frustration-aggression hypothesis
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What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
The frustration-aggression hypothesis, introduced in 1939 by Yale psychologists including John Dollard, proposed that frustration leads to aggression. The original hypothesis was later modified to suggest that frustration can lead to various responses, not just aggression, and that other activities could reduce aggressive responses.
The hypothesis has been criticized for being too rigid and overgeneralized. It was later modified by Leonard Berkowitz, who suggested that frustration creates a predisposition for aggression to the extent that it elicits negative emotions. In intergroup relations, this hypothesis explains stereotyping, prejudice, and hostility, where the theory of scapegoating suggests that aggression is displaced onto a socially sanctioned victim group to provide cathartic relief.
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How does frustration lead to aggression according to this hypothesis?
According to the frustration-aggression hypothesis, frustration, or the blocking of goal-directed behavior, creates a predisposition to behave aggressively. Frustration is an aversive state that elicits negative emotions, which, in turn, can provoke violent responses.
Leonard Berkowitz suggested that aversive experiences produce negative emotions, feelings, thoughts, and memories of past reactions to negative events, automatically leading to a fight-or-flight response. The choice between fighting and fleeing depends on the intensity of the negative emotion and the interpretation of the situation.
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Who first introduced the frustration-aggression hypothesis in psychology?
The frustration-aggression hypothesis was first introduced in 1939 by a group of Yale University psychologists, including John Dollard, Leonard Doob, Neal Miller, O.H. Mowrer, and Robert Sears. In their monograph, Frustration and Aggression, they integrated findings and ideas from sociology, anthropology, and psychology, using behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. The hypothesis became a highly influential explanation of aggressive behavior in social science history.
The group later modified the hypothesis in 1941, suggesting frustration could lead to varied responses, with aggression as just one possibility. Neal E. Miller and John Dollard's research indicated that behavior patterns were the result of modifying socially or biologically derived drives through reinforcement and conditioning.
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What situations might cause frustration and lead to aggression?
The frustration-aggression hypothesis suggests that aggression can result from the frustration of goals. While the initial hypothesis was criticized for being too rigid, later modifications recognized that not all interferences lead to frustration. Arbitrary, unfair, or unjustified interferences are more likely to cause frustration and, potentially, aggression.
Experiences that create negative emotions and feelings, along with memories of past negative events, can also predispose individuals to behave aggressively. Whether this leads to a "fight-or-flight" response depends on the intensity of the negative emotion and how the situation is interpreted. Accumulated sources of frustration, such as those experienced during an economic crisis, may lead groups to direct their aggression toward a convenient social target, like a minority group.
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Are there factors that can prevent aggression when someone is frustrated?
The frustration-aggression hypothesis suggests that frustration can lead to aggression, but certain factors can prevent this outcome. Critics of the original hypothesis noted that not all interference leads to frustration; only illegitimate or unjustified interference evokes frustration.
Later modifications to the hypothesis indicated that frustration might lead to many different responses, not just aggression. Responses to frustration, like vigorous exercise, could reduce the aggressive response. American social psychologist Leonard Berkowitz proposed that frustration leads to aggression only if it elicits negative emotions. Also, negative emotions and thoughts can lead to either a fight-or-flight response, with the choice depending on the intensity of the emotion and the situation.
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How has the frustration-aggression hypothesis been expanded or challenged by later research?
Later research has expanded and challenged the frustration-aggression hypothesis, addressing its theoretical rigidity and overgeneralization.
Criticism and Modifications
The original hypothesis did not distinguish between hostile and instrumental forms of aggression. Critics, such as Abraham Maslow, also challenged the idea that all interference evokes frustration, suggesting only illegitimate interference leads to frustration. Leonard Berkowitz proposed that frustration creates a predisposition to aggression to the extent that it elicits negative emotions, with aversive experiences producing negative emotions that lead to fight-or-flight responses. The choice between fight and flight depends on the intensity of the negative emotion, as well as on the subjective appraisal and interpretation of the situation.
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frustration-aggression hypothesis, psychological explanation of aggressive behaviour as stemming from the frustration of goals. The hypothesis was applied in studies of scapegoating and hate crimes, which indicated that as sources of frustration accumulate—during an economic crisis, for example—frustrated groups may unleash their aggression on a convenient social target, often a minority group. Later research suggested, however, that the connection between economic conditions and hate crimes is more elusive than frustration-aggression researchers once assumed.
Background and assumptions
The frustration-aggression hypothesis was introduced by a group of Yale University psychologists—John Dollard, Leonard Doob, Neal Miller, O.H. Mowrer, and Robert Sears—in an important monograph, Frustration and Aggression (1939), in which they integrated ideas and findings from several disciplines, especially sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Their work was notable for its eclectic use of psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and Marxism. It became one of the most influential explanations of aggressive behaviour in the history of social science.
The hypothesis was soon modified by the Yale group, however, and in 1941 it was proposed that frustration might lead to many different responses, only one of which is aggression. Whereas the original formulation explained the lack of overt aggressive behaviour in certain situations in terms of inhibition due to the fear of punishment (which would not diminish the aggressive drive), a subsequent version of the hypothesis made clear that some responses to frustration (e.g., vigorous exercise) could reduce the invoked aggressive response.
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It is important to point out that Dollard and his colleagues believed that their account of frustration and aggression was valid for human as well as nonhuman (i.e., animal) actors and for groups as well as individuals. That is, one should expect aggressive inclinations to result whenever a person or animal experiences frustration.
Application to intergroup relations
In the realm of intergroup relations, the frustration-aggression hypothesis was used to shed light on the dynamics of stereotyping, prejudice, and out-group hostility. The theory of scapegoating is probably the most well-known application of the frustration-aggression hypothesis to the study of prejudice.
Drawing in part on Freudian concepts of displacement, projection, and catharsis, the scapegoating theory held that once frustration and the impetus for aggressive behaviour have occurred, it makes relatively little difference who receives the brunt of the violence. In some cases, aggression naturally takes the form of retaliation against the initial source of frustration. In other cases, situational constraints can prevent a person from being able to react against the actual source of frustration (such as when the frustration was caused by a very powerful person or group). In still other cases, such as natural disasters, there may be no one to blame, but the frustration can still produce aggressive inclinations.
According to the theory, the displacement of aggression onto a socially sanctioned (i.e., convenient) victim group serves several purposes. First, and most important, it channels the expression of aggressive impulses and creates cathartic relief once the aggression has been released. Second, it is socially undesirable to behave violently toward others in the absence of justification, but prejudicial attitudes can be used to justify (or rationalize) the expression of hostility. In that way, members of disadvantaged groups can be blamed for their own plight as targets of hostility and prejudice. Finally, in accordance with psychoanalytic thought, the theory of scapegoating suggests that victim blaming is exacerbated by the projection of (typically unconscious) guilt that frustrated parties feel as a result of their own prejudice and violent activity.
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Stereotyping, according to the American psychologists Gordon Allport and Bernard Kramer, is another manifestation of rationalization tendencies. Stereotypes are effective rationalization devices that serve to legitimize hostility against a whole social group. Consequences of the scapegoating dynamic include overgeneralization of stereotypical traits to an entire social group and the exaggeration of similarities among group members, especially with respect to stereotypical qualities. In addition, because stereotypes are ingrained in the culture, they tend to signal which social groups are presumably appropriate targets for relieving individual frustration.
Criticism and modifications
The frustration-aggression hypothesis exerted a very strong influence on decades of research. Nevertheless, the hypothesis was severely criticized on the grounds of theoretical rigidity and overgeneralization; clearly, it was necessary to limit the scope of the hypothesis to establish its validity. For instance, the initial hypothesis failed to distinguish hostile forms of aggression, in which the actor’s goal is to inflict harm, and instrumental forms of aggression, in which aggression is simply a means to attain other goals (such as control or domination). This criticism can be dealt with rather easily by confining the frustration-aggression hypothesis to cases of hostile aggression alone.
Critics also challenged the premise that any interference with ongoing goal-directed behaviour would evoke frustration. According to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow and others, legitimate (or justified) interferences do not necessarily produce frustration. Only forms of interference that seem illegitimate (or arbitrary or otherwise unjustified), they argued, should lead to frustration. Research indicated that aggressive behaviour is indeed a prevalent response to what are viewed as deliberate and unfair efforts to interfere with an individual’s goal-attainment opportunities.
Finally, the nature of the connection between perceived frustration and the display of violence also turned out to be more complicated than Dollard and his collaborators realized. In the most empirically successful modification of the original frustration-aggression hypothesis, the American social psychologist Leonard Berkowitz suggested that frustration is a psychologically aversive state that can create a predisposition to behave aggressively. According to Berkowitz, frustration will lead to aggression to the extent that it elicits negative emotions. Moreover, frustration is only one form of unpleasant negative affect that can provoke violent responses.
The general idea was that aversive experiences produce negative emotions and feelings, as well as related thoughts and memories of past reactions to negative events. Berkowitz noted that such negative emotions and thoughts lead automatically to the fight-or-flight response. The choice between “fight” and “flight” was thought to depend on the intensity of the negative emotion as well as on the subjective appraisal and interpretation of the situation.