| Abstract: | Criticizes recent attributional analyses of learned helplessness in humans because they are vague in specifying antecedent conditions for various attributions, fail to explain paradoxical facilitation effects, and neglect individual differences. As an alternative, the social learning theory (SLT) of J. B. Rotter et al (see PA, Vol 50:6852) is applied to the learned helplessness paradigm, leading to analyses of (a) expectancy change processes occurring during helplessness training and (b) the generalization of those changes to other situations. Studies bearing on a variety of individual and situational differences that are predicted to affect the development of helplessness are reviewed. Research and treatment strategies following from the SLT analysis are described. (87 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
