Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The frustration-aggression hypothesis, also called the frustration-aggression-displacement theory, is a theory of aggression proposed in 1939 by John Dollard, Neal Miller, Leonard Doob, Orval Mowrer and Robert Sears, and later developed further by Miller in 1941 and by Leonard Berkowitz in 1989. The theory holds that aggression results from the frustration of blocking a person's efforts to reach a goal. As first formulated it stated that frustration always precedes aggression and that aggression is always its consequence; two years later Miller and Sears revised the hypothesis so that frustration instead creates a need to respond, of which aggression is only one possible outcome, while any aggressive behavior that does occur is still traced back to some frustration.