The Bobo Doll Experiment was performed in 1961 by Albert Bandura, to test his belief that all human behaviour was learned, through social imitation and copying, rather than inherited through genetic factors.

To try and prove that children would copy an adult role model's behaviour, he separated participants into groups. One was exposed to an adult showing aggressive behaviour towards a Bobo doll; another was exposed to a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll; and the third formed a control group with no exposure to an adult at all.

Children were sent to a room individually with various toys including the Bobo doll. They were told not to play with the toys as they were reserved for other children. This was designed to increase the levels of frustration. What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviour towards the Bobo doll themselves, while the other groups showed little aggressive behaviour. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, it was boys that showed a far higher tendency to mimic the physically aggressive behaviour of the adult.