Social Psychological Explanations of Aggression: Frustration- Aggression Hypothesis

Question 1

What did Dollard state that the frustration aggression hypothesis was?

Answer 1

• FAH states that frustration always leads to aggression and aggression is always the result of frustration.
• Believed that aggressive drives are like other basic drives such as hunger & thirst so we engage in aggressive behaviour in order to reduce our aggressive drive

This hypothesis is based on the psychodynamic approach of catharsis, meaning releasing energy or aggression

Question 2

What did Dollard et al believe about aggressive drives?

Answer 2

• Believed that aggressive drives are governed by external factors in the social world which block our attempt to reach a goal
• They suggested that when we are working towards some goals, anything that blockes our efforts to reach it (mostly external factors) will lead to our becoming frustrated.
• Frustration then arouses an aggressive drive which is only relieved by behaving in an aggressive way

Question 3

What did the frustration aggression hypothesis recongise?

Answer 3

• 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. economic situtuation etc
• The cause may be too powerful & we risk punishment by aggressing against it
• The cause may just be unavaliable at the time

Meaning our aggression is displaced onto an alternative

Question 4

What are the two types of catharsis in the frustration-aggression hypothesis?

Answer 4

• Sublimation- Using our aggression in acceptable activites such as sport
• Displacement- Directing our aggression outwards onto someone or something else, (maybe something that is inferior or weaker)

Both of these are defence mechanisms to defend the ego

Question 5

What was the weapon effect and how does it link to the frustration aggression hypothesis?

Answer 5

Berkowitz:
- Conducted a series of experiments looking at various types of stimuli that have aggressive cue- values
- He found that when a ppt (in a lab) is angry (caused by recieving a number of electric shocks) & is then in the prescence of an environmental stimuli which has an aggressive cue value e.g. weapon they were more likely to exhibit aggression (give a high number of shocks) than if they were in the prescence of something neutral e.g. tennis racket

Question 6

What did Berkowitz find in his weapon effect study?

Answer 6

• That the number of shocks given when the guns were present was 6.07, compared to 4.67 when no guns were present

Question 7

What research was conducted into the frustration-aggression hypothesis?

Answer 7

Russel Green
Procedure:
- Male university students completed a jigsaw puzzle, their level of frustration was experimentally manipulated in one of three ways.
- For some ppts the puzzle was impossible to solve
- For others they ran out of time because another student in the room (a confederate) kept interferring
- For third group, confederate insulted the participant as they failed to solve the puzzle
- All the ppts later had the opportunity to give the confederate elcectric shocks

Question 8

What were the findings of Russel Greens research into the frustration aggression hypothesis?

Answer 8

• The insulted ppts gave the strongest shocks on averge, followed by the interfered group, then the impossible task ppts
• All three groups selected more intense shocks than a (non-frustrated) control group

Question 9

Give one strength of the frustration aggression hypothesis.

Answer 9

• OS: Is research support into the hypothesis
• Meta analysis of 49 studies of displaced aggression that investigated situations in which aggressive behaviour had to be directed against a different person or target than the one that casued the frustration
• Overall the researchers found that displacement is a reliable phenomenon as in the studies, ppts who were provoked but unable to retaliate directly against the source of their frustration were significantly more likely to aggress against an innocent party in comparison to people who were not provoked
• Therefore displacement seems to be the main paradigm to investigate the frustration aggression hypothesis

Question 10

Give one limitation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 10

• OL: Is research showing that aggression may not be cathartic
• Bushman (2002)
• Found that ppts who vented their anger by repeatedly hitting a punch bag became more aggressive rather than less
• Doing nothing was more effective at reducing aggression than venting
• Bushman believed that 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

Question 11

Evaluate Bushmans research.

Answer 11

• Bushmans study is highly reliable due to the dense amount of material he studied as well as the sample size
• But, it does not consider the fact that Bushman may have only retrieved info that would have gone along w his theory (researcher bias)
• Reducing reliability of his theory.

Question 12

Give another limitation of the frustration aggression hypothesis.

Answer 12

• OL: Is that the link between frustration & aggression is complex
• V early on into research into the frustration aggression hypothesis it became clear that frustration does not always lead to aggression
• & that aggression can occur without frustration
• Someone who is frustrated may behave in a range of different ways rather than being aggressive same goes w someone who behaves aggressively.

This suggests that the frustration- aggression hypothesis is inadequate because it only explains how aggression arises in some situations but not in others