Effect of Frustrative Blocking on Motivation

Abstract

The present experiment was conducted to test the energizing effects of frustration by blocking a learned instrumental response. 20 albino rats deprived of food, ran 4 trials a day for 24 days in an apparatus having 2 runways in series separated by a blocking door. During 2 of the 4 daily trials, the animals were momentarily blocked from running into the second runway. An analysis of their second runway performance indicated that their running time on the frustrative blocked trials was significantly less than on the non-blocked trials. The results are considered as substantiating the frustrative interruption hypothesis deduced from Brown and Farber's theory of frustration.