Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis

The Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis and its Modifications

The Yale group took care to define frustration clearly, not as an emotional reaction but as a condition interfering with the attainment of an anticipated goal. Aggression, in turn, was regarded as a behavioral sequence whose goal was the injury of the person to whom it was directed. The team then went on to contend not only that every frustration produces an urge to aggression but also that every aggressive act presupposes the existence of frustration. Few psychologists today accept both parts of this broad-ranging formulation. Moderating the first proposition in the Yale group's sweeping analysis, in 1948 Neal Miller acknowledged that people prevented from reaching an expected goal might well have a variety of reactions, not only aggressive ones. Nevertheless, he argued that the nonaggressive responses to the frustration will tend to weaken, and the instigation to aggression strengthen, as the thwarting continues. The second part of the formulation, stating that all aggression is ultimately traceable to some prior interference with goal attainment, is largely disregarded these days. It is now widely recognized that an attack can at times be carried out in hope of fulfilling some nonaggressive desire, such as for greater approval by one's social group. And so, rather than having been thwarted frequently, some highly aggressive people might have learned that their assaults are likely to bring nonaggressive rewards.

Critiques of the Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis

The 1939 monograph quickly captured the attention of many other social scientists and prompted the publication of a number of critiques basically insisting that an interference with goal attainment produces an aggressive urge only under special circumstances. Many of these objections have essentially been taken up nowadays by appraisal theorists, those psychologists who maintain that what specific emotion is experienced in a given situation depends virtually entirely on just how the situation is understood (appraised). In the case of anger (and presumably affective aggression as well), some of these writers contend that the goal blockage has to be perceived as a threat to the ego if it is to generate an inclination to aggression. Appraisal theorizing has also frequently proposed other restrictions—for example, that there will not be a desire to hurt some target unless an external agent is regarded as responsible for the thwarting, and/or the interference is perceived as improper, and/or the obstruction can be removed (i.e., the situation is controllable).

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