frustration aggression

• What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis?

  Aggression is the result of blocked goals
• Dollard Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

  Dollard proposed the frustration-aggression hypothesis, a social-psychological theory that argues that aggression is always the outcome when we are prevented from achieving our goals.

  The frustration-aggression hypothesis is based on the psychodynamic concept of catharsis (releasing strong emotions).

  If our attempt to achieve a goal is blocked by an external factor, this leads to frustration, which creates an aggressive drive, leading to aggressive behaviour such as verbal outburst or physical violence.

  If the source of frustration is abstract, too powerful or unavailable at the time, the aggression is displaced onto a physical, weaker or available alternative.
• Green's study (1986) - AO3 strength

  Male university students were given a jigsaw puzzle. In 1 condition, the puzzle was difficult, in another they ran out of time due to a confederate interfering, and in the 3rd condition, the confederate was insulting them. In their 2nd task the ppts gave electric shocks to the confederate when they got something wrong on a task. They found the insulted ppts gave the strongest shocks but all three groups gave more intense shocks than the non-frustrated control group.
• Berkowitz - AO3 limitation


  Berkowitz conducted a lab study in which students were given electric shocks by a confederate to create frustration. They were then able to shock the confederate. There were two conditions, one with the presence of a weapon (guns) and one without. They found significantly fewer shocks were given in the weapons' absence condition. This supports his theory that aggressive environmental cues stimulate aggression and demonstrates that frustration alone doesn't cause aggression
• Limitation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis

  Aggression is not always prompted by frustration. For example, someone may find themselves in a threatening situation and opt to fight rather than flight. Others may cry, withdraw or avoid aggressive situations which means that frustration aggression theory is not applicable to all accounts of aggressive behaviour.