Proponents of Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy cite a construct or concept they call low frustration tolerance, or "short-term hedonism" in order to partly explain behaviors like procrastination and certain other apparently paradoxical or self-defeating behavior. It is defined as seeking immediate pleasure or avoidance of pain at the cost of long-term stress and defeatism.
The concept was originally developed by psychologist Albert Ellis who theorized that low frustration-tolerance (LFT) is an evaluative component in dysfunctional and irrational beliefs. Behaviors are then derived towards avoiding frustrating events which, paradoxically, lead to increased frustration and even greater mental stress.
In REBT the opposite construct is "high frustration tolerance".
Famous quotes containing the words frustration and/or tolerance:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)