Learned helplessness in groups

Group learned helplessness is demonstrated in Experiment I. Groups of 2 tried to turn off noise by their joint action. In the solvable group (S), noise offset was contingent on their sequence of button pushing. In the yoked, unsolvable group (U), noise offset was independent of all sequences of button pushes they produced. In a practice group (O). subjects practiced coordinated sequences of button pushes with their partners, but heard no noise. Later, all 3 groups were tested in pairs in a shuttlebox which required coordinated joint responding to turn off noise. The unsolvable group escaped more poorly than the other 2 groups, paralleling helplessness effects with individuals. Experiment 2 and 3 found no transfer from individual helplessness training to group testing and no transfer from group helplessness training to individual testing. We suggest that the same mechanism, the expectation of response ineffectiveness, may mediate both individual and group learned helplessness.     

Learned helplessness and IQ differences

Two groups of adult Ss differing in verbal IQ were compared in a learned helplessness experiment involving cognitive tasks and non-contingent rewards. The mean IQs for the two groups were 131 and 117. As predicted, the higher IQ Ss performed better overall and showed greater awareness of the response-outcome contingency. Their test-task performance was also more affected by the contingency manipulation although this occured only with success feedback. Implications of the results for cognitive accounts of human helplessness are discussed.     

Learned helplessness and judgments of control

One of the central hypotheses 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, subjects 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). Support for the postulated cognitive deficit would be found if subjects who experienced the induction underestimated the relation between their responses and outcomes. The results, however, demonstrated that induction subjects (n = 30) made higher and more accurate judgments of control than subjects in a no-treatment control group (n = 30). 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.     

Learned helplessness and the schedule-shift hypotheses

The critique of learned helplessness research and theory and the alternative schedule-shift discrimination hypothesis offered by McReynolds (Journal of Research and Personality, 1980,14, 139–157) are considered. Each point made by McReynolds is discussed and a variety of recent experimental evidence is reviewed. It is concluded that McReynolds' critique is without substance and that the schedule-shift discrimination explanation of the learned helplessness effect is contradicted by existing data.     

Learned helplessness in the rat.

Four experiments attempted to produce behavior in the rat parallel to the behavior characteristic of learned helplessness in the dog. When rats received escapable, inescapable, or no shock and were later tested in jump-up escape, both inescapable and no-shock controls failed to escape. When bar pressing, 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 shown to be a function of the inescapability of shock and not shock per se: Rats that were "put through" and learned a prior jump-up escape did not become passive, but their yoked, inescapable partners did. Rats, as well as dogs, fail to escape shock as a function of prior inescapability, exhibiting learned helplessness.     

Learned helplessness as a schedule-shift effect

The essentials of learned helplessness theory are described and supporting evidence surveyed. It is shown that two main empirical phenomena are associated with learned helplessness: a low rate of responding in laboratory animals following numerous discrete trials with continuous free relief and in human subjects following continuous nonrelief/reward or traditional extinction. The explanation Seligman and Maier give for these findings is critically analyzed and found to be unsupported at several critical points. The “patchwork” nature of the theory and observations is considered and it is contended that what is new in learned helplessness research is a schedule-shift effect like that observed when extinction follows partial reinforcement. A schedule-shift discrimination theory of “learned helplessness” effects is offered which is closely parallel to a widely accepted explanation of other schedule-shift effects, notably the partial reinforcement extinction effect. Although the behavioral effects of some schedule shifts resemble clinical depression, the latter is a more complex behavioral phenomena than the former which in turn has broader relevance to human behavior than just depression.     

Learned helplessness in humans: A developmental analysis

The investigation of learned helplessness (LH) in children is integrated with (a) research on LH in adults and (b) basic developmental research relating to the processes which theoretically mediate LH. It is concluded that developmental changes in perceptions of noncontingency, causal understanding, and expectations of future noncontingency are all likely to influence the process whereby children of different ages manifest LH. Several sets of hypotheses relating to each of these variables are presented. In addition, it is argued that developmental research on LH should examine the relationship between the components of the attributional reformulation of LH and should be explicit about the conceptual status of these variables. Finally, several approaches to understanding the origins of individual differences in LH are evaluated. It is proposed that exposure to noncontingency, performance feedback, modeling, and parental attributions may each contribute to the ontogenesis of individual differences in LH.     

Learned helplessness and defensive strategies: A rejoinder

The results of experiments reported by Oakes and Curtis (1982), Tennen, Drum, Gillen and Stanton (1982), and Tennen, Gillen, and Drum (1982) are seen as inconsistent with the cognitive learned helplessness theory of Seligman and his associates (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Alloy & Seligman, 1979). Comments on the Oakes and Curtis studies by Alloy (1982) and by Silver, Wortman, and Klos (1982) are seen as employing three defensive strategies: (1) Declaring the research findings to be irrelevant to the theory; (2) declaring the experiments to be flawed; and (3) modifying the theory to accommodate the research findings. This rejoinder argues that the research findings are relevant and that the criticisms are of questionable validity. It is suggested that the questions of the validity of the theory raised by these findings not be declared to be resolved, but that additional data bearing on the questions be sought.     

Assessment of adolescents' learned helplessness in achievement situations

Three studies are reported that describe the development, reliability, and initial validation of the Mastery Orientation Inventory (MOI; Reynolds & Miller, in press) as a measure of generalized learned helplessness in adolescents. In Study 1, an initial version of 50 items was administered to a sample of 112 adolescents. A revised 40-item scale with an internal consistency reliability of .94 was then constructed, which correlated significantly with measures of locus of control and depression. Study 2 involved the administration of the 40-item MOI to 645 adolescents. In this study, the reliability of the MOI was .92, and MOI scores were significantly correlated with subjects' depression scores and with self-reported grade point average. Factor analysis of the MOI items produced a strong first factor with high loadings for every item. In Study 3, the 112 subjects who participated in Study 1 were, 3 months later, readministered the MOI, locus of control, and depression measures. As an external criterion variable, 13 teachers provided global ratings of learned helpless/mastery-oriented behaviors for 99 of these subjects. The MOI demonstrated high internal consistency (r alpha = .95) and adequate test-retest (rtt = .77) reliability. Validity was supported by significant correlations between the MOI and the three criterion variables (/rs/ = .49-.58). The results of these investigations provide initial support for the reliability and validity of the MOI as a measure of learned helplessness.     

Learned helplessness in the cockroach (Periplaneta americana)

For 3 consecutive days cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were exposed to either escapable, inescapable, or no shock in an escape task. Twenty-four hours later they were tested in a shuttlebox escape task. There were reliable differences between escapable and inescapable animals and between inescapable and control animals in both escape latencies and the number of failures to escape.     

Learned helplessness,depression and the perception of reinforcement

Depressed and nondepressed subjects were given escapable, inescapable, or no noise. Then, their perceptions of reinforcement contingencies in skill and chance tasks were assessed. Depressed-no noise and nondepressed-inescapable noise subjects exhibited smaller decreases in expectancy following failure in skill, but not in chance, than nondepressed-no noise subjects. So, depression and inescapable noise both produced perception of failure in skill as response-independent. Contrary to predictions, neither depression nor inescapable noise had a significant effect on increases in expectancy after success. These results partially support the learned helplessness model of depression which claims that a belief in independence between responding and reinforcement is central to the etiology and symptoms of depression in man.     

经济地位和计量地位:社会地位比较对主观幸福感的影响及其年龄差异

采用麦克阿瑟梯子启动方法对个体的社会地位比较进行启动,主要探讨社会经济地位和社会计量地位对年轻人和老年人主观幸福感作用的年龄差异。120名年轻人(27.26±4.80岁)和120名老年人(65.12±6.49岁)参加了正式实验。实验首先测量被试的主观幸福感,3~7天后启动社会地位比较,随后再次测量主观幸福感。社会地位比较分为4种启动条件,即经济上行比较、经济下行比较、计量上行比较和计量下行比较,被试被随机分配到其中一种启动条件。结果发现:年轻人的主观幸福感更容易受到社会经济地位比较的影响,而老年人的主观幸福感更容易受到社会计量地位比较的影响。由于原有的等级评定方式并未验证启动的有效性,补充实验通过对麦克阿瑟梯子进行改进降低了锚定化的影响,为启动的有效性提供了直接的证据。本研究验证了主观幸福感悖论,并从社会比较的角度解释了老年人维持主观幸福感的机制,同时改进了麦克阿瑟梯子等级评定方法使其适用于中国情境。     

Implications of positive and negative sociometric status for assessing the social competence of young children

Positive and negative sociometric status were examined with reference to observed classroom behavior and performance on two laboratory measures of social skills: decoding emotion from facial expression and referential communication. Based on a sample of 38 preschool children, results indicated different patterns of correlations for liked (positive nomination) and disliked (negative nomination) scores. High-liked children were observed to spend more time in positive interaction with peers and less time in solitary play or alone with an adult. High-disliked children scored less well on both laboratory measures. Using median splits on the liked and disliked dimensions, results indicated that children who were rated by their peers as Low-Liked/High-Disliked were the most deviant with respect to both classroom behaviors and task scores. The importance of obtaining both positive and negative nominations in investigations of social competence is stressed. Implications of the results for the identification of preschool children with social problems and the planning of intervention strategies for these children are discussed.     

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. These conflicting explanations were examined in a series of four experiments that varied induction procedures (passive exposure or inescapability) and stimulus quality (aversive or nonaversive). All four experiments found the predicted interference, but only one, in which passive exposure was combined with an aversive stimulus, obtained results supporting the conditioned inattention hypothesis. We conclude 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.