Internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals, desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations.
External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual's control, such as a physical roadblock, a difficult task, or the perception of wasting time.
[5] This broad range of potential outcomes makes it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of frustration, as the responses may be indirect.
When these needs are constantly ignored or unsatisfied, anger, depression, loss of self-confidence,[9] annoyance, aggression, and sometimes violence are likely to follow.
In positive cases, this frustration will build until a level that is too great for the individual to contain or allow to continue, and thus produce action directed at solving the inherent problem in a disposition that does not cause social or physical harm.