- Died:
- July 26, 2021, Stanford, California, U.S. (aged 95)
- Subjects Of Study:
- aggressive behaviour
- social cognitive theory
- Role In:
- Bobo doll experiment
Albert Bandura
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Who was Albert Bandura?
Albert Bandura (1925-2021) was a Canadian-American psychologist and the creator of social cognitive theory. His famous Bobo doll experiment in 1961 showed that children can learn behaviors by watching adults, which led the children to mimic the adults' behavior.
Bandura demonstrated in 1977 that self-efficacy, or belief in one’s capabilities, impacts choices, effort, and feelings. His social cognitive theory (1986) states that a person’s environment, cognition, and behavior interact to determine how that person functions.
Bandura received many awards, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology (2004) and the National Medal of Science in 2016. The Review of General Psychology ranked Bandura as the fourth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century in 2002.
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What is Albert Bandura most famous for studying?
Albert Bandura is most famous for his studies of social learning, including the Bobo doll experiment, and his formulation of social cognitive theory.
In the Bobo doll experiment, Bandura showed that children who watched adults physically and verbally abuse an inflatable doll tended to mimic the same behavior. His broader work on social learning showed that children can learn behaviors, such as sharing, aggression, and cooperation, by watching others.
Bandura's social cognitive theory holds that a person's environment, cognition, and behavior interact to determine how that person functions. Observational learning is a major component of this theory, but Bandura stressed that individuals may simply learn from the behavior rather than imitate it. He also found that self-efficacy, or the belief in one’s own capabilities, affects people's choices, effort, and feelings.
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What is the social learning theory proposed by Bandura?
Albert Bandura (1925-2021) was a Canadian-American psychologist known for his social learning theory. Social learning theory posits that individuals learn by observing others, a process Bandura called modeling. His famous Bobo doll experiment showed that children could learn aggressive behaviors by watching adults. Social learning, according to Bandura, is a complex process involving exposure to others' behaviors, acquiring what one observes, and then accepting these modeled behaviors to guide one's own actions.
Bandura also demonstrated the importance of self-efficacy, or belief in one's own capabilities, in influencing behavior and learning through social modeling. His later social cognitive theory (1986) further emphasized the interaction between a person’s environment, cognition, and behavior as determinants of functioning.
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What was the Bobo doll experiment and what did it show?
The Bobo doll experiment, conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura, was a study of aggression that showed children learn through observing adult behavior. Preschoolers who watched adults physically and verbally abuse an inflatable Bobo doll tended to mimic the same aggressive behaviors towards the doll.
The experiment highlighted that children are likely to imitate observed behaviors, whether aggressive or nonaggressive. Subsequent experiments showed similar results when children watched violence on videotape. Bandura's work has influenced discussions about the impact of media violence on children.
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How did Bandura's theories change how people think about learning and behavior?
Albert Bandura's theories revolutionized understanding of learning and behavior by emphasizing external environmental influences, rather than innate or internal forces. His social learning theory posits that individuals learn by observing others, a concept known as modeling. The Bobo doll experiment showed that children could learn aggression through observing adult behavior.
Bandura also introduced the concept of self-efficacy, which is the belief in one's capabilities, influencing choices, effort, and emotional responses. His later social cognitive theory (1986) further proposed that a person's environment, cognition, and behavior interact to determine functioning, marking a shift from single-factor explanations.
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What is 'self-efficacy' and how did Bandura describe its importance in psychology?
Albert Bandura demonstrated in 1977 that self-efficacy, or one's belief in their own capabilities, impacts their choices, effort, and feelings. He also found that learning occurs through these beliefs and social modeling. This led to his social cognitive theory in 1986, which posits that a person’s environment, cognition, and behavior interact to determine how they function, rather than any single factor being dominant. Bandura's work earned him multiple awards, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Award and the National Medal of Science.
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Albert Bandura (born December 4, 1925, Mundare, Alberta, Canada—died July 26, 2021, Stanford, California, U.S.) was a Canadian-born American psychologist and originator of social cognitive theory who is probably best known for his modeling study on aggression, referred to as the “Bobo doll” experiment, which demonstrated that children can learn behaviours through the observation of adults.
Early life and work
Bandura was the youngest of six children born to parents of eastern European descent. His father was from Kraków, Poland, and his mother from Ukraine; both immigrated to Canada as adolescents. After marrying, they settled in Mundare, Alberta, where Bandura’s father worked laying track for the trans-Canada railroad.
After graduating from high school in 1946, Bandura pursued a bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia and in 1949 graduated with the Bolocan Award in psychology, annually awarded to the outstanding student in psychology. He then did graduate work at the University of Iowa, where he received a master’s degree in psychology (1951) and a doctorate in clinical psychology (1952).
In 1953 Bandura accepted a one-year instructorship at Stanford University, where he quickly secured a professorship. In 1974 he was named the David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology, and two years later he became chairman of the psychology department. He remained at Stanford, becoming professor emeritus in 2010.
The Bobo doll experiment
In 1961 Bandura carried out his famous Bobo doll experiment, a study in which researchers physically and verbally abused a clown-faced inflatable toy in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion. Subsequent experiments in which children were exposed to such violence on videotape yielded similar results.
Testimony on the effects of televised violence
In the late 1960s, prompted by the media’s graphic coverage of the assassination of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy together with increased reports of children incurring serious injuries during attempted replications of dangerous behaviours depicted in television advertisements, the potential effects of television violence on children became a growing public concern. Because of his related research, Bandura was invited to testify before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Eisenhower Commission, and several congressional committees as to the evidence that televised violence affects aggressive behaviour. His testimony played a role in the FTC’s decision to render as unacceptable portrayals of children engaging in risky activities—such as pounding one another in the head with mallets in an advertisement for headache medication—and subsequently to pass new advertising standards.
Later life and work
Bandura was the first to demonstrate (1977) that self-efficacy, the belief in one’s own capabilities, has an effect on what individuals choose to do, the amount of effort they put into doing it, and the way they feel as they are doing it. Bandura also discovered that learning occurs both through those beliefs and through social modeling—thereby originating social cognitive theory (1986), which holds that a person’s environment, cognition, and behaviour all interact to determine how that person functions, as opposed to one of those factors playing a dominant role.
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Bandura received numerous awards for his contributions to the field of psychology, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology (2004), the American Psychological Foundation’s Gold Medal Award for distinguished lifetime contribution to psychological science (2006), and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology (2008; carrying a $200,000 prize) for his groundbreaking work in self-efficacy and cognitive theory. In 2016 he received the National Medal of Science. Bandura also held many organizational memberships and positions, including APA president (1974) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) fellow (1980).
Bandura was associated for many years with a variety of academic journals, including the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Applied Psychology, Media Psychology, Cognitive Therapy and Research, Behavior Research and Therapy, and Social Behavior and Personality. He also authored, coauthored, or edited a number of books, including Adolescent Aggression (1959), Principles of Behavior Modification (1969), Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis (1973), Social Learning Theory (1977), and Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves (2016). In 2002 the Review of General Psychology ranked Bandura as the fourth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century, following B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, and Sigmund Freud.