The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

• According to the frustration-aggression hypothesis...

  • All aggression is caused by frustration
  • Aggression is caused by environmental factors
• What is frustration?

  Frustration is the negative feeling people experience when they are blocked from achieving their goals.
• What is catharsis?

  When a person behaves aggressively, they experience catharsis and their negative feelings disappear.
• What happens when we can’t direct our aggression at the person or thing that caused frustration?

  We direct our aggression towards someone or something else. - displacement
• Factors that affect the likelihood of a person behaving aggressively.

  1. Proximity of the goal
  2. Effectiveness of aggression
  3. Whether the scenario is justifiable
• Study support for the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis


  Pastore tested the justifiability of aggression, he found that ppts reported they were less aggressive if it was a justified scenario rather than unjustified.
• Support for the Frustration Aggression Hypothesis: Application


  The frustration-aggression hypothesis can be applied to understanding real-world situations, such as Prik's study. Priks found that Swedish football fans display more aggression when their team is performing worse than expected.
• Limitation of the Frustration-aggression hypothesis


  It suffers from beta bias

  It ignores real differences in aggression between genders