Motivational properties of frustration: II. Frustration drive stimulus and frustration reduction in selective learning.

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Abstract
Certain implications of ascribing motivational properties to frustration (frustrative nonreward) were tested in 5 expts. using 50 hooded rats as Ss, in a modified selective learning technique. Findings: (1) Under certain conditions, reward and nonreward can serve as discriminanda for selective learning. This learning seems to develop more rapidly than under differential extroceptive stimulation; (2) Factors that might reduce periph- eral-cue aspects of the reward and nonreward discriminanda (food-in-mouth vs. no-food-in-mouth) do not retard the learning; (3) The response which is correct following nonreward (the F-side response) tends to be made more frequently than that which is correct following reward. This appears both early and late in the training sequence; (4) The degree to which the F side (or R side) is fixated early in the training sequence is related to the similarity of the F side (or R side) to the choice-point goal box in which S has been rewarded. Fixation of the F side late in training seems unrelated to this factor. These findings support the hypothesis that frustration, as here defined, has motivational properties. More specifically, (a) frustration provides drive stimulation which gives it directive properties, and frustration reduction is reinforcing.

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