The Bandura’s bobo doll experiment was a controlled investigation aimed to establish whether social behaviors such as aggression can be learned through imitation and observation. Albert Bandura, confirmed that children are capable to learn as they observe behaviors of adults. A team of researchers aggressively assaulted an inflated doll as children observed, which resulted into the children mimicking the conduct of the adults as they attacked and assaulted the doll in the same manner (Nolen, 2015) .
Notably, the experiment informed the development of social learning theory as children were observed to acquire observed behaviors. In this experiment, Bandura established that children learn through interactions as well as observation in the social environment. Therefore, through this investigation, the Bandura’s social learning theory was formulated using evidence-based propositions that were drawn of the experiment (Cherry, 2019; Bandura, 1978) . The Bandura’s social learning theory suggests that modeling and observation are vital in the social development and learning of children. Notably, the theory surpasses behavioral theories by including the social factors, proposing that individual are able to learn new behaviors through observation (Shrestha, 2017) .
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One of the main limitations of the study is that the effects of the observation on an individual’s behavior was measured on a very small snapshot. As a result, critics of the experiment argue that studies with “snap shot” observations cannot establish or conform if the exposure or observation produced long-term effects. Therefore, in order to address this challenge, it is essential to have a prolonged period of study, such that the effects are observed on the subjects for a prolonged period of time (Hart, Scholar, Kristonis, & Alumnus, 2006) . With a longer period of study, the subjects can be observed if the behaviors acquired through observation will continue into their later years in life. This will address the limitation and ensure that the outcome of the experiment can be generalized in the population.
References
Bandura, A. (1978). Social learning theory of aggression. Journal of Communication, 28 (3), 12-29.
Cherry, K. (2019, July 07). What the Bobo Doll Experiment Reveals About Kids and Aggression. VeryWell Mind .
Hart, K. E., Scholar, F., Kristonis, W. A., & Alumnus, D. (2006). Critical analysis of an original writing on social learning theory: Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. National forum of applied educational research journal, 19 (3), 1-7.
Nolen, J. L. (2015, November 24). Bobo doll experiment. Encyclopædia Britannica .
Shrestha, P. (2017, November 17). The Bobo Doll Experiment. Psychestudy .
