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To prove that that all human behavior was learned through social imitation and
copying, rather than inherited through genetic factors, Bandura performed the Bobo Doll Experiment in 1961(Shuttleworth, 2008).
This gave Bandura several ways to prove his hypothesis that watching violence
causes aggressive behavior. This conclusion, however, has been argued
because the children, who are used as the subjects of the experiment, were said
to be manipulated into responding aggressively according to what they have
observed (“Criticisms”, n.d.). If observing an aggressive behavior and
being rewarded for it produces similar aggression, then would observing and
watching a well-recognized diligent student produce the same attitude for
everyone in the class? Perhaps, some students would not imbibe the same
attitude. In the real-world, adopting a behavior, whether good or bad, is
subject to numerous factors. Moreover, we cannot generalize how the
majority, or even everyone, in the class would react, because each student has
his/her own values, experiences, beliefs, and traditions. People are
different from each other. Hence, if we say that people tend to have
different reactions when it comes to what they observe, can we affirm that the
Bobo doll experiment has been suggestive? Yes, it is. The children
used in the experiment are aged between 3 to 6 years old (Bandura, Ross
& Ross as cited by McLeod, 2014). Since these children are very
young and so they might not have any idea on how to play with the Bobo doll,
they have to observe what others are doing with it. It is not that the
children were not using their thinking skills, but when the children are given
with an unfamiliar thing without any instructions on how to use it, they would
ask verbally or nonverbally: “What am I supposed to do with this thing?”.
The children, who were expose to a model with an aggressive behavior, in the Bobo doll experiment might have thought that the observed
aggressive acts are the things that they were supposed to do in the experiment,
and so they did. Although they did show an aggressive behavior, this does not
mean that they would do the aggressive acts to other children. Similarly,
in teaching Edukasyon sa
Pagpapakatao in the early
grades, we tend to ask the pupils questions that are somewhat suggestive. For
instance, when we ask the students similar questions like: “Nag-iingay ang
iyong mga mga kamag-aral habang nagkaklaklase kayo, ano ang iyong gagawin?”.
The children would most probably think of an answer that would not make the
teacher angry, so most likely, they would answer: “Sasawayin ko po ang aking
mga kamag-aral”, even though in real life situation, they would not really
do so. Therefore, we cannot generalize that modeling and reinforcement
does assure the replication of behavior at least with the children because, as
mentioned earlier, there are a lot of things to consider before imbibing the behavior
of the model, and people are just different from each other. In addition,
the manner of how we learn and behave changes as we grow up, because we tend to
form deeper thoughts as our brains develop (generally speaking). Bandura
surprisingly agree with this statement. In fact, he wrote in 1991:
People possess self-reflective and self-reactive capabilities that enable them
[to] exercise some control over their thoughts, feelings, motivations and
actions. In the exercise of self-directedness, people adopt certain
standards of behavior that serve as guides and motivators and regulate their
actions anticipatorily through self-reactive influence. Human functioning
is, therefore, regulated by an interplay of self-generated and external sources
of influence (Ananda, 2006, para. 2).
