The frustration-aggression hypothesis revisited: a deviance congruence perspective

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Date
2015
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University of Alabama Libraries
Abstract

In 1939, Dollard and colleagues presented the frustration-aggression theory. The main tenet of the theory posits that individuals become frustrated when goal attainment is prohibited or interrupted. Further, following frustrating events, individuals will respond with aggressive behaviors as a form of retaliation against agents of the frustrating events. Organizational deviance has been posited as one such aggressive reaction (Fox & Spector, 1999). This dissertation takes a unique perspective on organizational deviance; I argue that situations may arise when organizational deviance perceptions also serve as an antecedent of frustration. Specifically, I argue that in circumstances where supervisors’ and subordinates’ perceptions of employee deviance are incongruent, or misaligned, employees will become frustrated. Frustrated employees engage in aggressive behaviors in the form of retaliation and displaced aggression (Berkowitz, 1989). In the current study, I propose that frustrated employees may both retaliate at work and displace their aggression in both the work and family domains. Thus, I argue frustration leads to higher levels of coworker abuse, greater levels of relationship conflict, and greater work-to-family conflict. I also hypothesize that frustration will result in employees engaging in fewer interpersonal citizenship behaviors, which is also detrimental to organizations. This dissertation uses a time-lagged research design and field sample to test the hypotheses offered. A sample of 215 supervisor-subordinate dyads from a large municipality in the southeastern United States was used for hypothesis testing. I followed the latent congruence modeling procedures to test the hypotheses offered (Cheung, 2009). The structural-equation based latent congruence model allowed me to test the effects of incongruence on the mediator and whether frustration ultimately predicted the outcome variables. I did not find support for the hypothesized mediation model using congruence analysis.

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Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Keywords
Management
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