able to condition a child to fear something ordinary. He coupled it with something else that he supposed triggered inborn fear. Watson borrowed eight-month-old baby Albert for an unethical psychological experiment. First, Watson introduced the child to a white rat. Observing that it didn’t scare Albert, Watson then reintroduced the rat, only this time together with a sudden loud noise. Naturally, the noise frightened Albert. Watson then deliberately got Albert to associate the rat with the noise, until the baby couldn’t even see the rat without bursting into tears. Essentially, the psychologist gave Albert a pretty unpleasant phobia. Moreover, Watson went on to make the infant distressed when seeing a rabbit, a dog, and even the furry white beard of Santa Claus. By the end of the experiment, Albert might well have been traumatized for life!

8. Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)

In August 1971 Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo decided to test the theory that conflict and ill-treatment involving prisoners and prison guards is chiefly down to individuals’ personality traits. This experiment came to be known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo and his team set up a simulated prison in the Stanford psychology building and gave 24 volunteers the roles of either prisoner or guard. The participants were then dressed according to their assigned roles. Zimbardo gave himself the part of superintendent. While Zimbardo had steered the guards towards creating “a sense of powerlessness” among the mock prisoners, what happened was pretty disturbing. Around four of the dozen prison guards became actively sadistic. Prisoners were stripped and humiliated, left in unsanitary conditions and forced to sleep on concrete floors. One was shut in a cupboard. Zimbardo himself was so immersed in his role that he did not notice the severity of what was going on. After six days, his girlfriend’s protests persuaded him to halt the experiment; but, that was not before at least five of the prisoners had suffered emotional trauma.

7. Monkey Drug Trials (1969)

The Monkey Drug Trials is a psychology experiment gone wrong . While their findings may have shed light on the psychological aspect of drug addiction, three researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School arguably completely overstepped the mark in 1969 by getting macaque monkeys hooked on illegal substances. G.A. Deneau, T. Yanagita and M.H. Seevers injected the primates with drugs. These drugs included cocaine, amphetamines, morphine, LSD, and alcohol. Why? In order to see if the animals would then go on to freely administer doses of the psychoactive and, in some cases, potentially deadly substances themselves. Many of the monkeys did, which the researchers claimed established a link between drug abuse and psychological dependence. Still, given the fact that the conclusions cannot necessarily be applied to humans, the experiment may have had questionable scientific value. Moreover, even if a link was determined, the method was quite possibly unethical and undoubtedly cruel, especially since some of the monkeys became a danger to themselves and died.

6. Bobo Doll Experiment (1961, 1963)

In the early 1960s, Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura attempted to demonstrate that human behavior can be learned through observation of reward and punishment. To do this, he acquired 72 nursery-age children together with a large, inflatable toy known as a Bobo doll. He then made a subset of the children watch an aggressive model of behavior. An adult violently beat and verbally abused the toy for around ten minutes. Alarmingly, Bandura found that out of the two-dozen children who witnessed this display, in many cases the behavior was imitated. Left alone in the room with the Bobo doll once the adult had gone, the children exposed to the violence became verbally and physically aggressive towards the doll, attacking it with an intensity arguably frightening to see in ones so young. In 1963 Bandura carried out another Bobo doll experiment that yielded similar results. Nevertheless, the psychology research has since come under fire on ethical grounds, seeing as its subjects were basically trained to act aggressively with possible longer-term consequences and not healthy childhood development.

5. Homosexual Aversion Therapy (1967)

Aversion therapy to “cure” homosexuality was once a prominent subject of research at various universities. A study detailing attempts at “treating” one group of 43 homosexual men was published in the British Medical Journal in 1967. The study recounted researchers M.J. MacCulloch and M.P. Feldman’s experiments in aversion therapy at Manchester, U.K.’s Crumpsall Hospital. The participants watched slides of men that they were told to keep looking at for as long as they considered it appealing. After eight seconds of such a slide being shown, however, the test subjects were given an electric shock. Slides showing women were also presented, and the volunteers were able to look at them without any punishment involved. Although the researchers suggested that the trials had some success in “curing” their participants, in 1994 the American Psychological Association deemed homosexual aversion therapy dangerous and ineffective.

4. The Third Wave (1967)

“How was the Holocaust allowed to happen?” It’s one of history’s burning questions. And when Ron Jones, a teacher at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High School, was struggling to answer it for his sophomore students in 1967, he resolved to show them instead. On the first day of his social experiment, Jones created an authoritarian atmosphere in his class, positioning himself as a sort of World War II-style supreme leader. But as the week progressed, Jones’ one-man brand of fascism turned into a school-wide club. Students came up with their own insignia and adopted a Nazi-like salute. They were taught to firmly obey Jones’ commands and become anti-democratic to the core, even “informing” on one another. Jones’ new ideology was dubbed “The Third Wave” and spread like wildfire. By the fourth day, the teacher was concerned that the movement he had unleashed was getting out of hand. He brought the experiment to a halt. On the fifth day, he told the students that they had invoked a similar feeling of supremacy to that of the German people under the Nazi regime. Thankfully, there were no repercussions.

3. UCLA Schizophrenia Medication Experiment (1983–1994)

UCLA Schizophrenia Medication Experiment is another of the famous psychological studies . From 1983 psychologist Keith H. Nuechterlein and psychiatrist Michael Gitlin from the UCLA Medical Center commenced a now controversial study into the mental processes of schizophrenia. Specifically, they were looking into the ways in which sufferers of the mental disorder relapse. They were trying to find out if there are any predictors of psychosis. To achieve this, they had schizophrenics, from a group of hundreds involved in the program, taken off their medication. Such medication is not without its nasty side effect. The research may hold important findings about the condition. Nevertheless, the experiment has been criticized for not sufficiently protecting the patients in the event of schizophrenic symptoms returning; nor did it clearly determine the point at which the patients should be treated again. What is more, this had tragic consequences in 1991 when former program participant Antonio Lamadrid killed himself by jumping from nine floors up despite having been open about his suicidal state of mind and supposedly under the study’s watch.

2. The Monster Study (1939)

Appropriately branded the “Monster Study” by its contemporaries, psychologist Dr. Wendell Johnson’s speech therapy experiment was at first kept a secret in case it damaged his professional reputation. It is now one of the famous experiments . The University of Iowa’s Johnson drafted in graduate student Mary Tudor to carry out the 1939 experiment for her master’s thesis, whilst Johnson himself supervised. Twenty-two orphaned children, ten of whom had issues with stuttering, were put into two groups, each containing a mix of those with and without speech disorders. One of the two groups was given positive, encouraging feedback about their verbal communication, while the other was utterly disparaged for their (sometimes-non-existent) speech problems. The findings were recorded. This six-month study had a major impact on the human subjects. It even had impact on those who had no prior talking difficulties, making some insecure and withdrawn. In 2007 half a dozen of the former subjects were given a large payout by the state of Iowa for what they had endured, with the claimants reporting “lifelong psychological and emotional scars.”

1. David Reimer (1967–1977)

Canadian David Reimer’s life was changed drastically on account of one Johns Hopkins University professor and one of these famous psychology studies . After a botched circumcision procedure left Reimer with disfiguring genital damage at six months old, his parents took him to be seen by John Money. Money was a professor of medical psychology and pediatrics who advocated the theory of gender neutrality. He argued that gender identity is first and foremost learned socially from a young age. Money suggested that although Reiner’s penis could not be repaired, he could and should undergo sex reassignment surgery and be raised as a female. In 1967 Reimer began the treatment that would turn him into “Brenda.” However, despite further visits to Money over the next ten years, Reimer was never really able to identify himself as female and lived as a male from the age of 14. He would go on to have treatment to undo the sex reassignment, but the ongoing experiment had prompted extreme depression in him – an underlying factor that contributed to his 2004 suicide. John Money, meanwhile, was mired in controversy.

These shocking psychological experiments were quite bizarre and damaging. Psychological research studies examine possible cause-and-effect relationships between variables. Experimental research involves careful manipulation of one variable (the independent variable) and measuring changes in another variable (the dependent variable). The most simple experimental design uses a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group experiences whatever treatment or condition that’s under investigation while the control group does not. Even with these guidelines followed, we can see that ethics still needs to be part of interesting psychology studies as well.

Related Resources:

• 20 Famous People with Schizophrenia
• Ranking Top 25 Graduate Programs in Experimental Psychology
• What Are The Best Experimental Psychology Programs in the Country?
• Tips For Designing Psychology Experiments
• What Are The Top 10 Unethical Psychology Experiments?
• The Most Groundbreaking Psychology Experiments of All Time

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