Major Contributions, Awards, and Honors
Bandura's major contribution to the field of psychology was his Social Learning Theory. The basic idea of the theory was that children learn by observing the people around them. His focus while he researched this phenomenon was aggression in children. Bandura wrote that children use aggressive tactics that they observe their parents using when dealing with others. So basically, he said that aggressive behavior, in his belief, was a learned trait.
In 1972, Bandura received a distinguished achievement award from the American Psychological Association and a Scientist Award from the California State Psychological Association. In 1974, he was elected the president of the American Psychological Association. In 1977, he was known as the Father of the Cognitive Theory. (http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm)
In 1972, Bandura received a distinguished achievement award from the American Psychological Association and a Scientist Award from the California State Psychological Association. In 1974, he was elected the president of the American Psychological Association. In 1977, he was known as the Father of the Cognitive Theory. (http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm)
The Bobo Doll Experiment
Bandura said that aggression covers three aspects:
1. how aggressive patterns of behavior are developed
2. what provokes a person to behave aggressively
3. what determines that the behavior will continue in the future
In his experiment, he had children witness a model aggressively attacking a plastic clown called the Bobo doll. There children would watch a video where a model would aggressively hit a doll and " ‘...the model pummels it on the head with a mallet, hurls it down, sits on it and punches it on the nose repeatedly, kick it across the room, flings it in the air, and bombards it with balls...’(Bandura, 1973: p.72). After the video, the children were placed in a room with attractive toys, but they could not touch them. The process of retention had occurred. Therefore, the children became angry and frustrated. Then the children were led to another room where there were identical toys used in the Bobo video. The motivation phase was in occurrence. Bandura and many other researchers founded that 88% of the children imitated the aggressive behavior. Eight months later, 40% of the same children reproduce the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment.
(http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm)
1. how aggressive patterns of behavior are developed
2. what provokes a person to behave aggressively
3. what determines that the behavior will continue in the future
In his experiment, he had children witness a model aggressively attacking a plastic clown called the Bobo doll. There children would watch a video where a model would aggressively hit a doll and " ‘...the model pummels it on the head with a mallet, hurls it down, sits on it and punches it on the nose repeatedly, kick it across the room, flings it in the air, and bombards it with balls...’(Bandura, 1973: p.72). After the video, the children were placed in a room with attractive toys, but they could not touch them. The process of retention had occurred. Therefore, the children became angry and frustrated. Then the children were led to another room where there were identical toys used in the Bobo video. The motivation phase was in occurrence. Bandura and many other researchers founded that 88% of the children imitated the aggressive behavior. Eight months later, 40% of the same children reproduce the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment.
(http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm)