Bandura’s Observational Learning (Modeling) “Bobo Doll” experiment

Introduction

Observational learning can be defined as a type of learning that normally as a work of observing or imitating someone’s behaviors. One of the first recorded examples of observational learning is the Bobo Doll experiment that was by performed by Albert Bandura. The aim of the entire experiment was to show how children can learn by observing the people around them (Doyle-Portillo and Ellen 209). Bandura concluded that Children’s act of aggressiveness is derived from adults around them. This is due to the fact that they often imitate this aggressive, as they tend to spend most of their time with aggressive people.

Independent Variable

The independent variable of Bandura’s experiment include the aggressive acts that were carried out by the role model, the magnified doll and other toys that were used by the children to play (Tassoni 134). This was done in order for the child to choose to whether play violently or non-aggressively.

Dependent Variable(s)

The dependent variables in the entire experiment was the process of learning via modeling and imitating the behaviors (Doyle-Portillo and Ellen 209). This was accomplished by observing the role model carrying out different acts.

Control subjects/ groups

The control groups consisted of 24 subjects

Experimental groups were eight

Experimental subjects six

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of the experiment was that children’s aggressive actions are learned through examining and copying others.

Materials

Toy mallet, stuffed animals and fascinating toys

Procedure for Control Condition

The control condition of this procedure consisted of four conditions. These may include motivation, attention, memory and initiation (Doyle-Portillo and Ellen 209). The observers were first told to pay attention to what was happening around them. They were then told to copy what the role models were doing.

Procedure for Experimental Condition

Bandura tested 36 boys and 36 girls who were aged between 37 to 69 months. The role model comprised of one male adult and one female. The children were exposed to the role model and were further divided into their respective gender. Boys were exposed to male role model and girls were exposed to female role model.

Results for Control

Children who were more reinforced had high level of aggressiveness than those who were not reinforced. Additionally, children who were attentive had high level of aggressive.

Results for Experimental

The results showed that those children, who were exposed to aggressive role model, had aggressive behaviors. On the other hand, those students who were exposed to non-aggressive behaviors turned to be non-aggressiveness.

Conclusion

The above results are more meaningful to me as I am able to know why some children tend to be more aggressive while others are not.

 

 

Tolman’s “Latent Learning” experiment

Tolman’s theory has promoted a lot in the field of psychology. Tolman conducted the rats’ experiments as a method of studying learning. The best example is the maze running where he studied how rats are able to maneuver through the complex network s. the experiments contributed in the latent theory where learning is seen to occur even when an obvious reward is absent (Hergenhahn et al 429). Tolman argues that individuals are involved in latent learning in their daily activities since they are able to master what they do daily. They are able to locate various buildings since they see them daily. Tolman argues that learning is not dependent on connections between different stimuli and conditions which he experiments using rats.

Independent variables

The independent variables used in Tolman’s experiment include rats that were used to show that learning is not affected by the stimuli or conditions.

Dependent variables

The dependent variables used in this experiment involve the learning process which is demonstrated using behavior of rats (Hergenhahn et al 429). This was achieved through observing the behavior of rats for some time.

Control groups/subjects

The control group consisted of 20 subjects

The experiment groups were three

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this experiment is to show that learning is not affected by different stimuli and conditions. Learning is a continuous process which shows that people are able to learn from daily activities.

Materials

The materials include rats, discrimination box

Procedure for Control Condition & Procedure for Experimental Conditions

The rats were run across 6 unit maze. Control group number one placed food in the goal box where rats were. The rats were subjected to some few days without food depending on the group. Honzik together with Tolman repeated the experiments with 14 units (Hergenhahn et al 429). When path one is blocked most rats preferred to use path six showing that rats have mental knowledge on where to locate the food.

Results for Control & Results for Experimental

The results indicated that rats sensed the food even when one path was blocked. This shows that latent learning does not depend on the given stimuli and conditions since mental knowledge are available.

Conclusion

From the results of the experiment we learn that leaning is not dependent on conditions and given stimuli. It is dependent on mental knowledge of the individual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Doyle-Portillo, Susann, and Ellen Pastorino. What Is Psychology?Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth, 2011. Print.

Hergenhahn, B R, and Tracy B. Henley. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. , 2014. Print.

Tassoni, Penny. Children's Care, Learning & Development. Oxford: Heinemann, 2005. Print.