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Scientific Study of Non-Violence
tendency being blocked, the degree of interference and the number of frustration sequences, it is now generally believed that frustration produces instigations to a number of different types of response, one of which is an instigation to aggression.
Instigation to aggression may occupy any one of a number of positions in the hierarchy of instigations aroused by a specific situation which is frustrating. If the instigation to aggression is the strongest member of the hierarchy, then acts of aggression will be the first response to occur. If the instigations to other responses incompatible to aggression are stronger than the instigation to aggression, then these other responses will occur at first and prevent, at least temporarily, the occurrence of acts of aggression. This opens up two further possibilities. If these other responses lead to a reduction in the instigation to the originally frustrated response, then the strength of the instigation to aggression is also reduced so that acts of aggression may not occur at all in the situation in question. If, on the other hand, the first responses do not lead to a reduction in the original instigation, then the instigations to them will tend to become weakened through extinction so that the next most dominant responses, which may or may not be aggression, will tend to occur. From this analysis it follows that the more successive responses of non-aggression are extinguished by continued frustration, the greater is the probability that the instigation to aggression will eventually become dominant so that some response of aggression will actually occur.
In the case of repeated frustrations, the response of the individual depends upon what he himself expects, as for example later thwartings sometime evoke milder reactions than do the first in a series of frustrations, and this difference may be due to the later thwartings being anticipated. In general, expected frustrations produce less intense emotional reactions than do unanticipated frustrations. Two reasons are suggested: (1) through anticipating interference with his activity, the individual may alter his actions, or even his goals, so that he actually experiences less frustration; (2) expected frustrations may be judged as less severe.
Besides frustration, noxious stimuli of various types such as attack and annoyers also act as antecedents to aggression. Attack involves delivery of noxious stimuli to the victim. When
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