Human Physical Aggression as a Function of Magnitude of Frustration: Indirect Support and a Possible Confounding Influence

Abstract

An experiment was performed to test whether thwarting close to the goal leads to higher levels of frustration and higher levels of aggression than thwarting far from the goal in a slightly modified version of the Buss' “aggression machine.” Subjects first calibrated a shock scale and were then put in a situation in which they could give electric shocks to a confederate under an acceptable pretext. It was not possible to confirm the specific hypothesis directly but a positive correlation was found between over-all self-rated subjective frustration and a measure of total aggression supporting a general frustration-aggression hypothesis. However, it was also found that the initial calibration of the shock scale correlated positively with the measure of total aggression, indicating that possible confounding influences are operative in this kind of paradigm.

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