The frustration aggression hypothesis Flashcards
(12 cards)
What’s the main idea of the frustration aggression hypothesis?
Sees aggression being the consequence of frustration defined as ‘any event or stimulus that prevents an individual from attaining some goal and its accompanying reinforcing quality’
Who proposed the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
Dollard et al
What does the frustration-aggression model predict as a cause-effect relationship?
Aggression and catharsis (form of emotion release achieved by engaging in aggressive behaviours/thoughts about target
When does frustration increase?
When motivation to achieve a goal is very strong, we expect gratification and when there is nothing we can do about it
Who investigated justified and unjustified aggression? And what does this mean?
Pastore - mainly unjustified frustration that produces anger and aggression
Used example of a bus that went by and a bus that went by but displayed an out of service message, under this condition (justified frustration) participants expressed much lower levels of anger
What is displaced aggression?
People experience a drive to be aggressive towards the object of their frustration but it is often impossible or inappropriate to aggressively towards the source of frustration, as a result this is sometimes displaced
‘kicking the dog effect’ - have an impulse of aggression but cannot take it out on source of aggression, kick dog instead
Who proposed the revised frustration-aggression hypothesis? And what is it?
Berkowitz
frustration is only one of the many different types of unpleasant experience that can lead to aggression - these unpleasant experiences create a ‘negative effect’ in the individual - He suggests these experiences are the trigger for aggression, not frustration
What does Berkowitz suggest about unanticipated interference?
More likely to provoke an aggressive reaction than an anticipated interference because it is more unpleasant
What does the frustration-aggression conclude?
Nature of the frustration event is less important than how negative is the resulting affect
Why do social learning theorist sociologists argue that aggression is not an automatic consequence of frustration?
Bandura - aggression is only one possible explanation for aggression
Frustration produces only generalised arousal in the individual, and that social learning determine how arousal will influence behaviour
- People will engage in aggressive behaviour if it has been affective for them before/effective for others
- Individuals learn to produce aggressive behaviours
What is the issue with claiming frustration is sole cause of aggression?
Frustration is only one of a number of aversive events (others include pain, extreme temperatures and other noxious stimuli) that can lead to aggression
Reifman et al - as temperatures increased, so did the likelihood that pitchers would display aggressive behaviour towards the batters, with balls often thrown at 90mph - this does however support revised frustration aggression hypothesis that temperatures - temperatures are aversive stimuli that tend to make people angry and thus aggressive
What real world evidence is there to support the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
Priks - study of violent behaviour among Swedish football fans
Used teams’ changed positions in the league table as a measure of frustration and the number of objects thrown as a measure of aggression
When teams perform worse than their fans expected, its supporters threw more things into the pitch
A one position drop in league led to a 5% increase of unruly behaviours
