The Bobo Doll Experiment

An experiment was conducted in 1973 by Bandura to investigate whether social behaviours can be learnt through observation and imitation.

The Process:

• Some children were brought into a room to watch a video of a model behaving aggressively to a an inflatable toy called the 'Bobo Doll'. Another group was shown a video of non-aggressive behaviour.
• All children was then brought to another room and shown toys that they cannot play with.
• They were then taken to a room with more toys including the Bobo Doll.
• Many children who witnessed aggression reproduced the violent behaviour towards the doll. There was almost no aggression from the other group of children.

The Findings:

•  Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive group.
• 88% of the children who viewed the behaviour imitated.
•  8 months later, 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.

Evaluation:

Bandura's experiment therefore shows how the media can affect people, especially children as they can be heavily influenced by what they see. This study has important implications for the effects of media on children as they are likely to imitate the violent behaviour that they see on T.V. 

However, seeing as the experiment was set in an artificial environment, it may lack external validity as the children may not react the same way towards a person in a real life situation. This can argue that the media does not influence the audience in any way. 

In conclusion, this experiment demonstrates that children would imitate violent media content. This also links with retention as to how well they remember the behaviour in order to reproduce it. Seeing as children are often heavily influenced by their surroundings, it supports the fact that children copy what they see. Consqeuently, media such as games, films and T.V shows have age certifications to prevent younger children from viewing the content.

When filming and editing, we have to be very aware of all the possible imitable behaviour. We will try not to include any extreme violence. To prevent children from imitating, our horror film will be targeting at 12a. The certification rating is typically lower than the majority of horror films, however, our horror film will not contain any extremes.