    24

    Laboratory Rats And The Oil Crisis

    If a laboratory rat is confronted by an artificial beast larger than

    himself, he cowers.  The mechanical bully can abuse the rat all it wants, and

    the bludgeoned creature will not raise a paw to counter-attack.  But offer the

    victimized rodent a smaller rat as a companion and a strange thing happens.

    The black and blue animal will not turn to his smaller companion for solace.

    Taking advantage of his new cagemate's diminutive size, he will turn on the

    beast and beat the bejesus out of it.45  Rats in groups are even worse than

    individuals.  Put seven or eight of the rodents on an electrified floor, turn on

    the juice, and what happens?  The gang will single out one of its members for

    punishment and attack him mercilessly.46

    The rat is not alone.  Says Jane Goodall, one of the most common

    causes of brutality among chimpanzees is "frustration that leads an

    individual who has been thwarted by one stronger to turn and vent his

    aggression on a smaller or weaker bystander."47  We humans, alas, are built

    with the same pusillanimous circuitry.  When we are battered by forces

    beyond our control, we look around for someone small to punch.

    Yale University researchers John Dollard, Neal E. Miller and a team of

    colleagues saw this mechanism at work in 1939, as they painstakingly

    assembled the evidence for their classic "frustration-aggression hypothesis."

    The scholars reviewed figures on cotton prices in fourteen southern states

    over a period of 48 years.  When cotton prices dipped, the white farmers who

    depended on the crop for their living took a beating.  How did these

    unfortunate country folk make up for pinched budgets, lowered status, and

    the humiliation of mounting debts?  They turned around and tormented

    someone even more helpless than themselves: the local blacks.  Whenever

    cotton prices plummeted, lynchings shot up.48

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