One team of researchers looked for evidence of displaced aggression in
the business world (Hoobler & Brass, 2006). They first measured the amount
of frustration supervisors experienced at work, such as not being promoted orfeeling as if they were treated unfairly by the company. Of course, these
supervisors were reluctant to express their anger directly toward their bosses.
But the researchers found that the more frustration experienced by the super-visors, the more the employees working directly below them felt abused by
the supervisor. These employees complained about being put down in front
of other people or being told their ideas were stupid. In other words, the frus-trated supervisors appeared to displace their anger onto their subordinates in
the organization. But the displaced anger did not stop there. The family mem-
bers of those subordinates were also part of the study. The more the employ-ees felt abused by their boss at work, the more unpleasant they were to their
families. In short, displaced aggression may not simply disappear, but may get
passed down to the next person in the hierarchy.
But not all victims of displaced aggression are completely innocent. Some-
times the targets of displaced aggression have done something to annoy theperson attacking them. The problem is that the reaction is often way out of
proportion to the relatively small offense. Psychologists refer to this kind of
overreaction as triggered displaced aggression (Miller, Pedersen, Earleywine, &
Pollock, 2003). Researchers find that displaced aggression is most likely to
occur when we encounter a minor source of annoyance that we otherwise
would easily tolerate or ignore (Bushman, Bonacci, Pedersen, Vasquez, &
Miller, 2005; Denson, Aviles, Pollock, Earleywine, Vasquez, & Miller, 2008;681012141618Number of Shocks
Frustrated
SubjectsStranger TargetFrustrator Target
Nonfrustrated
Subjects
FIGURE 6.2 Mean Number of Shocks Delivered
Source: From “Catharsis through displacement of aggression, ”by V. J. Konecni and A. N. Doob, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology , 1972, 23, 379 –387.136 CHAPTER 6 The Neo-Freudian Theories