Social cognitive theory: Bandura and the Bobo doll

Social cognitive theory suggests behaviour is modelled by other members of a group and acquired through observation or imitation based on the consequences of a behaviour.

Bandura (1977) was one of the first psychologists to investigate how behaviour is modelled and acquired through observation or imitation. He argued behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observation. Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated by his famous Bobo doll (Bobo doll = inflatable toy clown) experiment (Bandura, Ross and Ross, 1961).

For those who would like to see the original paper, it is available here. Note the title, and the researchers, for future use and reference.

This article was inspired by Stuart Cipinko.