Effects of amount of helplessness training and internal-external locus of control on mood and performance.

Based on Wortman and Brehm's integration of reactance theory with Seligman's model of learned helplessness, an investigation was conducted to examine the effects of amount of helplessness training and internal--external locus of control on subsequent task performance and on self-ratings of mood. Subjects were divided into "internal" and "external" groups and were then given either high, low, or no helplessness training on a series of concept-formation problems. After completing a mood checklist, all subjects worked on an anagram task presented as a second experiment by a second experimenter. The results revealed that internals exhibited greater performance decrements and reported greater depression under high helplessness than did externals. In the low helplessness conditions, internals tended to perform better than control subjects, while externals tended to perform worse than control subjects; low helplessness subjects also reported the highest levels of hostility. The results are discussed within the context of Wortman and Brehm's integration of reactance and learned helplessness theories.     

Predictability,controllability, and inoculation against learned helplessness

Nondepressed human subjects were divided into seven groups. On a series of discrimination problems, a helplessness group received insoluble problems, a solvable group received contingent feedback, and a no treatment control group received no feedback. For two other groups insoluble problems were preceded by success feedback on a different task presented according to a fixed ratio (FR) or variable ratio (VR) schedule of reinforcement. Two control groups received either FR or VR schedules of success but were not examined on the discrimination problems. All groups were tested for escape/avoidance performance on a human shuttle box. Both FR and VR schedules produced an inoculation against learned helplessness; escape performance by the helplessness group was significantly worse than that of FR and VR inoculation groups. These latter groups performed similar to the solvable and three control groups. Significantly worse than that of FR and VR inoculation groups. These latter groups performed similar to the solvable and three control groups. Significantly fewer subjects in the VR inoculation group exhibited avoidance responses than their counterparts in the FR inoculation group. despite similar escape performance. The findings indicate that learned helplessness can be prevented in humans and suggest different sources of interference produced by unpredictable and uncontrollable events.     

Effects of learned helplessness training on instrumental heart rate control in humans

In Experiment 1, subjects who received feedback contingent on short interbeat intervals (relative to a baseline period) learned to accelerate their heart rates, but subjects who received noncontingent feedback did not. In Experiment 2, subjects who were exposed to noncontingent aversive noises later showed significant performance deficits on both an instrumental and a cognitive task. Attributional style predicted helplessness deficits on the cognitive but not the instrumental task. Experiment 3 demonstrated that experimentally induced helplessness interferes with biofeedback learning. Attributional style did not predict the occurrence of helplessness deficits in this context. Results are discussed in terms of the nature of biofeedback training and the range of behaviors that learned helplessness training affects.     

Generalization of motivational and functional helplessness

The learned helplessness theory (Seligman, 1975) claims that permanent failure causes an expectation of uncontrolability that generalizes to subsequent test tasks and produces (mediated by motivational deficits) performance deficits. In contrast, Kuhl (1981) states that permanent failure produces not only the expectation of uncontrolability but also a functional deficit, called state orientation. State orientation, but not the expectation of uncontrolability, should generalize to the test tasks and cause the performance deficits. These opposing assumptions concerning the generalization of the expectation of uncontrolability and state orientation were tested in a helplessness experiment. During a training phase, 45 college students were confronted with either one success, one failure, or three failures in discrimination problems (Levine, 1966). In a subsequent test phase, which was disguised as a second experiment, subjects had to solve anagrams. Expectations of uncontrolability and the amount of state orientation were assessed after success or failure in the training phase (t1) as well as during the test phase while working on the anagrams (t2). Results showed that only state orientation generalized from t1 to t2 and not expectation of uncontrolability. The results are considered to support Kuhl's conception of functional helplessness. Implications for further development of learned helplessness theory are discussed.     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.     

Attributions of causality and reactions to uncontrollable outcomes

The experiment tested the hypothesis that the stress experienced by a person who is unable to control aversive stimulation is not a function of lack of control per se, but of the attribution of causality that (s)he makes for failure to exert control. Subjects were given a problem-solving task, and were told that they could prevent aversive noise bursts by correctly solving the problems. Subjects then received false feedback that they had done either well or poorly on the problems. In addition, failing subjects received information that led them to attribute their performance either to their own lack of ability or to situational factors (task difficulty). Subjects who attributed their failure to their own incompetence felt considerably more stress than subjects who made situational attributions. In fact, the latter subjects experienced no more stress than subjects who were successful in controlling the stimulation. Surprisingly, subjects whose attributions for performance led them to feel personally incompetent performed better than the remaining subjects both on problems administered in the same situation, and on problems administered in a new and different situation. The implications of the results for future helplessness studies and for the learned helplessness model were discussed.     

Performance and motivational deficits of helplessness: the role of motivational orientations

The present study examined the hypothesis that the effect of failure feedback in producing learned helplessness would depend on the motivational orientation of a child. Extrinsically motivated children were predicted to exhibit performance decrement following a failure experience, whereas the opposite was predicted for intrinsically motivated children. In addition, success feedback was predicted to enhance subsequent performance only for the intrinsic group. Following success, failure, or no feedback on an activity reflecting spatial skills (an incomplete picture task), subjects' performance on an activity tapping different skills (i.e., anagrams) provided by a second experimenter served as the primary measure of helplessness. Subjects' intrinsic motivation in performing the incomplete picture task, a similar task (embedded figures) and a dissimilar task (dots-to-dots) was also examined. The results supported the predictions on both performance and intrinsic motivation measures. The results are discussed in terms of implications for learned helplessness as well as cognitive evaluation theories.     

Children's metacognition: Exploring relations among knowledge,process, and motivational variables

Following a metamemory pretest, 60 first and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) were divided into three treatment groups which received task-specific strategy instructions appropriate for three memory problems, general metacognitive information about subordinate and superordinate processing, or both strategy and metacognitive training. Maintenance and generalization versions of the memory tasks were given, followed by an attributional assessment of children's perceptions of the causes for specific success and failure outcomes. Post-training scores on the memory tasks showed that strategy training was highly successful. Metacognitive training appeared to have no effect on the metameory or strategy scores with one exception: metamemory and strategy use on the generalization task were significantly correlated only for children who received both metacognitive and strategy training. Apparently, children who were initially high in metamemory skills profited more from the comprehensive training package, using new metacognitive insights to aid the generalization of acquired strategies to the transfer tasks. Among strategy-trained children those who attributed success to effort were both more strategic and higher in metamemory than those who attributed task outcomes to noncontrollable factors such as ability or task characteristics. Results were discussed in terms of the interactive nature of knowledge, process, and motivational variables as determinants of strategy transfer.     

Reactance and helplessness following exposure to unsolvable problems: the effects of attributional style

I assessed the effects of internal-external attributional style and amount of unsolvable problems on subsequent task performance. Undergraduate subjects were divided according to their attributional style for bad events into internal, nondefined, and external attributors and were exposed to either one, four, or no unsolvable problems. Following exposure to a single unsolvable problem, internal attributors exhibited greater frustration and hostility and better performance in a subsequent cognitive task than did external attributors. Following exposure to four unsolvable problems, internal attributors exhibited stronger feelings of incompetence and a decrease in performance compared with external attributors. The results are discussed in terms of Wortman and Brehm's (1975) approach to reactance and helplessness.     

Determinants of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for coping with anticipated failure

The present study investigated the use of reduction in intended effort as a strategy for protecting self-esteem from the threat of anticipated failure. It was hypothesized that people reduce the amount of effort they intend to exert when they expect a low probability of success on a highly ego-relevant task. Female subjects anticipated taking an easy (high probability of success) or difficult (low probability of success) test that was either high or low in ego relevance. Subjects' levels of intended effort and other task-relevant cognitions were assessed. It was found that subjects in the low-probability condition intended to exert less effort on the highly ego-relevant test than did subjects in the high-probability condition; probability of success had no effect on intended effort level on the low ego-relevance test. Subjects also reported that it was a worse day for a test in the low-probability condition than in the high-probability condition. The relevance of these findings to the egotism explanation of learned helplessness effects and general theories of motivation was discussed.     

Facilitation and helplessness: The interaction of perceived difficulty and importance of a task

Experimentally induced failure sometimes produces helplessness and sometimes facilitation on subsequent tasks. A model which accounts for this in terms of variations in perceived task difficulty and importance and variations in the cost of effort is proposed. Predictions from the model were confirmed in two experiments using the finger shuttlebox. When subjects expected the test task to be easy, importance of test outcome did not affect performance. However, when they expected the test task to be difficult, low outcome importance led to debilitation, and high importance to facilitation. If, in this condition, subjects experienced initial failure on the task perceived as difficult and important, helplessness rather than facilitation was observed. The model proposed may account for some of the conflicting results obtained in laboratory studies of human helplessness.     

A case study of three theories of learned helplessness: The role of test importance

The current study tests three alternative explanations (learned helplessness, cognitive interference, and egotism) for poor performance following unsolvable problems. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to no feedback or to failure in unsolvable problems and were further divided according to the importance of a test task (unstipulated, low, and high importance). In Experiment 2, during the training phase subjects were exposed to either no feedback, failure, or failure plus explicit hypothesis instructions. Then, subjects in each group received either low or high test-importance instructions. Results bring support to the cognitive interference explanation of performance deficits. Exposure to unsolvable problems was found to impair performance in a high importance task, but not in a low importance task. Such a deleterious effect of prior failure and high importance instructions was reversed by discouraging people from engaging in state-oriented actions. The theoretical implications of the findings were discussed.     

The debilitating effect of exposure to noncontingent escape: A test of the learned helplessness model

Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that exposure to non-contingent escape leads to performance deficits similar to those observed when subjects are exposed to noncontingent aversive outcomes from which there is no escape, and that causal attributions mediate these deficits. Previous attempts to produce “appetitive helplessness” (deficits resulting from exposure to noncontingent positive events) have been plagued by subjects' tendency to believe that they are responsible for positive events. In Experiment 1, 40 subjects were exposed to contingent or noncontingent noise escape trials. As predicted by the learned helplessness model, subjects who received inescapable noise performed less well on a subsequent anagram task than subjects exposed to escapable noise. Similarly, subjects who escaped from the noise owing to the benevolence of a powerful other rather than because of their own efforts, showed performance deficits paralleling those of the inescapable noise subjects. In Experiment 2, subjects who escaped an aversive tone through no effort of their own showed subsequent performance deficits, but globality of their self-reported attributions did not predict subsequent anagram performance. The results of these studies provide support for the hypothesis that uncontrollability, independent of the valence of a particular outcome, is responsible for helplessness deficits, but do not support the mediational role of attributions, at least in the laboratory.     

Prior task failure as a determinant of biofeedback and cognitive task performance

In a study of the effects of controllability of outcomes upon behavior in a biofeedback context, 40 college students were assigned to four groups differing in pretreatment: (1) a success-failure group, given false feedback in a fictitious blood-vessel control task for two sessions designed to convey success followed by two sessions of failure feedback; (2) a failure-failure group, given false failure feedback throughout pretreatment; (3) a contingent failure group, receiving actual feedback in a temperature biofeedback task with criteria that assured failure throughout pretreatment; and (4) a control group, given no specific task during this phase. In a subsequent phase, all subjects received actual frontal (forehead) electromyographic (EMG) response training with biofeedback. In analyses of the results, during EMG training, the contingent failure group attained lower levels than the other three groups. By contrast, on a cognitive (anagram) task, interpolated between pretreatment and EMG training, the contingent failure group demonstrated relatively poorer performance than the other groups. The results are discussed in terms of reactance and learned helplessness theories of perceived loss of control in this context.Some of the data reported here were included in a thesis submitted by the second author in partial fulfillment of requirements for the master's degree in psychology, University of Hawaii, 1981. The entire paper was the basis for a presentation at the annual meeting of the Biofeedback Society of America, Albuquerque, 1984.     

The Effects of Identity-Relevance and Task Difficulty on Task Motivation,Stress, and Performance

Tested the hypothesis that the identity-relevance of a performance domain would predict task motivation, stress, and actual performance. Psychology majors and non-majors (N = 94) completed either moderately difficult or very difficulty questions from a standardized verbal aptitude test. Before the test participants were told that performance on the test was either predictive of success as a psychologist (identity-relevant condition) or were given no information on the predictive ability of the test (control condition). Results revealed that only psychology majors evidenced higher motivation and stress in the identity-relevant condition in comparison to the control condition. The results of actual test performance revealed that when identity-relevance was high, psychology majors tended to do better than non-majors on a task of moderate difficulty, but tended to do worse on a task of high difficulty. Implications of the results for identity-relevance as a motivational and emotional lynchpin for performance are discussed. The author would like to thank Cynthia Ellison, Melissa Kinder, and Kelly Riddle for their assistance in data collection. A paper based on the results of the present study was presented at the 2004 meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association and was the co-recipient of the outstanding professional paper award.     

Motivational Effects of Outcome Feedback on Motor Performance

This study examined the effects of success and failure feedback on subsequent motor performance. Based upon the general motivation (or level-of-aspiration) hypothesis, initial success should lead to better subsequent performance than does initial failure, while the reverse prediction was derived from the cognitive dissonance theory. To test these rival hypotheses, two experiments were conducted on undergraduate male students (n =120) performing a motor maze task. Initial failure improved subjects’ subsequent performance, thus supporting the dissonance theory. However, this effect was observed only under low-ego-involving conditions, thereby suggesting that the effects of dissonance and ego involvement are interdependent. The findings were discussed in terms of motivational and informational/attributional effects of outcome feedback on motor performance.     

Difficulty and instrumentality of imminent behavior as determinants of goal attractiveness

Subjects were presented with an easy or moderately difficult memorization task and told they could earn either a very low or very high chance of obtaining a modest prize if they did well. A measure of goal attractiveness was taken during an interval immediately preceding the task performance period. As expected, anticipatory goal attractiveness ratings were higher in the moderately difficult condition than in the easy condition when the probability of goal attainment (given success) was high, but were low in both task conditions when the probability of goal attainment (given success) was low. Results are discussed in terms of Brehm's recent theory of motivation.     

Learned helplessness and the detection of contingency: A direct test

Two studies tested a basic hypothesis of the learned helplessness model: That performance deficits associated with exposure to uncontrollable outcomes are directly mediated by an individual's perception of response-outcome independence. In the first experiment 48 subjects were exposed to noise bursts. For one experimental group, the termination of the noise was response-contingent. For five other groups, noise-burst termination was independent of subjects' responses. These five groups varied in the number of trials on which they received positive feedback: As predicted, subjects overestimated the amount of control they had over noise termination as a positive linear function of the amount of noncontingent positive feedback they received. Although subjects exposed to either noncontingent positive or negative feedback showed subsequent performance deficits on an anagrams task, the expected relation between perceived control and subsequent performance failed to emerge. These findings were replicated in a second experiment. In addition, subjects' locus, stability, and globality attributions failed to predict subsequent performance. These results call into question the central premises of helplessness theory: That perceived uncontrollability and causal attributions mediate learned helplessness.     

Persistence of learned helplessness in humans

The duration of the effects of a common learned helplessness induction procedure, exposure to insoluble concept-formation problems, was assessed by varying the interval between the induction procedure and subsequent exposure to soluble anagrams. Participants tested immediately or 30 min after the induction procedure exhibited reliable helplessness deficits on all dependent measures. These effects, relative to the performance of a nonhelpless control group, were absent in subjects who experienced delays of 2 or 6 hr before anagram testing. The implications of these results for the development of more enduring helplessness effects and for the conducting of research into analogue intervention are discussed.     

When experiences of failure promote expectations of success: The impact of attribution failure to ineffective strategies1

This experiment examined the effects of attributing initial failure to ineffective strategies on performance expectancies. Subjects were induced to attribute performance at a persuasion task to either their strategies (a controllable factor) or abilities (an uncontrollable factor). Subjects then failed at their initial persuasion attempt. Following failure, strategy subjects expected more successes in future attempts than did ability subjects. Strategy subjects also expected to improve with practice, while ability subjects did not. Comparisons to control subjects, who received no attribution manipulation prior to success or failure, clarify these results. Findings suggest that subjects attributing task outcomes to strategies monitored the effectiveness of their strategies and concluded that by modifying their strategies they would become more successful. In contrast, subjects attributing task outcome to abilities failed to attend to strategic features and concluded that they could not improve. Implications of this overlooked factor for attribution theory and learned helplessness are discussed.