A specific affective state arising when an animal expects a particular outcome and that outcome does not arrive, or when an animal is prevented from performing a behaviour they are motivated to perform.
Frustration produces measurable behavioural and physiological signs and has welfare implications when it is chronic or unresolved. A horse who has been conditioned to expect food at a particular time and does not receive it, a dog who can see another dog they want to engage with but cannot reach, a parrot whose preferred enrichment item has been moved out of reach, are all in frustration states.
Distinct from fear or anxiety, frustration tends to produce active rather than withdrawal behaviours. Frustrated animals often increase their attempts to achieve the goal: vocalising more, moving more, escalating behaviours. The active quality is part of how frustration is distinguished from related states like depression or learned helplessness, which produce withdrawal patterns.
Frustration is a normal part of behavioural life and is not in itself a welfare problem when it is brief and resolvable. The welfare concern arises when frustration is chronic or repeated without resolution. Chronic frustration is associated with the development of stereotypies, with increased aggression toward conspecifics and handlers, and with more general welfare deterioration over time.
Modern welfare science treats chronic frustration as a significant concern, and chronic frustration may underlie many of the behavioural problems seen in confined animals across species. The standard intervention is environmental enrichment and behavioural opportunity: providing the animal with appropriate outlets for the motivated behaviours that are being frustrated.
Frustration also has a place in training. Errorless learning approaches specifically try to minimise frustration by setting criteria such that the animal almost always succeeds. Traditional shaping approaches accept some frustration as part of the learning process, though good shaping keeps frustration within manageable bounds by choosing appropriate step sizes.
« Back to Glossary Index
Every due care has been taken to ensure the information herein is based on sources Veterinary Nurse Solutions believes to be reliable, but is not guaranteed by us and does not purport to be complete or error-free. As such, we do not warrant, endorse or guarantee the completeness, accuracy, and integrity of the information. You must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any information provided hereunder, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, safety or usefulness of such information. As part of our quality control of information contained within this document, it has been peer-reviewed by qualified animal care professionals.
Veterinary Nurse Solutions acknowledges that there is more than one way to carry out many of the tasks described within this website, and techniques omitted are not necessarily incorrect.