Albert Bandura
• By: Luis Diego Ortez
Early Life
• Born December 4, 1925
in a small town of
Mundare in northern
Alberta, Canada.
• Mostly immigrants from
Poland Ukraine lived in
this town
• Youngest child and only
boy of the six children of
Eastern European
descent.
• His father was from
Poland and worked in the
trans-Canada railroad
and his mother came
from Ukraine and worked
in the town’s general
store.
• They did not have a good
education but his father
taught himself how to
speak Polish, Russian
and German
• They saved enough
money to buy a
homestead and with their
own hands change it to a
farm.
Education
• Elementary’s and
High School years
were spent at the only
school in town.
• Didn’t have many
teachers so they left
the initiative of their
education to their
students.
• Two teachers handled
the entire high school
curriculum.
• “The students had to
take charge of their
own education”
Bandura once said
• During summer he
was encouraged by
his parents to search
for boundaries
outside their farm.
• Once he worked in a
furniture manufacturing
plant in Edmonton
• This experience
supported him through
college which he
sometimes worked as a
carpenter
• After his high school
graduation he went to the
University of British
Columbia in which
Bandura’s career came
by chance.
• "One morning, I was
wasting time in the
library. Someone had
forgotten to return a
course catalog and I
thumbed through it
attempting to find a filler
course to occupy the
early time slot. I noticed a
course in psychology that
would serve as excellent
filler. It sparked my
interest and I found my
career."
• After graduating,
Bandura went to the
Univeristy of Iowa to
study in the
department of
psychology
• Bandura learned to
play golf which at the
end led to an
important part of his
life.
Wedding
• One Sunday he was late to
the golf course with his
friend and they bumped
with two attractive women in
a sand trap.
• One of this woman is called
Virginia Varns who was
studying on the teaching
staff of the College of
Nursing.
• They married in 1952 and
became the parents to two
daughters, Mary, who was
born in 1954 and Carol born
in 1958.
Bobo Doll Experiment
• This experiment was
done in 1961 to try to
prove Bandura’s
belief that all human
behavior was learned
through social
imitation rather than
inherited by genetic
factors.
• It was done to prove
that in this case
children would copy
an adult’s behavior.
• By using aggresive
and non-aggresive
factors he wanted to
prove that a child
would tend to copy
tha action and
behavior of an adult.
• Children were chosen
for this experiment
because they have
less knowledge about
social rules and
conditioning of
society.
• A bobo doll is an
inflatable toy
designed to spring
back upright when
knocked over.
Hypothesis and Predictions
• Bandura predicted
that children
witnessing an adult in
an aggresive manner
would likely replicate
his actions even if the
adult was not present.
• Children who had
witnessed a nonaggresive adult would
show little violence.
• Believed that children
would copy the behavior
of a model of their same
sex.
• With this he wanted to
show that children
identified themselves
easier with their same
gender.
• Last but not least, male
children would react more
violent than female
children because men in
society are more
aggresive than women.
Setting the Experiment
• Selected children
from the nursing
school in Stanford
University from a
range of 3 to 6 years,
with the average
being 4 years and 4
months
• Picked 36 subjects of
each sex to test
gender aggresion
• The control group that
would not see an
adult model at all was
made up of 12 boys
and 12 girls.
• The second group
which would be
exposed to an adult
showing aggresive
tendencies was made
up of 24 children of
either sex.
• Both of the resulting
groups of 12 were
divided
• Half would be tested
with a female role
model and the other
half with a male role
model
• The third group was
arranged the same
way but they were
exposed to a passive
adult.
• They already knew
which kids were more
aggresive than others
so this also helped
them divide the
children.
• Each of them were
tested individually so
they won’t affect the
reactions of the
others.
• The child was taken into
a room and sat in a
corner with some toys
which they weren’t
allowed to play with.
• For the children in group
two the adult would begin
to physically and verbally
attack the doll for a period
of 10 minutes.
• In the third group the
adult would sit quietly
and peacefully played
with the toys for ten
minutes
• The control group sat
10 minutes in the
room with no adult
present
• Then they were taken to
another room in which
there were interesting
toys which they were
prohibited to play with.
• They told them that the
toys were reserved for
another kid so their
frustration would grow
• Then they were taken to
another room with
aggresive and nonaggresive toys and they
were wacthed through a
one way mirror.
Results
• Children who were
exposed to the aggresive
model were more likely to
imitate the aggresive
behavior.
• Boys were nearly three
times more aggresive
than girls
• The levels of verbal
aggresion were mostly
seen to the subjects
presented with violent
role models
• Children exposed to the
non-aggresive model or
no model, showed little
imitative aggresive
behavior.
• Male subjects exposed to
non-aggresive models
were less likely to use the
mallet to hit the Bobo
Doll. Male subjects
placed with nonaggresive female models
were more likely to use
the mallet than the control
group.
Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7Mn
gntnI
Bibliography
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http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/bandura.html
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Bandura/bobo.htm
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/bandurabio.html
http://www.experiment-resources.com/bobo-dollexperiment.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI
http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p
/bio_bandura.htm
http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theorybandura.html