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.     

Judgment of contingency: cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects

In this research I investigated whether the use of relevant affective outcomes influences depressed and nondepressed subjects' judgment of contingency. Similar to previous studies (Alloy & Abramson, 1979, Experiments 1 and 2), Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed that when the outcome is affectively neutral (i.e., the onset of a light) depressed subjects make accurate judgments of contingency, whereas nondepressed subjects show (in noncontingent situations) a significant illusion of control. In Experiments 3 and 4 (a contingency situation and a noncontingency situation, respectively) different types of sentences (negative self-referent, negative other-referent, positive self-referent, positive other-referent) were used as outcomes. Although depressed subjects were more reluctant to show biased judgments than were the nondepressed subjects, in noncontingency situations depressed subjects made overestimated judgments of contingency when the outcomes were negative self-referent sentences. Results are discussed with regard to current cognitive theories of depression, particularly the learned helplessness model.     

The relationship between attributions and depression varies across attributional dimensions and across samples

Two hypotheses implicit in the use of composite measures of attributions in tests of learned helplessness theory (but not implicit in the theory itself) were tested: the hypotheses that relationships between depression and the three types of attributions are equal in magnitude and are linear. To test these hypotheses, data from three published studies of the reformulated learned helplessness theory (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) were reanalyzed. The hypothesis that internal, stable, and global attributions are equally related to depression was tested and rejected. Increases in internal attributions were related to depression in one sample; increases in global attributions for negative events were related to depression in two samples; stability attributions for negative events were unrelated to depression. The relationship between attributions and depression was nonlinear in one of the three populations studied. Finally, a third hypothesis was tested: the hypothesis that the relationship between attributions and depression is equal across samples. The hypothesis was rejected: attributions for negative events were more highly related to depression in a psychiatric sample than in normal populations. Implications of these findings for learned helplessness theory and for the use of composite measures of attributional style are discussed.     

Depressogenic cognitive styles: predictive validity, information processing and personality characteristics, and developmental origins.

Two of the major cognitive theories of depression, the theory of Beck [Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: clinical, experimental and theoretical aspects. New York: Harper & Row. and Beck, A. T. (1987) Cognitive models of depression. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: an International Quarterly, 1, 5-37] and the hopelessness theory [Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, (1989) Hopelessness depression: a theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372], include the hypothesis that particular negative cognitive styles increase individuals' likelihood of developing episodes of depression, in particular, a cognitively mediated subtype of depression, when they encounter negative life events. The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression (CVD) project is a two-site, prospective longitudinal study designed to test this cognitive vulnerability hypothesis, as well as the other etiological hypotheses of Beck's and the hopelessness theories of depression. In this article, based on CVD project findings to date, we review evidence that the hypothesized depressogenic cognitive styles do indeed confer vulnerability for clinically significant depressive disorders and suicidality. In addition, we present evidence regarding moderators of these depressogenic cognitive styles, the information processing and personality correlates of these styles and the possible developmental antecedents of these styles. We end with a consideration of future research directions and the clinical implications of cognitive vulnerability to depression.     

Depression and causal attributions for success and failure

The present study investigated the effects of depression on causal attributions for success and failure. Specifically, female university students were separated into depressed and nondepressed groups on the basis of Costello--Comrey Depression Scale scores, and then received either 20%, 55%, or 80% reinforcement on a word association task. Following the task, attributions were made for outcome using the four factors of effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. In accord with predictions generated from a self-serving biases hypothesis, nondepressives made internal (ability, effort) attributions for a successful outcome (80% reinforcement) and external attributions (luck, task difficulty) for a failure outcome (20% reinforcement). As predicted from consideration of the self-blame component of depression, the attributions made by depressives for a failure outcome were personal or internal. Contrary to expectations, depressives also made internal attributions for a successful outcome. The findings for depressives were discussed in relation to the recently revised learned helplessness model of depression, which incorporates causal attributions. For nondepressives, the findings were considered in terms of the self-serving biases hypothesis.     

Depression and the generation of complex hypotheses in the judgment of contingency

This experiment tests the hypothesis that relative to nondepressed college students, depressed college students will underestimate the potential amount of control they can exert over an environmental outcome when they must generate a complex hypothesis in order to exert control, but not when the complex hypothesis is generated for them. Following the method of Alloy and Abramson (1979b), depressed and nondepressed students' judgments of response-outcome contingency were assessed in either a ‘self-generated’ or an ‘experimenter-generated’ condition. In the ‘self-generated’ condition, subjects generated and tested potential hypotheses for controlling the outcome themselves. In the ‘experimenter-generated’ condition, the experimenter generated a small set of potential hypotheses to be tested by the subject. Relative to nondepressed students, depressed students were less likely to perform the correct controlling response, received fewer rewards, and judged that they exerted less control over the outcome in the ‘self-generated’ condition. These results fail to support the ‘associative’ deficit of the learned helplessness theory of depression, but are consistent with the ‘motivational’ deficit of helplessness theory.     

A re-view of cognitive mediators in learned helplessness

The findings of Oakes and Curtis (1982), Tennen, Drum, Gillen, and Stanton (1982), and Tennen, Gillen, and Drum (1982) provide a challenge to learned helplessness theory's focus on cognitive mediators of the helplessness phenomenon. In response to these findings, Alloy (1982) argues that these studies do not challenge helplessness theory because they do not measure expected control and because they confuse necessary and sufficient causes of learned helplessness. Silver, Wortman, and Klos (1982) contend that these studies provide an inadequate test of the model because subjects are confronted with experiences which are unlike those in their natural environment. The present article argues that by Alloy's (1982) criteria, an adequate test of the learned helplessness model has not yet been conducted. Previous studies which measured expected control have not supported the model's predictions. Moreover, if perceived response–outcome independence is a sufficient, but not a necessary cause of learned helplessness, the model loses much of its heuristic value. In response to the argument that these studies lack ecological validity, this article clarifies the distinction between experimental realism and mundane realism. While real-world studies have discovered intriguing relations between perceptions of control, attributions, and coping with illness or victimization, they have not tested predictions of the learned helplessness model.     

The cognitive specificity of learned helplessness and depression deficits: The role of self-focused cognitions

Abstract

Four experiments assessed similarities and differences in learned helplessness and depression-related deficits in cognitive performance and self-focused cognitions. Subjects answered the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961), were exposed to no-feedback or failure in unsolvable problems, and their response time in a digit comparison task (with or without a memory component, with different number of digits, and different number of mental transformations) and self-focused cognitions were assessed. Learned helplessness and depression deficits were found in a memory task, and the deficits increased with the number of digits. Depression deficits also increased with the number of transformations, and were also found in the no-memory/two transformation condition. Finally, task-related worries were related to learned helplessness deficits, and task-irrelevant thoughts were related to depression deficits. Findings were discussed in terms of the cognitive specificity of learned helplessness and depression deficits.     

Repeated failure: a source of helplessness or a factor irrelevant to its emergence?

We tested the validity of the egotism model of human helplessness. In contrast to the original theoretical approach of Seligman and his associates, which points to response-outcome noncontingency as the main source of helplessness, the egotism alternative proposes that repeated failure itself is the critical determinant of helplessness symptoms. Repeated failure threatens the self-esteem of the subject, who supposedly engages in a least-effort strategy during the test phase of a typical learned helplessness study, which results in performance impairment. To examine the egotism explanation, we gave subjects noncontingent-feedback training with or without repeated failure on five consecutive discrimination problems. In two experiments, noncontingent-feedback preexposure produced helplessness deficits in performance on avoidance learning, whereas repeated failure appeared irrelevant to helplessness. This and our other findings from research are inconsistent with the egotism explanation and support instead Seligman's original proposal, in which helplessness is attributed to prolonged experience with noncontingency.     

Attributions and expectations: a confluence of vulnerabilities in mild depression in a college student population

The reformulated model of learned helplessness assumes that attributional style has its impact on depression in part through the intermediary effect of pessimistic or negative expectations about the occurrence of future outcomes. A possible logical next step in testing the model is to measure jointly attributions and expectations and to examine their combined (interactive) contributions. We used a short-term longitudinal design to examine whether attributional style works in combination with other factors, such as expectations, to predispose individuals to depression. Consistent with the initial theoretical analysis, the interaction of attributional style and expectations predicted depression on the Beck Depression Inventory 6 weeks later. We also found that attributional style predicted depression 6 weeks later in interaction with initial level of depression. These findings support our confluence hypothesis, which assumes that vulnerability factors can combine interactively and qualify the effects of attributional style. These interaction-effect findings have implications for currently popular cognitive theories of depression and for previous research on vulnerability to depression that has examined only the effects of single cognitive variables (such as attributional style) considered alone. Further study is also necessary to determine the nature of the overlap of the effects of expectation and initial level of depression.     

Attributional versus preattributional variables in self-esteem and depression: a comparison and test of learned helplessness theory

Predictions made according to the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory concerning the cognitive determinants of low self-esteem and depression were tested in two samples of undergraduates; real and hypothetical life events were used. As predicted, internal attributions for hypothetical success and failure were correlated with self-esteem, but there was an unexpected correlation with global attributions for negative outcomes. Two "preattributional" variables, consensus and consistency judgments, were also related to self-esteem and depression. In contrast to learned helplessness theory, a path analysis indicated that these variables were not attributionally mediated. Consensus judgment was as strong a predictor of depression as the number of recent distressing life events that subjects had experienced. Other evidence that links depression to perceived low consensus is described, and a possible etiological role for this variable is outlined.     

Vulnerability to depressive mood reactions: toward a more powerful test of the diathesis-stress and causal mediation components of the reformulated theory of depression

To provide a more powerful test of the diathesis-stress component of the reformulated theory of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978), we extended and refined the Metalsky, Abramson, Seligman, Semmel, and Peterson (1982) study and examined whether the content of college students' attributional styles (hypothesized attributional diathesis) as measured at Time 1 interacted with the outcomes students received on a class midterm exam to predict their subsequent depressive mood responses. In addition, to test the mediation component of the theory, we examined whether the relation between the hypothesized attributional diathesis and failure students' subsequent depressive mood responses to their low midterm grades was mediated by the particular causal attributions these students made for their low grades. The results partially corroborated the current statement (Abramson, Alloy, & Metalsky, 1986; Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1986a, 1986b) of the diathesis-stress component of the theory. Whereas students' immediate depressive mood reactions were predicted solely by the outcomes they received on the class midterm exams, their enduring depressive mood reactions were predicted solely by the hypothesized Attributional Diathesis X Outcome on Midterm Exam interaction. The direction and form of the interaction were in line with prediction. The results fully corroborated predictions derived from the mediation component of the theory as they applied to students' enduring mood responses.     

信息反馈不一致导致习得无助机制的实验研究

研究以90名大学生为被试,探讨认知活动中,信息反馈不一致性和操作成绩评价反馈导致大学生无助现象的机制。结果表明:认知活动中,信息反馈不一致,损害了被试的认知和情绪,对动机的损害没有达到显著性水平;实验中是否给予被试操作成绩评价,对被试的动机、认知和情绪影响不显著。说明在认知活动中,信息反馈不一致,是导致习得无助的关键因素,是否对被试的操作成绩给予评价反馈,不会导致习得无助,验证了习得无助的信息加工理论模型。实验也表明,信息反馈不一致不会形成被试反应性的抑郁。     

Reducing hopelessness: the interation of enhancing and depressogenic attributional styles for positive and negative life events among youth psychiatric inpatients

A recovery model of depression (Needles & Abramson, 1990 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 156-165) proposes that depressed individuals who exhibit an enhancing attributional style for positive events (i.e. make stable, global attributions) will be more likely to regain hopefulness and, thereby, recover from depression when positive events occur. While only a few studies have directly tested this model among clinical and nonclinical adult samples, none have tested a clinical sample of children and adolescents. Furthermore, prior studies testing this model have failed to examine the interactive role of an 'enhancing attributional style' for positive events with a 'depressogenic attributional style' for negative events, as prescribed by the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989 Psychological Review, 96, 358-372). The current study presents data demonstrating that depressogenic and enhancing attributional styles interact to predict differential decreases in hopelessness. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research also are presented.     

Negative attributional style, hopelessness depression and endogenous depression

The hopelessness theory of depression [Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I. & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: a theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372.] postulates that a negative attributional style represents a risk factor for a particular constellation of depressive symptoms, termed 'hopelessness depression'. Four studies tested the relation of negative attributional style to hopelessness depression symptoms versus endogenous depression symptoms. Despite the considerable overlap of hopelessness and endogenous depression symptoms, negative attributional style was more related to the former than the latter, consistent with hopelessness theory.     

The Children's Attributional Style Interview: Developmental Tests of Cognitive Diathesis-Stress Theories of Depression

This paper presents an initial assessment of the Children's Attributional Style Interview (CASI), a newly designed measure for assessing attributional style in young children (age 5 and up). The CASI was used to conduct prospective tests of the reformulated helplessness (L. Y. Abramson, M. Seligman, & J. Teasdale, 1978) and the integrated hopelessness/self-esteem (G. I. Metalsky, T. E. Joiner, Jr., T. S. Hardin, & L. Y. Abramson, 1993) theories of depression in a sample of 147 5–10-year-old children. For comparison, the same tests were also conducted with the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire-Revised (CASQ-R; N. J. Kaslow & S. Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991), a commonly used measure for assessing attributional style in older children (age 8 and up). The CASI evidenced support of the reformulated helplessness theory and partial support of the integrated hopelessness/self-esteem theory. The CASI also demonstrated good internal consistency. Thus, our findings provide initial support for the CASI as a methodologically sound measure of attributional style for children as young as 5 years old. Although preliminary, our findings also suggest possible developmental differences in how attributional style interacts with self-esteem and negative life stress. The CASI should prove to be a useful tool in furthering the understanding of the origins and development of attributional style in childhood, as well as its contribution to the understanding of the development and prevention of depressive symptomatology in children.     

习得性无助是习得的吗？——对习得性无助理论及其反思的评述

Seligman和Maier（1967）在动物实验的基础上提出了著名的习得性无助理论,但在2016年,Maier和Seligman二人却联合发文对该理论进行了反思：从最新的神经生物学证据来看,习得性无助的经典理论概括存在基本错误,习得性无助并非习得而来！所谓“习得性”无助,实质上是动物对厌恶刺激长期作用的先天适应性反应,而非认知学习的结果。本文简要梳理习得性无助理论的起源与发展,深入分析这一反思的核心内容、依据及意义,对其中否定习得性无助理论概括的观点,从证据的充分性、研究范式的效度、规范概念等角度作了进行进一步的探讨,并结合新的实验范式对未来研究提出建议。     

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.     

Alcohol consumption by college women following exposure to unsolvable problems: Learned helplessness or stress induced drinking?

Three experiments were intended to examine the relationship between alcohol, depression and learned helplessness. In Study I, more female undergraduate heavy drinkers than light drinkers were found to have critically elevated scores on a depression index. A sex difference in the relationship between drinking and depression is suggested since male depressives were equally distributed among drinking categories. In Studies II and III, female undergraduates were given unsolvable problems in a learned helplessness paradigm. Relative to controls these subjects reported increased depressive and hostile affect and drank more beer in a taste rating task. However, we failed to find deficits in anagram solution with those subjects given the learned helplessness manipulation. Specific questions are raised regarding the boundary conditions of learned helplessness while implications bearing on stress-related alcohol consumption are discussed.     

Cognitive vulnerability to depressive symptoms in adolescents in urban and rural Hunan, China: a multiwave longitudinal study

The current multiwave longitudinal study examined the applicability of two cognitive vulnerability-stress models of depression-Beck's (1967, 1983) cognitive theory and the hopelessness theory (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989)-in two independent samples of adolescents from Hunan Province, China (one rural and one urban). During an initial assessment, participants completed measures assessing dysfunctional attitudes (Beck, 1967, 1983), negative cognitive style (Abramson et al., 1989), neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992), depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Once a month for the subsequent 6 months, participants completed measures assessing the occurrence of different types of negative events, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Results provided support for cognitive vulnerability factors as predictors of increases in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of higher than average levels of negative events in Chinese adolescents. The results also supported the specificity of these two cognitive vulnerability factors as predictors of depressive versus anxiety symptoms following the occurrence of higher than average levels of negative events (i.e., symptom specificity), and the ability of cognitive vulnerability factors to predict prospective change in depressive symptoms above and beyond the effects of trait neuroticism (i.e., etiological specificity).