428 CHAPTER 11
FRUSTRATION Frustration occurs when people are blocked or prevented from achiev-
ing a desired goal or fulfilling a perceived need. As a stressor, frustration can be external,
such as when a car breaks down, a desired job offer doesn’t come through after all, or
a theft results in the loss of one’s belongings. Losses, rejections, failures, and delays are
all sources of external frustration.
Obviously, some frustrations are minor and others are more serious. The serious-
ness of a frustration is affected by how important the goal or need actually is. A person
who is delayed in traffic while driving to the mall to do some shopping just for fun will
be less frustrated than a person who is trying to get to the mall before it closes to get that
last-minute forgotten and important anniversary gift.
Internal frustrations, also known as personal frustrations, occur when the goal or need
cannot be attained because of internal or personal characteristics. For example, someone
who wants to be an astronaut might find that severe motion sickness prevents him or her
from such a goal. If a man wants to be a professional basketball player but is only 5 feet
tall and weighs only 85 pounds, he may find that he cannot achieve that goal because of
his physical characteristics. A person wanting to be an engineer but who has no math
skills would find it difficult to attain that goal.
When frustrated, people may use several typical responses. The first is persistence,
or the continuation of efforts to get around whatever is causing the frustration. Per-
sistence may involve making more intense efforts or changing the style of response.
For example, anyone who has ever put coins into a vending machine only to find that
the drink does not come out has probably (1) pushed the button again, more forcefully
and (2) pushed several other buttons in an effort to get some kind of response from the
machine. If neither of these strategies works, many people may hit or kick the machine
itself in an act of aggression.
Aggression, or action meant to harm or destroy, is unfortunately another typi-
cal reaction to frustration. Early psychologists in the field of behaviorism proposed
a connection between frustration and aggression, calling it the frustration–aggression
hypothesis ( D o l l a r d e t a l. , 1 9 3 9 ; M i l l e r e t a l. , 1 9 4 1 ). t o Learning Objective 12.15.
Although they believed that some form of frustration nearly always precedes aggression,
that does not mean that frustration always leads to aggression. In fact, aggression
is a frequent and incessant response to frustration, but it is seldom the first
response. In a reformulation of the frustration–aggression hypothesis, Berkowitz
(1993) stated that frustration creates an internal “readiness to aggress” but that
aggression will not follow unless certain external cues are also present. For exam-
ple, if the human source of a person’s frustration is far larger and stron-
ger in appearance than the frustrated person, aggression is an unlikely
outcome!Okay, so if the person who ticked you off is bigger than
you—if aggression isn’t possible—what can you do?One could try to reason with the person who is the source of frustration.
Reasoning with someone is a form of persistence. Trying to “get around” the
problem is another way in which people can deal with frustration. Another
possibility is to take out one’s frustrations on less threatening, more avail-
able targets, in a process called displaced aggression. Anyone who has ever
been frustrated by things that occurred at work or school and then later
yelled at another person (such as a spouse, parent, child, etc.) has experi-
enced displaced aggression. The person one really wants to strike out at is
one’s boss, the teacher, or whoever or whatever caused the frustration infrustration
the psychological experience produced
by the blocking of a desired goal or
fulfillment of a perceived need.
aggression
actions meant to harm or destroy;
behavior intended to hurt or destroy
another person.
displaced aggression
taMing out oneos frustrations on
some less threatening or more
available target.
These parents are fighting in front of their obviously distressed
daughter. In some instances, a child who experiences this kind
of frustration might act out aggressively toward a sibling or a
pet in a form of displaced aggression.