You Just Don’t Understand

12 Pages 2926 Words

displacement redirects our self-destructive energies outward; we aggress against others to avoid aggressing against ourselves. If this is true then how do people manage to avoid wreaking terrible violence upon one another? The answer, according to Freud, is catharsis: Watching violent events or engaging in mild displays of anger diminishes the aggressive urge and leaves us emotionally purified and calmed. Freud also supported the Frustration-aggression theory, another influential explanation of aggression, which argues that aggression is always preceded by frustration and that frustration always leads to some form of aggression. Frustration-aggression theorists define frustration as the thwarting of an action that would have produced reward or gratification.
In the thesis Differences in Aggression of Male and Female Athletes by Margaret E. Ciccolella, (Ed.D.)--Brigham Young University, Ciccolella stated three major theories of aggression, 1. Instinct theories, 2. Frustration-aggression theories, 3. social learning theories. These three theories say aggression is 1. an inherent compont of human nature, 2. result of frustration, 3. consequences of certain kinds of social learning. Ciccolella said about the instinct theory that Sigmund Freud viewed expression of aggression as spontaneous and inevitable. Freud’s theory is the psychoanalytic theory. Freud suggested that aggression is impelled by a constantly driving internal force whose energy must somehow be released. He maintained that aggressive energy is constantly generated within the body. Unless this energy is neutralized or discharged in some socially acceptable fashion, it inevitably leads to destructive attacks upon the self or other people. This driving force was termed the death instinct and its overall result was destructiveness and aggression. Freud pointed out man’s constant wars as proof.
Anne Campbell says in her book “Many psychoanalytic writers since Freud have ...