Bandura and his Bobo doll

There is a great deal to be learned from Bandura’s experiment about social learning. Comments such as “children are sponges” come to mind. The truth is that if children learn from all that they are exposed to, and are not provided with the appropriate guidance to productively process the information, children will be left with nothing but to act directly as they have seen, right or wrong. When initially exposed to something, even for adults, mimicry is the best way to get adjusted. For children however, almost everyhting is new. There is not any prior knowledge to be drawn from to determine how to react in a new situation. Also, I believe that there is something to be said for the concept of children being taught to respect adn listen to adults, shich admitedly would not factor in until a later age, but it should still be considered a potential factor in why children default to mimicking adults without question. It is also interesting to note that the children mimicked the complete stranger in the video. What does that then imply for a child who grows up in a home where he hears foul language all the time, or witnesses domestic violece regularly; it is no longer a stranger who is demonstrating activities. It has become the child’s very own parent to whom he or she has a much stronger connection. That is just a thought of possible rammifications implied by the existence fo thsi principle.