So it's kind of common sense that you
should watch the way you behave when
you have little kids in your presence.
Because the concern is that the little kids can pick up
your bad behavior, or maybe learn a choice word or two
that they're not supposed to be using in preschool.
The underlying concern in this is
that children can observe your bad behavior
and then learn through observing it.
And there's a psychologist who studied this
by the name of Albert Bandura.
And this is actually a very famous psychological experiment
known as the Bobo doll experiment.
And the Bobo doll experiment is a pretty famous
psychological research study that you
hear cited sometimes when people are having the debate of
whether or not they should ban violent video games.
For those of you who don't know, a Bobo doll
is basically a blow up doll that you can punch.
Now, I don' t know if kids still play with these things
these days since now they have Xboxes
and all sorts of other fancy technology.
But this experiment was back in 1965
and this is pretty much the cream
the crop when it came to toys back then.
So this is an inflatable doll that people called Bobo doll,
because it has a clown on it.
So the way the experiment worked was they
had a group of children in a laboratory
doing an arts-and-crafts project.
That sounds nice enough.
Except in the middle of it, suddenly a man
appeared and proceeded to start punching and hitting
and kicking this inflatable doll.
And not only was he being aggressive physically
towards this doll, he was also shouting, hit it.
Kick it.
So he did this for 10 minutes straight,
just pummelling this doll to a bloody pulp, if you could
say that about an inflatable doll, all the while yelling
hit it.
Kick it.
And some of the children observed this behavior.
And other ones, it didn't really phase them.
They were just so into their arts-and-crafts project
that I guess it really didn't matter much to them.
So after the 10 minutes passed, the man left.
And the next part of the experiment
required the kids to feel frustrated.
So the researchers were kind of mean about this.
And what they did was they gave these kids an impossible puzzle
to solve.
In other words, they gave them a puzzle
with some pieces missing.
And imagine how frustrating that must be-- you
can't put it together.
So they knew that that would cause frustration.
And what they did was the researchers
observed through a one-way mirror how
the kids reacted to this frustration.
Now, in this laboratory they were
brought to a room where it was filled with toys.
So maybe here's a balloon.
Here's a cool teddy bear.
And of course, in the room was this Bobo doll, the very same
one that that man had beat up for 10 minutes.
And what the researchers observed
was many of the children would actually come up to the doll
and proceed to hit it.
An not only were a lot of them hitting
it, the ones that were hitting it were often yelling, hit it.
Kick it.
The very same words that that guy had said earlier.
So what this revealed was that kids
can learn through observing the way people behave.
So as you might imagine, oftentimes you'll
hear this Bobo doll experiment mentioned
in the debate of whether or not they
should ban violent video games or not
let kids see violent movies.
Because this experiment showed that children can
indeed learned through observing behavior.
But learning a behavior and performing a behavior
are two separate topics.
Many of the kids were aggressive towards the doll
and yelled the same things that the men had yelled.
So you could say, all right, so the majority of kids, yes,
were aggressive towards the doll.
But not all of the kids were aggressive towards the doll.
Maybe all the kids didn't learn this aggressive behavior.
So Bandura wanted to know, what's
going on with these kids?
How come they didn't behave the same way towards the doll?
Did they maybe not learn that aggressive behavior?
So they performed another experiment
that was fairly similar to the one I just described.
So in this next experiment, what they did was
they set up a TV in a laboratory.
And I don't know, I bet back then TVs had bunny ears.
So on this TV the kids saw a Bobo doll and someone being
aggressive towards the Bobo doll, also yelling, hit it.
Kick it.
But the difference here was that the video showed afterwards
that person being punished for acting
that way towards the doll.
They were spanked and told they were doing something wrong.
So the children saw the consequence of that behavior.
So after they watched the video, they were placed into a room
again with toys.
And some of the kids, again, walked up to the Bobo doll
and started hitting it.
And not only were they hitting it, they were also yelling,
hit it.
Kick it.
So these kids did that.
But what about these kids?
Did they not learn that behavior?
So what they did to find that out was researchers
basically bribed these kids and offered them stickers
and juice, things kids love, if they could imitate the behavior
that they saw on TV.
And what they found was that the kids were indeed
able to imitate that behavior.
And this is a concept known as learning-performance
distinction.
And what learning-performance distinction
is that learning a behavior and performing a behavior
are two different things.
You can learn a behavior but not perform the behavior.
But what's important to take away from this
is that not performing the behavior
doesn't necessarily mean you didn't learn the behavior.
So again, just because these kids initially
didn't perform the behavior of acting aggressive
towards this Bobo doll, that doesn't
mean that they didn't learn it.
Because it was clear once you bribed these kids with juice
and stickers and things that they like,
they were in fact able to perform
that aggressive behavior.
So they actually did learn, even though they
didn't act that way.
And again, this is what's important
when you think of that classic debate of whether they should
ban certain types of violent video games.
Because you'll hear people who are
against the censorship saying, well, you know, my child
plays violent video games and doesn't act aggressive.
Or, my child watches violent movies
and doesn't act the way that those people do on TV.
But that doesn't necessarily mean
that just because they're not performing that behavior
that they're seeing, that doesn't
mean they're not learning that behavior.
So that's a scary thought to think about, right?
Now when it comes to learning, Bandura
devised his own theory known as Bandura's Social Cognitive
Theory.
Talk about a mouthful.
But it's pretty easy to remember if you ask yourself,
am I motivated?
So say that with me.
Am I motivated to learn Bandura's Social Cognitive
Theory?
Are you motivated?
Let's see.
Let's write it out.
Am I motivated?
Well, I'm sure you are if you're watching this video.
But really this is a mnemonic that I came up
with that might make it easier for you to remember it.
The A stands for Attention.
The M stands for memory.
The I stands for Imitation.
And motivated stands for motivation.
So let's just remove these two letters.
Motivation.
So this is Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory
and the four components of it, attention, memory, imitation,
and motivation.
So let's use an example to illustrate
what I'm talking about here.
So let's say I want to teach you how to draw a star.
So here we go.
I want you to learn this.
Did you see me draw it?
OK, so in order to learn how to draw a star like I did--
of course, I don't know why you wouldn't
know how to draw it anyway.
But let's say that you've never seen
this really interesting star before.
So you have to have an attention span long enough
to watch me go through the movements of drawing the star.
Not only do you have to have the attention span,
you have to have a memory to remember me drawing the star.
And what imitation means is you have
to be able to imitate what I just did.
So let's delete the star now.
And if were to ask you draw it or imitate the way that I
drew it, that would be imitation.
And that would involve your memory
and having attention span long enough to do it.
And then, of course, what it comes down to is motivation.
If you're going to draw a star for me,
you probably have the attention span long enough
to watch me go through the movement.
I'm sure your memory is good enough to remember me doing it.
So I'm sure you're capable of imitating me drawing that star.
But the question is, are you motivated enough to do that?
So if you were, you would do.
And that's Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory.
So am I motivated?
And if you just watched this whole video, I'm sure you are.