Will playing video games cause me to murder my friends?
Hi. I'm Matt and this is Simply Psyc.
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Albert Bandura was a famous psychologist. Also
he was Canadian. Fortunately he worked at Stanford University in California so we
won't hold that against him.
But he was curious to know how we learn. Specifically
whether or not we learn just through observing other people's actions.
This makes the question of whether or not playing
video games that are violent or watching violent movies
can truly cause one to be more violent.
Let's get into this.
See Bandura
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ran a number of experiments to try and answer that question.
His experiments were run with something called a Bobo doll (beep beep sound) - kind of like this.
It's like a big inflatable doll that when you hit it it goes down to the ground and
then it comes right back up again so you can hit it again.
He ran these experiments a lot with adults punching this Bobo doll (beep beep sound) and beating it up.
What he would do is he would film the adults beating up the Bobo doll (beep beep). And they would take it
and they would punch it, hit it with hammers and things like that.
My assistant Simmons has volunteered to reenact this video for you.
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then what he would do is he would take children and they would watch the film
of these adults beating up the Bobo doll (beep beep sound). He wanted to see if this would have any
effect on how the children would behave.
Then he would take those children and he would put them in a room with all these toys,
including a Bobo doll (beep beep sound), to see what would happen. And guess what?
The kids went right over to the Bobo doll (beep beep sound) and they started beating it up and
hitting it with hammers and kicking it and punching it and doing all the things
that they saw the adults doing on the film. Well this was
just revolutionary because what it showed was
is that children could learn through watching what other people do.
It also proved that watching violence on film
would cause a child to become violent, right?
mmmmmmm
Well he got a lot of criticism for that because
what a lot of people said was that if the child did not know what a Bobo
doll (beep beep sound) was before they saw the film
then of course when they get into a room with a Bobo doll (beep beep sound) they didn't know what to do
with it before seeing the film and they would go ahead and punch the Bobo doll (beep beep sound) and beat the Bobo doll (beep beep sound) up
the way that they saw the adults doing it. So he took that into consideration
and he did the experiment again. He had different children come in and he
would have them watch the film of the adults beating up the Bobo doll (beep beep sound).
Then he would take those children and he would put them in a play room with other children.
And guess what he found.
The children who had watched the film were significantly more violent in their play
with other children.
(scuffling and punching sounds)
There was no Bobo doll (beep beep sound) around.
And yet the children were much more violent.
Thus proving that yes, by watching violence, it does translate
into becoming more violent in other aspects of our lives.
We showed our reenactment video to a number of individuals to see how it will
affect how they treat Bobo dolls.
They would often adapt their violence and choose tools to use.
We see here
the use of a book.
We see here the use of an umbrella.
Here's someone who uses a dumbbell.
What this also shows is the greater concept of what is called modeling. Bandura coined the term modeling
to describe when we are able to watch other people do something and then
they serve as a model for
our own behavior. Take role models for instance. Role models are everywhere.
Children use role models in order to know how to behave certain ways.
Tthey may see a role model as a parent, an older brother.
They may see a role model as a sports figure or a celebrity.
(low voice) Gotta be careful there.
They might see role models in their teachers
or even their friends. Role models behave certain ways.
Children see that and they mimic that. When I was a kid my mom always told me
that I needed to
act better because my brother was watching me, which kinda creeped me out a little bit.
But it also explained why my brother didn't always make the same mistakes that I did.
He saw me get in trouble for the things that I did and he would modify his behavior
to do the same things I did without getting caught. He also was a little bit
smarter than I was
Anyway this concept of modeling is extremely important when it comes to our
everyday lives.
We look at different things. We look at different people and we learn how to
behave. We learn how to perform different functions.
Modeling is everywhere. We use models every day to learn how to do many different
things, like
putting our quarter in an arcade machine or building a birdhouse or
learning how to eat a cake.
Awww. Cake.
Anyway, the point is when we look at other people we learn how to do certain
things and use them as models
for our own behavior. Which also explains why when we play violent video games we
may not want to kill our friends but we may want to punch them in the face. (screaming sound)
Let's have a seat.
Albert Bandura became so famous because of his Bobo doll
experiment that people could not even remember his name.
They just called him the Bobo doll guy.
Now that was a legacy to remember. Til next time...
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aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!! !