Research
Watching a fight may change the brain before the first punch
Earth.com · By Sanjana Gajbhiye ·
The Brief
- Earth.com reports that watching a fight may change the brain before the first punch.
- The article recalls Albert Bandura's Bobo doll studies, in which young children who saw an adult act aggressively toward an inflatable doll later behaved that way themselves.
- Psychologists, the article says, treat watching as a form of social learning, partly because of those studies.
Why it matters
If observing aggression alters brain activity before any physical act, it bears on how psychologists understand social learning and the effects of watching violence.
Who’s affected
- psychology and neuroscience researchers
- readers interested in how observed violence affects behaviour
- #neuroscience
- #social learning
- #aggression
- #psychology
- #observational learning
More than 60 years ago, Albert Bandura showed young children an adult behaving aggressively toward an inflatable doll, and the children went on to behave that way themselves. Thanks in part to those Bobo doll studies, psychologists treat watching as a form of social learning…