Rosenzweig Frustration Test to Assess Tolerance to Frustration and Direction of Aggressiveness in Criminals

摘要

The present study aimed to evaluate the tolerance to frustration and aggressive feelings of prisoners by the help of Rosenzweig Frustration Test (RFT). Besides, it also verified the relationship between the type of offense and aggressiveness direction. The study was approved by the Ethical Research Board Committee of S?o Francisco University, followed by the volunteers signing an informed consent form, which faithfully observed all resolutions of the National Ministry of Health. The study included 125 prisoners of a heavily guarded prison in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The age of participants ranged from 19 to 46 years (M = 29.8 years, SD = 6.4 years). The application of instruments was collective, into subgroups of approximately 20 subjects. A questionnaire was applied to characterize the sample and RFT, with an approximate duration of 1 hour. On investigating the extent to which the RFT factors differed from the groups, we observed significant differences between the groups that committed theft and the group that committed other offenses (theft x factors, Λ = 0.95, p = 0.05). Hence, it was concluded that there was a presence of low frustration tolerance in the sample of prisoners, especially for the group that committed theft, compared to the group that committed other types of offenses.