Social-Psychological Explanations for Aggression: Frustration-Agression Hypothesis Flashcards
The original hypothesis
- John Dollard (1939) first formulated the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
- This states that frustration always leads to aggression, and aggression is always the result of frustration.
- Aggression is a psychological drive that we experience when our attempts to reach a goal are blocked by some external factor.
- This creates an aggressive drive, which leads to aggressive thoughts/behaviour.
- This removes the negative emotion, which is called catharsis (a psychodynamic concept).
- The aggression created by the frustration is satisfied, thereby reducing the drive and making further aggression less likely.
The F-A hypothesis
The F-A hypothesis recognises that aggression is not always expressed directly against the source of frustration, for three reasons:
- The cause of our frustration may be abstract (e.g., the economic situation).
- The cause may be too powerful, and we risk punishment by aggressing against it, e.g., the teacher who gave you a lower grade than you expected.
- The cause may just be unavailable at the time.
So, our aggression is deflected (or displaced) onto a non-abstract, weaker, and available alternative.
The weapon effect
- Even if we become angry, we still might not behave aggressively.
- Berkowitz (1989): frustration merely creates a readiness for aggression but the presence of aggressive cues in the environment make acting upon this much more likely, therefore, cues are an additional element of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
Berkowitz Weapon Effect Study:
- Participants were given real electric shocks by a confederate, creating anger and frustration.
- The participants later had the opportunity to give fake shocks to the confederate.
- The number of shocks was greater when there were two guns on a table compared to other conditions where there were no guns (average 6.07 versus 4.67).
- This weapon effect supports Berkowitz’s contention that the presence of aggressive environmental cues stimulates aggression.
Research on frustration-aggression
Geen (1968):
- University students (men) completed a jigsaw puzzle.
- Their level of frustration was experimentally manipulated in one of three ways.
- For some participants, the puzzle was impossible to solve.
- For others, they ran out of time because another student in the room (a confederate of the researcher) kept interfering.
- For a third group, the confederate insulted the participant as they failed to solve the puzzle.
- All participants later had the opportunity to give the confederate electric shocks.
- The insulted participants gave the strongest shocks on average, followed by the interfered group, then the impossible task participants.
- All three groups selected more intense shocks than a (non-frustrated) control group.
Evaluation
Research support
- One strength is research support for a key concept of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
- Marcus-Newhall et al. (2000) conducted a meta-analysis of 49 studies of displaced aggression.
- These studies investigated situations in which aggressive behaviour had to be directed against a ‘human target other than the one who caused the frustration’.
- Found that displaced aggression is a reliable phenomenon.
- Frustrated participants who were provoked but unable to retaliate directly against the source of their frustration were significantly more likely to aggress against an innocent party than people who were not provoked.
- This shows that frustration can lead to aggression against a weaker or more available target.
Role of catharsis
- One limitation is research showing that aggression may not be cathartic.
- Bushman (2002) found that participants who vented their anger by repeatedly hitting a punchbag became more aggressive.
- Doing nothing was more effective at reducing aggression than venting.
- According to Bushman, ‘The better people feel after venting, the more aggressive they are’
- This shows that a central assumption of the frustration-aggression hypothesis may not be valid.
Frustration-aggression link
- Another limitation is that the link between frustration and aggression is complex.
- Very early on in research into the frustration-aggression hypothesis it became clear that frustration does not always lead to aggression, and that aggression can occur without frustration.
- No automatic link between the two, someone who feels frustrated may behave in a range of different ways.
- Rather than being aggressive, they may instead be helpless or determined. Likewise, someone who behaves aggressively may do so for many reasons.
- Limited explanation: it only explains how aggression arises in some situations but not in others.
However, Berkowitz (1989) reformulated the initial hypothesis to take account of the above criticism.
- His negative affect theory argued that frustration is just one of many aversive stimuli that create negative feelings (affect) - others include loneliness, jealousy and pain.
- Aggressive behaviour is triggered by these negative feelings generally rather than by frustration specifically.
- The outcome of frustration can be a range of responses, only one of which is aggression. For example, you might feel frustrated at getting a poor essay grade and become despairing, anxious, determined, complacent or whatever.
- Therefore frustration (negative feelings) can form part of a wider explanation of what causes aggression.
Gun Control
- As Berkowitz (1989) said, ‘the finger pulls the trigger’. This means that ‘open carry’ in the US, where a gun is not concealed, does not cause violence in itself.
- Individuals are responsible for their use of weapons, even when they are frustrated.
- However, Berkowitz also said, ‘the trigger may be pulling the finger” so gun violence depends on the presence of cues.
- The open presence of a gun acts as a cue to aggressive behaviour, as shown by Berkowitz and LePage’s (1967) study.