Blocked aggression against a loved, powerful source gets displaced outward onto safer targets.
Evidence
Initially, parents are the direct source of the child’s frustrations, but as parental strictures are internalized, one’s own superego frustrates the desires of the id. Direct aggression against these sources is typically inhibited. Chil dren repress hatred toward parents for a number of reasons: They are taught that it is unacceptable, parents are also loved, and parents are powerful and might retaliate. The inhibition of the desire to aggress creates psychodynamic conflict as the aggressive energy that is built up finds no direct release. Later, the conflict is primarily an internal one because the individual has adopted the parents’ ideals and the superego becomes the immediate source of frus tration. This psychodynamic conflict may prompt aggression against the self (in the form of “accidents” or psychopathologies), but because self-hatred and self-punishment are painful, aggression is often directed outward instead, displaced onto an alternative target. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 746
Categorization
- DEFINE: Establishes the displacement mechanism — inner conflict with the superego — that grounds the whole chapter’s scapegoating argument.
- XREF: connects to: Authoritarian aggression channels into conventional targets like minorities.; Persecuted victims reproduce the power they fear against others
Broader Connections
- Persecuted victims reproduce the power they fear against others
#corroborates(0.90) - Authoritarian aggression channels into conventional targets like minorities.
#corroborates(0.85)