What little kids beating up "Bobo" dolls can teach us about the presidential nominations and Trump rallies

Kid shooting Bobo in the Badura experiments

First, if you have not seen the orginal films of the children studied by Albert Bandura, one of the pioneers of Social-Cognitive (Learning) Theory, you have got to see these!

For those of you unfamiliary with Bandura's work on observational learning, the essence of the theory is that we do not have to practice a behavior in order to learn about it.  In the famous aggression studies with children, Bandura dound that simply watching aggressive behavior performed by a research assistant through a window was enough to teach kids how to torture the plastic blow-up clown when they got the chance to do so.  The key to the finding, though, is that children were able to determine whether their behavior was going to be rewarded or punished, and they were much more likely to beat up the doll if they had observed a reward connected to the aggression (and if you have not yet watched the cute little girls wailing away on the doll, click on the above link; it is worth the few minutes of viewing).

So, how does this all relate to the campaign?  First, Donald Trump has learned through his rewards, (e.g., adultation at rallies, media saturation, votes, primary victories) that aggression and bullying pays off, and so he will not only continue to do it, he will do it in ways we cannot yet fully know. Until he loses a couple of contests that have no plausible alternate explanations (Cruz and Kasich home states, the oddness of the Iowa caucus, who cares about Mineesota, Alaska and Oklahoma anyway!), Trump will continue on the path of behavior that has rewarded him with his commanding current lead in the delegate count. So look for the "offense of the week" (well, maybe the "offense of the day") to continue, and to take turns in ways most of us cannot imagine.

But the spiral is even worse.  Trump's supporters are essentially modelling Trump himself, amping up the language, brazenly hassling people who don't seem to fit in, wearing tee-shirts and sporting signs that they would not necessarily want their loved ones to see firsthand, and getting aggressive with the press, protestors and anyone else that might please Trump.  And Trump feeds off this aggression.  And the spiral continues...

Even Marco Rubio's unwise decision to mimic Trump by mocking him in ways that are almost as childish as the original buyy in the race, can be understood through this lens: he probably assumed that since Trump is using insults to win, he could, too.  Alas, Rubio's record, reputation and notariety precluded him from taking advantage of, as I wrote earlier, the inoculation effect, and it hurt him instead.  And what did he do in response?  He changed his tune and stopped the aggression (remember, assumption of punishment reduced aggression with the kids in Bandura's experiments).  Of course, that did no good either.

The real lesson for Rubio is that modeling Obama was probably not a good idea either.  Rbio is no Obama; if he was, he would have realized that and waited another cycle before running for the White House.  Now he may have to become a Fox news contributor to make ends meet.  Good thing for Rubio we have crony conservatism!

How Does Trump Get Away With His Childishness? Answer: Inoculation!

So many topics to discuss, but one that has been percolating in my mind for the past three months relates to why, despite multiple quips and actions daily that are offensive to nearly every human imaginable (well, maybe not petulant, spoiled, narcissistic rich men who aren't bankers or hedge fund directors), has Trump's standing in the polls improved or remained strong?

For Pete's sake, he has even attacked the Pope (of course, the Pope started it)!

Well, I had to reach back into the recesses of my long-past graduate studies, which included a large body of research on social cognition, to remember a likely explanation: inoculation theory.   

Developed by William James McGuire (who taught for many years at Yale and passed away in 2007), inoculation theory borrows from medicine's use of vaccines to inoculate people against disease by injecting small amounts of the disease into us so that our body will develop the proper methods and resoruces for fighting a larger attack that might occur later on. 

A tribute to McGuire in a 2008 volume of The American Psychologist explained how it works in the area of social cognition: "belief immunization—that is, by exposing an individual to a relatively weak attack on a belief and allowing him or her to engage in counterargumentation..."

So, how does inoculation explain support for Trump in the minds of so many people--Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike (I will hope to address the cross-ideological support Trump may have later when I have more data and thought time)--who seem to support Trump even as they disagree with him?

Well, the practice of inoculation in politics is to provide a little information before people know the information is relevant to them (in experimental or applied political science, we might call this "pre-priming.").  Later, when there is information provided that is counter to that little information people had before, the mind kicks in to fight the dissonant information.  Without realizing it, an individual has cognitive antibodies to fight off the contrary argument.  But the key to inoculation theory in political communication is that the inoculating party provides counter arguments to the criticisms, which cues individuals to activate those cognitive antibodies.

For Trump, the "inoculation" is his lifelong obsession with his own success, encapsulated in what we now call his "branding." Just like the hepatitis booster my students at Providence College received over the past year, the inoculation took place over time. Everyone knows he's huuge! From his obsession with his name to his cheesy reality program, Trump has long been shooting cognitive inoculations into our brains, and we have received them with no idea what they might be used for...until now.

Then, once he starts his campaign, he simply has to be his created self (I say "created" because I still have hope there is a real human with some decency somewhere that could come up with the right psychiatric plan): the Howard Stern of American politics.  These insults and brazen acts of arrogance are then countered by his opponents, yet Trump seems to have a ceramic coating and the attacks slide right off him. (no more "Teflon," although I do think Trump may be toxic).

So, people are able to find all kinds of reasons for why, even though they do not like what he is saying, they will still support Trump. "He tells it like it is" and "We need to throw all the bums out; he's an outsider" are the most common, but not the only rationalizations used with these cognitive antibodies.

Jeb Bush. The pre-chained Chris Christie. Now Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney.  Maybe even John Oliver, Make Donald Drumpf Again campaign might actually be helping Trump.

There are other dynamics going on that explain this.  But I do think so many of us have been inoculated through Trump's career that trying to fight the disease by attacking the disease will not work.

I also think inoculation theory also explains the unusually negative impressions many people, including Democrats, have of Hillary Clinton.  We have been fed negative cognitive bits about her for so long (since 1991) that whatever she does to try and assuage concerns over her honesty are met with those now vigorous and numerous cognitive antibodies that remind us how untrustworthy she is, not matter what evidence may or may not exist.