Annoyance: Encyclopedia II - Annoyance - Psychology

Annoyance - Psychology

Various reasons exist for why one finds particular stimuli annoying.

Measurement of annoyance is highly subjective. As an attempt at measurement, psychological studies on annoyance often rely on their subjects' own ratings of levels of annoyance on a scale.

A study found that one's response to an annoyance, at least when the perceived cause is another person, escalate to more extreme levels as they go unresolved. It also found that one was more likely to blame the party who was causing the annoyance in the study, rather than one's self, for the annoyance as it escalated.

Psychological warfare can involve creating annoyances to distract and wear down the resistance of the target. For example, in 1993 the FBI played music "specifically selected for its irritation ability" on loudspeakers outside the Branch Davidian compound in an attempt to bring about the surrender of David Koresh and his followers.

Annoyance can cause stress in another person, leading to high blood pressure, and other illnesses.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Psychology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki