The audience theory - The Bobo Doll experiment

The Bobo doll experiment was the name of two experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1966.



The bobo doll experiment is a very controversial piece of research that proved that children copy violent behaviour.

The idea was children watched a video where an adult violently attacked a clown called a bobo doll. The children would then be taken to a room with attractive toys in which they were not permitted to touch. The children were then led to another room with the bobo doll. The children were then left in the room to do what they wanted with the bobo doll. 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier seen. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.