Aggressive impulses target innocent substitutes when the real frustrator is powerful

Evidence

Later drive-reduction models agreed with Freud that various drives sought discharge in behavior. In contrast to the psychodynamic view, however, frustration–aggression theory characterized aggression as a response to circumstances that block goal-directed behavior, not as an innate drive (Dollard et al., 1939). External frustrations (rather than internal psychodynamic conflict) evoke aggression, typically against the source of frustration. Like Freud, however, Dollard et al. believed that aggression would be displaced onto an innocent target if the true source of frustration was powerful and therefore likely to retaliate. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1563

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Blocking formal entrenchment hydraulically increases functional substitutes — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 431