Page 30 - The Power to Change Anything

You’re an Influencer 19

plistic explanations. So he took a daring swing at the established
dogma and began an exodus toward a much more powerful
theory.
Seeing a rise in violence corresponding with the diffusion
of television, Bandura thought it worthwhile to examine
whether juveniles were learning violent behaviors by watching
TV characters smack, kick, and shoot one another. To explore
the effects of TV violence, Bandura and a team of graduate stu-
dents watched closely as nursery school children played in a
small room packed with toys—dolls, tiny stoves, balls, and so
forth. Among this tempting array of playthings was a “Bobo
doll”—a large plastic blow-up doll with a weight in the bottom.
If you punch the doll in the nose, it bounces right back so you
can punch it again.
Left to their own devices, children played with several of
the toys, moving from one to the next—occasionally giving
Bobo a punch or two. But what if researchers demonstrated
novel aggressive behavior for the children? Would kids learn
through simple observation? To answer this question, Bandura
showed a different group of children a short movie of a woman
modeling novel aggressive behavior. She pummeled the Bobo
doll with a mallet. She flung the plastic toy into the air, kicked
it repeatedly, and eventually sat on it and beat it. That seemed
novel enough.
The children who watched the film were then released one
at a time into the toy room. Would simple modeling influence
their behavior? You only have to watch the black-and-white
film segments taken of the experiment for a few seconds to
answer the question. A little girl wearing a dress—complete
with a 50s-style poofy petticoat—enters the room, digs through
the toys until she finds the mallet, and starts whaling on Bobo.
She and the dozens of other nursery school kids who followed
her demonstrate all the aggressive behavior they had seen
modeled—including inventive new forms of aggression such
as beating the doll with a cap gun. In Bandura’s own words,