Abstracts Category : Other

The effect of simple frustration, violated expectancy, and reactance on the instigation to aggression

by Stephen Worchel

Preventing an individual from obtaining a goal may have three effects on him. It may frustrate him, violate an expectancy of goal attainment, and eliminate his freedom to obtain the goal. Three theories, each focusing on a different aspect of the thwarting, offer the hypothesis that aggression is likely to follow thwarting. Frustration and aggression theory predicts that simple frustration will instigate aggression; expectancy theory predicts that the violation of an expectancy resulting from a thwarting will instigate aggression; reactance theory hypothesizes that the elimination of behavioral freedom, which results in the arousal of reactance, may instigate aggressive responses. The present study was performed to test the hypotheses on aggression offered by these three theories. Subjects were told that there were three incentives being offered for participating in the experiment. Some subjects were told that an experimental assistant would assign them an incentive, others were told that they would receive the incentive they had rated most attractive on a pre-measure, and a third group of subjects was informed that they would have their choice of the incentives. The experimental assistant then assigned subjects either the most, second most or least attractive incentive. Subjects' ratings of the assistant served as the measure of aggression. The results supported reactance theory in that when the assignment of incentives by the assistant eliminated subjects' freedom of choice they ex- pressed more aggression than when the assignment did not eliminate the behavioral freedom. Further, when the assignment eliminated freedom, the less attractive the assigned incentive, the greater was the resulting aggression. Some support was found for the hypothesis that a violation of expectancy will result in aggression. When subjects expected to obtain the most attractive incentive and were assigned the least attractive item, they were more aggressive than when they held the same expectancy and received the second most attractive item. However, when their expectancy was violated by receiving the second most attractive incentive, they were not more aggressive than subjects who did not have their expectancy violated. There was no support for the hypothesis that simple frustration is a sufficient condition to instigate aggression. From the results indicating that, regardless of the incentive assigned the subject, there was more aggression exhibited when this assignment eliminated freedom than when the assignment resulted only in a violated expectancy or simple frustration, the speculation was offered that the arousal of reactance may be a necessary condition if a thwarting is to instigate aggression.Advisors/Committee Members: Jack W. Brehm, Supervisor (advisor).