Where does frustration collide?

In psychology the word names the state produced when something blocks progress toward a goal. Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears's 1939 book Frustration and Aggression defined frustration as interference with an ongoing goal-directed activity and proposed that such blocking creates a push toward aggression. Berkowitz's 1989 reformulation narrowed the claim, arguing that frustration prompts aggression mainly when the blocking is felt as unpleasant. The referent here is a psychological state in a person whose goal is thwarted, not a lattice whose interactions cannot all be satisfied or a chemical pair kept from combining.[1][2]

Unit

One instance of a goal being blocked and the response it provokes

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by manipulating goal blocking in experiments and rating the resulting behaviour or reported feeling

In condensed-matter physics the word names a situation in which the interactions in a system cannot all be satisfied at once, so the system has no single lowest-energy arrangement. Wannier's 1950 study Antiferromagnetism. The Triangular Ising Net showed that spins on a triangular lattice that each prefer to point opposite their neighbours cannot all do so, leaving many equally good ground states; Toulouse (1977) later gave the effect its name, the frustration effect, in the theory of spin glasses. Ramirez's 1994 review surveyed the strongly frustrated magnets this idea describes. The referent is a competition between physical interactions on a lattice, not a thwarted goal in a person or a pair of molecules prevented from reacting.[3][4][5]

Unit

A system whose competing interactions leave many equal ground states

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Quantified by ground-state degeneracy, residual entropy, and the absence of ordering down to low temperature

In chemistry the phrase frustrated Lewis pair names an electron-pair donor and acceptor that are kept from combining into the usual adduct because bulky groups hold them apart, which leaves both reactive. Welch, San Juan, Masuda, and Stephan's 2006 report Reversible, Metal-Free Hydrogen Activation showed that such a held-apart phosphorus and boron pair could split hydrogen without a metal. Stephan and Erker's 2010 review Frustrated Lewis Pairs gathered the reactions this opened up. The referent is a pair of molecules blocked from bonding to each other, not a blocked human goal or a magnetic lattice whose interactions compete.[6][7]

Unit

A donor-acceptor pair held apart so no adduct forms

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified by the absence of adduct formation and by the pair's ability to activate small molecules such as hydrogen