Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura is a psychologist who studied aggression in adolescents. I read this in one of the readings we had to do for teaching certification, it's interesting:

One of Bandura's most famous studies was with the bobo doll. A bobo doll is an inflatable plastic balloon that can be used like a punching bag. It has a weight in the bottom to make it stand back up every time it is knocked down. Films were made of a woman punching, sitting on, hitting with a small hammer, and kicking a bobo doll while saying, "sockeroo." The film was then shown to kindergarten age children. After viewing the film, the children were sent to a playroom where there was a bobo doll and a few hammers too. Bandura noted the children imitated what the woman had done in the film. Even when many variables were changed such as the appearance of the bobo doll or even replacing the bobo doll with a live clown, the children still behaved the same. In other words, the children were modeling what they had seen in the film.