Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Evangelia Galanaki¹  Konstantinos D. Malafantis¹ 

[1] Department of Primary Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

关键词: Aggression;    modeling;    Children;    Bandura;    Psychoanalysis;    Identification with the Aggressor;    introjection of the aggressor;    Seduction;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2022.988877

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In a series of innovative experiments, Bandura (1925–2021), renowned PsychologyProfessor at Stanford University, USA, and his collaborators (e.g., Bandura and Huston,1961; Bandura et al., 1961, 1963; Bandura, 1965, 1969) showed that young childrenexposed to adults’ aggression tend to behave aggressively. In these experiments, childrenobserved adults, in vivo or in vitro, as well as cartoons, behaving aggressively towarda large, inflated doll (clown) named “Bobo doll”, for about 10 min. The findings ofthese studies are considered to support modeling, observational learning, or learningby imitation and provide evidence for Bandura’s social learning theory, which belongsto the behaviorism paradigm. In this paper, we offer a psychoanalytic critique of theseexperiments with the aim of shedding light on the unconscious processes of children’simitation of aggression. Although Bandura (1986) later formulated the so-called socialcognitive theory and focused on less observable processes (e.g., self-regulation, selfefficacy, beliefs, expectations), in presenting these early experiments he clearly opposedthe existing psychoanalytic interpretations of aggression.

【 授权许可】

CC BY