Nature/nurture debate
The nature vs. nurture debate is about which behavioral aspects result from either learning or genetics. Bandura’s argument is correct because humans do learn by observation. From a young age, children grow up while imitating what grown-ups are doing. Eventually, the children adopt such behavior as it is what they are exposed to. People surround children in any given society, and children learn from such people through observing and Imitation (Wang, Williamson, & Meltzoff, 2015, p. 01). Such people could be parents, teachers, actors, and peers. The people surrounding a child profoundly influence the child’s behavior in distinct life stages. For example, a child born to drunk and emotionally withdrawn parents is likely to become either a drunkard or anti-social when grown.
Another example is a boy born to an abusive father who can turn out to be violent in the future, and a girl born in the same situation grows up to accept violence as a normal part of life. Observation makes children grow up to be what they saw. For instance, girls tend to acquire feminine traits, and boys gain masculinity traits due to observation.
Girls often imitate female figures close to them, and so do boys to male characters. For example, a girl raised playing with dolls, if told she is caring, is likely to turn out to be caring in the future. Children observe older persons and imitate what they see happening.
The Bobo experiment brings out how aggressive conduct in a community influences children. How an adult behaves attracts children’s attention, making them respond to the same and act similarly. Children are intelligent beings who visualize what they see and take it to be the correct thing. The children thus imitate observed behavior and feel the need to practice it. Where a child likes the adult, they are even more likely to imitate aggressive behavior. Society plays a significant role in how children turn out because if an adult affirms what a child is doing, the child takes that as the right thing. However, if an adult condemns a child’s behavior, the child will take it to mean what they did is wrong and will cease doing it.
Flaws in the Bobo experiment
There are significant flows omitted by the Bobo doll experiment. One such flow is exposing children to aggressive behavior for a few minutes. The results, therefore, cannot be conclusive because the learning concept requires consistency to take shape and is often not a one-day exposure. One can argue that the experiment was designed to manipulate children’s behavior to act aggressively. As such, the children’s aggression was invoked for purposes of the s. The Bobo doll experience involved boys and girls from the same nursery school. As such, one may question whether the results apply to a more extensive, diverse population. Also, the number of groups used in Bandura’s experiment was minimal, and this could mean he created room for error on a human difference basis. The experiment also involved an isolated situation as it was on one child with one adult basis. Such a scenario is unlikely to happen outside the test. The experiment did not meet the conditions experienced in everyday life because, in real life, children have both adults and minors as role models, not just one adult. Isolation could have led the children in the experiment to depend on the one adult model, which could invalidate the given results. Children may have imitated the aggressive behavior as they thought it was okay or wanted to please the emulating adults. Thus, the results could mean children’s desire for praise and not an aggression possibility, influenced the outcome. In any case, Bandura’s idea of involving both boys and girls’ models to show aggression was right, as it did away with gender being a factor of children adopting aggressive behavior.
Implication where children learn by Imitation
There is a negative implication where children learn through observation and Imitation in society. The impact is that the children may be exposed to negative behavior, which has no benefit to their lives. For example, gender roles tend to be assigned to children and rule out girls as feminine and boys as masculine. Gender roles negatively impact the children as they limit the children from participating in activities assigned to the other gender. Therefore, imitation limits society’s opportunities as girls are likely to withdraw from partaking some economic careers that are automatically assumed to be for boys, for instance, STEM-related fields. Imitation further puts children in trouble where negative behavior is concerned. Children who grow up in a society that struggles with criminality issues have trouble with the law when they grow up as they imitate such a lifestyle. Bandura was right since children who observe aggressive behavior can imitate it, given an opportunity (Lansford, 2016, p. 01). Children learn a lot about the world from how others act. Imitation also has its advantages as children can learn positive behavior. Even where acts are not well understood, children can decipher a deeper meaning. Social routines in a community can lead to maintaining practice across generations and create progress opportunities.