Nine Lenses
Contents of this guide

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Sources and source checks

About 11 minutes to read

How this guide was checked

Hock's chapter was used only to get oriented. Every number, quotation and procedural detail in Sections A and E was then checked against the original 1961 paper, including its two tables. Later studies were checked against their original papers where these could be read in full, and against abstracts or reliable summaries where they could not. Where a claim could not be verified, the guide either leaves it out or says so.

Corrections to Hock's account

If you use Hock, note these differences from the original paper. Each one is explained on the page linked.

  • The control-group scores for copied physical aggression are swapped between boys and girls. (Findings)
  • Figures such as "38.2" and "12.7" are sums of two group averages, not averages; totals such as "270 violent acts" are not counts. (Findings)
  • Hypothesis 3 is explained by reinforcement history in the paper, not by identification. (Question and hypotheses)
  • The calm-model results are not simply "inconclusive": the calm male model reduced aggression, the calm female model did not. (Findings)
  • The paper says the sex-of-child prediction was "only partially confirmed", not "strongly supported". (Findings)
  • Children were matched individually in triplets, not by group averages; the experimenter stayed in the test room; the test-room Bobo doll was 3 feet tall. (Method)
  • The 1963 film study did not find live > film > cartoon, and had no calm-model group. (Why it matters)
  • Bandura (1965) did not find more copying after the model was rewarded than after no consequences; its key finding is the difference between learning and performance. (Why it matters)
  • The 1972 follow-up study is by Hanratty, O'Neal and Sulzer, not "O'Neil". The study with a person dressed as a clown is Hanratty, Liebert, Morris and Fernandez (1969).

The original study

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 575-582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925. Read in full, with both tables, via Classics in the History of Psychology. Page numbers follow the page markers in that transcription. Obvious typing errors in the transcription, such as "pick up" for "picked up", are corrected silently in quotations.

Direct follow-ups by Bandura and colleagues

  • Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
  • Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963a). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66(1), 3-11. Read in full.
  • Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963b). Vicarious reinforcement and imitative learning. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(6), 601-607. Abstract and the authors' own summaries.
  • Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1(6), 589-595. Read in full.
  • Bandura, A., Grusec, J. E., & Menlove, F. L. (1967). Vicarious extinction of avoidance behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(1), 16-23.
  • Bandura, A. (1971). Social learning theory. General Learning Press.
  • Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Prentice-Hall.
  • Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall.
  • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.
  • Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.

Later research and commentary used in this guide

  • Adams, G., Dobles, I., Gómez, L. H., Kurtiş, T., & Molina, L. E. (2015). Decolonizing psychological science. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 213-238.
  • Archer, J. (2004). Sex differences in aggression in real-world settings: A meta-analytic review. Review of General Psychology, 8(4), 291-322.
  • Archer, J. (2009). Does sexual selection explain human sex differences in aggression? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32(3-4), 249-266.
  • Arnett, J. J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to become less American. American Psychologist, 63(7), 602-614.
  • Azrin, N. H., Hutchinson, R. R., & Hake, D. F. (1966). Extinction-induced aggression. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 9(3), 191-204.
  • Baer, D. M., Peterson, R. F., & Sherman, J. A. (1967). The development of imitation by reinforcing behavioral similarity to a model. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 10(5), 405-416.
  • Baillargeon, R. H., et al. (2007). Gender differences in physical aggression: A prospective population-based survey of children before and after 2 years of age. Developmental Psychology, 43(1), 13-26.
  • Berenbaum, S. A., & Hines, M. (1992). Early androgens are related to childhood sex-typed toy preferences. Psychological Science, 3(3), 203-206.
  • Bhatia, S. (2018). Decolonizing psychology: Globalization, social justice, and Indian youth identities. Oxford University Press. (Print date given by the publisher as 2017.)
  • Borden, R. J. (1975). Witnessed aggression: Influence of an observer's sex and values on aggressive responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(3), 567-573.
  • Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786 (2011).
  • Bryan, J. H., & Test, M. A. (1967). Models and helping: Naturalistic studies in aiding behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6(4), 400-407.
  • Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724-731.
  • Caspi, A., et al. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science, 297(5582), 851-854.
  • Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66(3), 710-722.
  • Ferguson, C. J. (2015). Do angry birds make for angry children? A meta-analysis of video game influences on children's and adolescents' aggression, mental health, prosocial behavior, and academic performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(5), 646-666.
  • Ferguson, C. J. (2020, March 21). Did the Bobo doll studies teach us about aggression? Psychology Today (blog). Source of the Tedeschi and Quigley quotation used in this guide.
  • Freud, A. (1937). The ego and the mechanisms of defence. Hogarth Press.
  • Fry, D. P. (1988). Intercommunity differences in aggression among Zapotec children. Child Development, 59(4), 1008-1019.
  • Galanaki, E., & Malafantis, K. D. (2022). Albert Bandura's experiments on aggression modeling in children: A psychoanalytic critique. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 988877.
  • Gauntlett, D. (1998). Ten things wrong with the "effects model". In R. Dickinson, R. Harindranath, & O. Linné (Eds.), Approaches to audiences. Arnold. Read in the author's 2006 version.
  • Gergen, K. J. (1973). Social psychology as history. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26(2), 309-320.
  • Grusec, J. E. (1992). Social learning theory and developmental psychology: The legacies of Robert Sears and Albert Bandura. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 776-786.
  • Haggbloom, S. J., et al. (2002). The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Review of General Psychology, 6(2), 139-152.
  • Hanratty, M. A., Liebert, R. M., Morris, L. W., & Fernandez, L. E. (1969). Imitation of film-mediated aggression against live and inanimate victims. Proceedings of the 77th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. Known through Liebert and Baron's (1971) summary.
  • Hanratty, M. A., O'Neal, E., & Sulzer, J. L. (1972). Effect of frustration upon imitation of aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(1), 30-34.
  • Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83.
  • Hickok, G. (2014). The myth of mirror neurons. W. W. Norton.
  • Hilgard, J., Engelhardt, C. R., & Rouder, J. N. (2017). Overstated evidence for short-term effects of violent games on affect and behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 143(7), 757-774.
  • Horner, V., & Whiten, A. (2005). Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees and children. Animal Cognition, 8(3), 164-181.
  • Huesmann, L. R., & Bachrach, R. S. (1986). Differential effects of television violence on kibbutz and city children [Conference paper]. ERIC ED293520.
  • Huesmann, L. R., & Eron, L. D. (Eds.). (1986). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-national comparison. Erlbaum.
  • Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C.-L., & Eron, L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children's exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 201-221.
  • Lansford, J. E., et al. (2005). Physical discipline and children's adjustment: Cultural normativeness as a moderator. Child Development, 76(6), 1234-1246.
  • Laskin, A. (2013). The Indian Psychological Association, the birth of the modern discipline and "the destiny of one nation," 1905-1947. Modern Intellectual History, 10(2), 415-436.
  • Leyens, J.-P., Camino, L., Parke, R. D., & Berkowitz, L. (1975). Effects of movie violence on aggression in a field setting as a function of group dominance and cohesion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(2), 346-360.
  • Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). Harper & Row.
  • Mathur, M. B., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2019). Finding common ground in meta-analysis "wars" on violent video games. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(4), 705-708.
  • Minturn, L., & Hitchcock, J. T. (1966). The Rajputs of Khalapur, India. Wiley.
  • Nielsen, M., & Tomaselli, K. (2010). Overimitation in Kalahari Bushman children and the origins of human cultural cognition. Psychological Science, 21(5), 729-736.
  • Nielsen, M., Haun, D., Kärtner, J., & Legare, C. H. (2017). The persistent sampling bias in developmental psychology. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 162, 31-38.
  • Orne, M. T. (1962). On the social psychology of the psychological experiment. American Psychologist, 17(11), 776-783.
  • Paisley, M. B. (1972). Social policy research and the realities of the system: Violence done to TV research. Stanford University, Institute for Communication Research (ERIC ED062764).
  • Pasterski, V., et al. (2007). Increased aggression and activity level in 3- to 11-year-old girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior, 52(3), 368-374.
  • Plomin, R., Foch, T. T., & Rowe, D. C. (1981). Bobo clown aggression in childhood: Environment, not genes. Journal of Research in Personality, 15, 331-342. Known through Rhee and Waldman (2002); not read directly.
  • Rhee, S. H., & Waldman, I. D. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies. Psychological Bulletin, 128(3), 490-529.
  • Rogers, C. R., & Skinner, B. F. (1956). Some issues concerning the control of human behavior. Science, 124(3231), 1057-1066.
  • Rogers, C. R. (1947). Some observations on the organization of personality. American Psychologist, 2, 358-368.
  • Rogoff, B., Mistry, J., Göncü, A., & Mosier, C. (1993). Guided participation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58(8).
  • Rossiter, M. W. (1993). The Matthew Matilda effect in science. Social Studies of Science, 23(2), 325-341.
  • Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (1991). Hum Log story: From concept to after-effects. Communication 2000 AD, 17-25. Indian Institute of Mass Communication.
  • Sinha, D. (1965). Integration of modern psychology with Indian thought. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 5(1), 6-17.
  • Sinha, D. (1989). Research in psychology in the developing world: An overview. Psychology and Developing Societies, 1(1), 105-126.
  • Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. Macmillan.
  • Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior. (1972). Television and growing up: The impact of televised violence. US Government Printing Office.
  • Tedeschi, J. T., & Quigley, B. M. (1996). Limitations of laboratory paradigms for studying aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 1(2), 163-177.
  • Tremblay, R. E. (2008). Understanding development and prevention of chronic physical aggression. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363(1503), 2613-2622.
  • Weisstein, N. (1968/1993). Psychology constructs the female. Reprinted in Feminism & Psychology, 3(2), 194-210.
  • Whiting, B. B., & Edwards, C. P. (1973). A cross-cultural analysis of sex differences in the behavior of children aged three through 11. Journal of Social Psychology, 91(2), 171-188.
  • Wiegman, O., Kuttschreuter, M., & Baarda, B. (1992). A longitudinal study of the effects of television viewing on aggressive and prosocial behaviours. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31(2), 147-164.

Indian data and policy

  • International Institute for Population Sciences & ICF. (2021). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-21: India, Volume I. IIPS.
  • Kacker, L., Varadan, S., & Kumar, P. (2007). Study on child abuse: India 2007. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.
  • Nanda, P., Gautam, A., Verma, R., Khanna, A., Khan, N., Brahme, D., Boyle, S., & Kumar, S. (2014). Study on masculinity, intimate partner violence and son preference in India. International Center for Research on Women.
  • National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. (n.d., about 2010). Guidelines for eliminating corporal punishment in schools. NCPCR. The document carries no date; it describes the Right to Education Act as in force from 1 April 2010.
  • Ranade, A. D. (1998). The guru-shishya parampara: A broader view. Sangeet Natak, 129-130.
  • The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (Act 35 of 2009), Section 17.

Biographical sources

Stanford University's obituary of Albert Bandura (July 2021), and obituary records for Dorothea Ross (1923-2019).