Who is Albert Bandura?

Education: (as cited in Moore, 1999)
*Attended elementary and high school with 20 students and 2 teachers 
* 1949 - Received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of British   Columbia  
* 1952 - Received his Ph.D from the University of Iowa 
* After graduation, he completed an internship with the Wichita Kansas Guidance Center Professional Accomplishments and Career: (as cited in Moore, 1999) 
*1953 - Started teaching at Stanford University
* 1959 - His first book, Adolescent Aggression was published in collaboration with his first graduate student, Richard Walter
* 1963 - Conducted the noted BoBo doll experiment
* 1973 - President of the American Psychological Association (APA)
* 1980 - Received the APA's Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions
Personal Life: (as cited in Moore, 1999) 
* After high school, he worked as a labourer filling holes on the Alaska Highway
* Met Virginia Varns who he later married and had two daughters 

The BoBo doll Experiment

     There are many experiments that have tested the social learning theory. In one famous study by Alberta Bandura, he studied the behaviour of children who were exposed to aggressive behaviour (as cited Moore, 1999, n.p.). In this study, Bandura divided children up into three groups and each group watched a video, all with a different ending (Moore, 1999). This video portrayed an adult punching, kicking and calling a BoBo doll names (Moore, 1999). The first video showed the adult being awarded for the aggressive behaviour toward the doll (Moore, 1999). The second group watched the adult being punished for their violent behaviour and the third group saw a video of the adult having no consequences for the behaviour (Moore, 1999). The studied focused on the differences in behaviour between male and female children and if they imitated the behaviour that they observed (as cited in Moore, 1999, n.p.). 


The results of this study are displayed in the graph.


Results: In every situation, male children imitated the aggressive behaviour more than did the female children (Moore, 1999).
The results also showed that the children who watched the adult being rewarded for their behaviour displayed more aggressive behaviours (Bandura as cited in Moore, 1999, n.p.).
Check out this video of
Bandura discussing the BoBo doll experiment on Youtube

Examples -

According to Kenrick, Neuberg & Cialdini (2007), Bandura was concerned about the research that he conducted because this research "...suggested that movies and television often teach young people that violent behaviour can be heroic and rewarding" (p. 9).  

For an example, Devin Moore killed 3 people after being taken into custody for suspicion of car theft (60 Minutes, 2005). Moore had played the video game Grand Theft Auto for hundreds of hours and while in custody he killed 2 police officers and 1 dispatcher (60 minutes, 2005).

Moore stated that "...life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime." (60 minutes, 2005). While the theory that video games that cause people to kill or act aggressively is arguable, this does support the theory of social learning.