Learned helplessness in social situations.

Conceptualized helplessness in social situations as the perceived inability to surmount rejection, as revealed by causal attributions for rejection, and explored the responses of 130 4th and 5th graders to rejection across popularity levels. Results show that differences in attributions for rejection were related to disruption of goal-directed behavior following rejection. The most severe disruption of attempts to gain social approval (withdrawal and perseveration) was associated with the tendency to emphasize personal incompetence as the cause of rejection, regardless of popularity level. It is suggested that cognitive mediators of overt social behavior and ability to solve problems when faced with difficulties need to be considered in the study of children's social relations. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in the rat.

4 experiments, using a total of 159 male albino Sprague-Dawley rats, attempted to produce behavior in the rat parallel to the behavior characteristic of learned helplessness in the dog. When Ss received escapable, inescapable, or no shock and were later tested in jump-up escape, both inescapable and no-shock controls failed to escape. When barpressing, rather than jumping up, was used as the tested escape response, fixed ratio (FR) 3 was interfered with by inescapable shock, but not lesser ratios. With FR-3, the no-shock control escaped well. Interference with escape was a function of the inescapability of shock and not shock per se: Ss that were "put through" and learned a prior jump-up escape did not become passive, but their yoked, inescapable partners did. It is concluded that rats, as well as dogs, fail to escape shock as a function of prior inescapability, exhibiting learned helplessness. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness and health psychology.

Reviews learned helplessness theory and its attributional reformulation for a health psychology audience. Particular emphasis is placed on the idea that not all instances of human helplessness are best described as learned helplessness. Some possible ways to apply the learned helplessness model to health and illness are discussed. (3? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness and self-reported affect.

Reports results of a study designed to assess the mood correlates of learned helplessness in human Ss. Results provide support for M. E. Seligman's (1975) proposition that the learned helplessness concept may serve as a model for reactive depression in man. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness and judgments of control.

A central hypothesis of learned helplessness theory is that exposure to noncontingency produces a reduced ability to perceive response–outcome relations (the postulated "cognitive deficit"). To test this hypothesis, 30 undergraduates were exposed to a typical helplessness induction task and then asked to make judgments of the amount of control their responses exerted over a designated outcome (the onset of a light). An additional 30 undergraduates served as a no-treatment control group. Support for the postulated cognitive deficit would be found if Ss who experienced the induction underestimated the relation between their responses and outcomes. Results, however, demonstrate that induction Ss made higher and more accurate judgments of control than Ss in the control group. This finding clearly fails to support the postulated cognitive deficit and highlights the need for other direct tests of the basic hypotheses of helplessness theory. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in the gerbil?

27 male Mongolian gerbils were assigned to escapable, inescapable, and control groups and subjected to 2 consecutive days of jump-up escape followed 24 hrs later by testing in a barpress escape task. Reliable differences occurred between escapable and inescapable Ss and between inescapable and control Ss. Findings provide evidence of learned helplessness in Mongolian gerbils. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation.

Criticizes and reformulates the learned helplessness hypothesis. It is considered that the old hypothesis, when applied to learned helplessness in humans, has 2 major problems: (a) It does not distinguish between cases in which outcomes are uncontrollable for all people and cases in which they are uncontrollable only for some people (universal vs personal helplessness), and (b) it does not explain when helplessness is general and when specific, or when chronic and when acute. A reformulation based on a revision of attribution theory is proposed to resolve these inadequacies. According to the reformulation, once people perceive noncontingency, they attribute their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or external. The attribution chosen influences whether expectation of future helplessness will be chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and whether helplessness will lower self-esteem or not. The implications of this reformulation of human helplessness for the learned helplessness model of depression are outlined. (92 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in humans: A frustration-produced response pattern.

Investigated with 120 undergraduates in 2 experiments the utility of the learned helplessness model vs A. Amsel's (1971, 1972) behavioral persistence model in explaining response deficits following uncontrollable loud noise exposures. Ss exposed to uncontrollable loud noise showed performance deficits relative to controllable and no-preexposure groups. ANOVAs indicated that the performance deficits were directly related to response–outcome relations learned during uncontrollable preexposure. This finding is in agreement with Amsel's behavioral persistence model and is in contradiction to the learned helplessness model. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in the rat: Retention and immunization.

Conducted 3 experiments with 128 male albino Sprague-Dawley and Holtzman rats to determine (a) whether experience with uncontrollable trauma shortly after weaning interfered with an adaptive responding as an adult and (b) if early experience with controllable trauma protected adults against the helplessness-inducing effects of uncontrollable trauma received as an adult. Inescapable shock given to weanling rats produced large deficits in adult escape behavior. Therefore, helplessness learned as a weanling was retained in later life and interfered with adaptive instrumental responding. Experience with escapable shock while a weanling immunized the animal against the deficits produced by inescapable shock received as an adult. The implications of these findings for animal models of human depression are discussed. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in humans: A review and attribution-theory model.

M. E. Seligman's (1973, 1974, 1975) theory of learned helplessness (LH) and the current status of the research literature are reviewed, with a focus on 5 issues of the LH phenomenon: nature, etiology, generalization, individual differences, and alleviation. Seligman's theory is seen as inadequate to account for present data in several areas, notably etiology and generalization. A revised model of LH in humans is presented that suggests that the individual's attributions of noncontingent failure experiences predict the degree and parameters of LH. (85 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness as conditioned inattention to the target stimulus.

Learned helplessness theory explains the impaired performance that follows exposure to uncontrollable outcomes by assuming learned expectation of response-outcome independence that is transferred between tasks. Recent evidence has shown that introducing a second neutral stimulus, contingent on the offset of the uncontrollable stimulus, removes the subsequent interference. This finding has been claimed to support the view that the interference is a result of conditioned inattention rather than of the expectation of response-outcome independence. The conflicting explanations were examined in a series of 4 experiments, using a total of 202 students (undergraduates and nursing and physiotherapy students), that varied induction procedures (passive exposure or inescapability) and stimulus quality (aversive or nonaversive). All 4 experiments found the predicted interference, but only 1, in which passive exposure was combined with an aversive stimulus, obtained results supporting the conditioned inattention hypothesis. It is concluded that learned helplessness probably involves more than a single mechanism and that the passive exposure procedure may not be appropriate for demonstrating genuine helplessness deficits. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness, depression, and the illusion of control.

Do people previously exposed to uncontrollable aversive events, like naturally depressed people, fail to succumb to an illusion of control in a situation in which events occur noncontingently but are associated with success? 120 depressed and nondepressed undergraduates (as determined by Beck Depression Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Check List) were assigned to 1 of 3 groups that make up the typical triad used in studies of learned helplessness: controllable noises, uncontrollable noises, or no noises. Following pretreatment, Ss judged how much control they had in a noncontingency learning problem. For half of the Ss, events were noncontingent and associated with failure; for the remaining Ss, events were noncontingent but associated with success. Contrary to the predictions of learned helplessness theory, nondepressed Ss previously exposed to uncontrollable noises showed a robust illusion of control in the condition in which events were noncontingent but associated with success; nondepressed Ss previously exposed to controllable noises judged control accurately. Depressed Ss also judged control accurately regardless of their previous noise experience. Results are interpreted as consistent with the egotism hypothesis. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness, test anxiety, and acknowledgment of contingencies.

72 undergraduates designated as high or low test anxious (Test Anxiety Questionnaire) received either controllable of uncontrollable noise in a typical helplessness induction. Half of them subsequently received an acknowledgment of contingencies in the induction task, and the other half did not. An anagram task was then administered. Test anxiety theory successfully predicted group differences in anagram performance: Only high-test-anxious Ss were debilitated by the helplessness induction. The effects of providing acknowledgment of contingencies proved ambiguous, but this may have been due to the wording of the acknowledgment and the susceptibility of high-test-anxious Ss to social dimensions of the task situation. Because of differences in terminology, learned helplessness theory has failed to take into account a large body of literature that has similarly employed experimenter-induced failure, and there are numerous competing explanations for impairments following a helplessness induction. Test anxiety theory suggests that the deficits underlying impaired performance are likely to be attentional in nature. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness through modeling: The role of perceived similarity in competence.

Tested the hypothesis that learned helplessness can be induced through modeling and that the effects are mediated by perceived similarity in competence. 40 male college students observed a model fail at anagram tasks under variations in perceived similarity. Ss who perceived the unsuccessful model to be of comparable ability and those given no competence feedback persisted less throughout the tasks than Ss who perceived the model as less competent than themselves and control Ss who did not observe a model. The latter 2 groups did not differ in their initial level of persistence, but their performances diverged on succeeding trials, with Ss who perceived themselves as more competent than the model showing higher persistence. A similar pattern of results was obtained for the effects of perceived similarity on Ss' expectations of self-efficacy. A microanalysis revealed that regardless of treatment condition, the higher the Ss' expected efficacy, the longer they persisted. The strength of this relationship increased over trials, suggesting that Ss came to rely more heavily on their judgments of self-efficacy in regulating their expenditure of effort as the experiment progressed. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness as experimenter-induced failure and its alleviation with attentional redeployment.

When it is recognized that laboratory studies of learned helplessness with human Ss are basically studies of experimenter-induced failure, the relevance of numerous studies of failure induction and of the theoretical models that generated them becomes apparent. The present study with 108 undergraduates adopted the assumption that cognitive interference associated with anxiety is the source of the performance decrements observed in helplessness studies. For susceptible Ss, failure experiences elicit a task-irrelevant, negative focus on self. As predicted from such a model, attentional redeployment in the form of an imagination exercise eliminated the impairment of performance that typically follows a helplessness induction. However, it was found that the effectiveness of the exercise depended on provision of a rationale to Ss. As predicted, it was found that Ss who received the exercise and rationale in the absence of a failure induction became debilitated, although this effect was only marginally significant. Results are discussed in terms of a cognitive-attentional interpretation of learned helplessness studies, and the likely role of demand characteristics is noted. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in the rat: Time course, immunization, and reversibility.

Previous research has shown that rats, like dogs, fail to escape following exposure to inescapable shock. 3 experiments were conducted with a total of 121 male Sprague-Dawley rats to further explore parallels between rat and dog helplessness. The failure to escape did not dissipate in time; Ss failed to escape 5 min, 1 hr, 4 hrs, 24 hrs, and 1 wk after receiving inescapable shock. Ss that first learned to jump up to escape were not retarded later at barpressing to escape following inescapable shock. Failure to escape could be broken up by forcibly exposing the S to an escape contingency. Therefore, the effects of inescapable shock in the rat parallel learned helplessness effects in the dog. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in the perspective of the depressive disorders: Conceptual and definitional issues.

Examines 3 issues that are important in extending the learned helplessness model to clinical depressive disorders. First, the nature of the heterogeneity of clinical manifestations of depression is examined within several clinical frameworks, and the role that learned helplessness may play in each is discussed. Second, the problems in constructing models for clinical populations are explored through the examination of several parallels between learned helplessness and clinical depression put forth by M. E. Seligman (1975). Third, problems involved in defining and identifying depressed college student Ss in analog research are discussed. Integral to the latter issue is an evaluation of the assumption that depressed college student Ss differ from clinical depressives only quantitatively but not qualitatively. Suggestions are made for research aimed at extending the learned helplessness model to other clinical problem areas. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness, attributional style, and depression in epilepsy. Bozeman Epilepsy Surgery Consortium

PURPOSE: We wished to examine the relevance of the theory of learned helplessness in general, and attributional style in particular, to the understanding of depression among patients with epilepsy. METHODS: Patients with lateralized temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) (right = 73, left = 70) were administered two self-report depression inventories [Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D)]. Depression scores were examined in relation to a key component of the revised theory of learned helplessness (attributional style) using the Optimism/Pessimism Scale. RESULTS: Attributional style was significantly associated with increased self-reported depression and remained significant when the effects of several confounding variables were controlled [age, age at onset, laterality of TLE, sex, and method variance]. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the concept of learned helplessness in general, and attributional style in particular, are related to the genesis of depression in epilepsy. Because they are known to be related to depression in the general population, and because specific techniques for intervention and prevention are available, greater consideration of learned helplessness and attributional style in the genesis of depression in epilepsy may be worthwhile.     

Learned helplessness and immunization: Sensitivity to response–reinforcer independence in immunized rats.

Exps I and II, with 62 male Holtzman rats, examined the learned helplessness and immunization effects using a test in which appetitive responding was extinguished by delivering noncontingent reinforcers. Contrary to learned helplessness theory, "immunized" Ss showed performance virtually identical to that of Ss exposed only to inescapable shock and different from that of nonshock controls. Exp II suggested that the helplessness effect and the lack of immunization were not due to direct response suppression resulting from shock. In Exp III, in which the immunization effect was assessed in 28 Ss by measuring the acquisition of a response to obtain food when there was a positive response–reinforcer contingency, immunization was observed. Results cannot be explained on the basis of proactive interference and instead suggest that Ss exposed to the immunization procedure acquired an expectancy of response–reinforcer independence during inescapable shock. Thus, immunization effects may reflect the differential expression of expectancies rather than their differential acquisition as learned helplessness theory postulates. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness and depression in a clinical population: A test of two behavioral hypotheses.

Conducted a study to extend the learned helplessness phenomenon to a clinical population and to test the competing hypotheses of M. E. Seligman (1975) and P. M. Lewinsohn (1974). 96 male hospitalized psychiatric and medical patients were divided into 3 levels of depression according to their scores on the Short Form of the Beck Depression Inventory. Ss were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions: (a) One group was treated with an 80-db tone, which could be terminated by making an active response; (b) a 2nd group was treated with the tone with a passive escape contingency; (c) a 3rd group was treated with an inescapable tone; and (d) a no-noise group served as a control. After treatment, Ss were tested on an anagram-solving task. Inescapable noise produced as much deficit in the low-depressed Ss as was present in the depressed no-noise control Ss. Passive escape Ss did as well as active escape Ss. Results replicate the learned helplessness phenomenon in a group of clinical depressives and support Seligman's model of depression. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)