Cognitive processes in intimate conflict: II. efficacy and learned helplessness

Abstract

This paper, in presenting the second part of a cognitive model of family conflict, discusses the influence of efficacy expectations on conflict attitudes and behavior. It proposes (a) that high efficacy enhances persistence in family problem solving, while low efficacy inhibits such efforts, and (b) that chronic low efficacy may lead to learned helplessness responses in family members. Drawing together the cognitive model of family conflict, the author discusses the joint impact of causal attributions and efficacy expectations on family conflict, then describes the two relevant research studies and discusses several implications of the model for family research and family therapy.     

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.     

Pavlov's conceptualization of learning.

Introductory texts in psychology create the misleading impression that I. P. Pavlov was concerned solely with conditioned reflexes. In fact, influenced by Woodworth's Contemporary Schools of Psychology (1931), Pavlov also became interested in learning. Pavlov proposed a two-factor learning theory according to which all learning was based on association, but conditioning and trial and error learning had specific functions. According to Pavlov, conditioned reflexes were temporary and unstable and therefore more flexible in the interaction of higher organisms with the changing environment. Trial and error learning provided knowledge and was relatively more stable. Scientific discovery was based on facts obtained by trial and error; valid relations were reinforced by experimental results, whereas incorrect relationships were extinguished. Some suggestions are made that would allow authors of introductory texts to describe more informatively the contributions of Pavlov to modern psychology.     

Use of the MMPI-2 in American Indians: II. Empirical correlates

R. W. Robin, R. L. Greene, B. Albaugh, A. Caldwell, and D. Goldman (2003) reported that members of 2 American Indian tribal groups had statistically significant higher T scores on several MMPI-2 clinical, content, and supplementary scales than did the MMPI-2 normative group. The present study investigated the empirical correlates of the MMPI-2 scales in these American Indian tribal members. There were a large number of significant correlates reflecting antisocial symptoms with Scales 4 (Psychopathic Deviate), 9 (Hypomania), Anger, and Antisocial Practices. There were even a larger number of significant correlates reflecting generalized distress and negative affect with Scales 7 (Psychosthenia), 8 (Schizophrenia), Anxiety, Obsessions, Depression, and Welsh Anxiety. The rationally derived MMPI-2 content scales generally had larger correlations with these constructs than the clinical scales. Thus, the differences reported by R. W. Robin et al. (2003), appear to reflect behaviors and symptoms that American Indians participants were experiencing rather than test bias.     

The implicit theories of firesetters: A preliminary conceptualization

The importance of cognition in the facilitation and reinforcement of criminal behavior has been highlighted and recognized in numerous offender populations. In particular, professionals have theorized that various offender populations hold offense-supportive schemas or implicit theories that require treatment in therapy. However, the role of cognition in deliberate firesetting has received no focused conceptual or theoretical attention. Using current research evidence and theory relating to general cognition and the characteristics of firesetters, this paper outlines a preliminary conceptual framework of the potential cognitions (in the form of implicit theories) that are likely to characterize firesetters. Five implicit theories are proposed that may be associated with firesetting behavior. The content, structure, and etiological functions of these implicit theories are described as well as the cognitive similarities between firesetters and other offender types. Future research implications and practical implications of the proposed implicit theories are also discussed.     

The generality of learned helplessness in the rat

Two experiments were simultaneously conducted in which two different groups of 40 rats each were exposed to one of two different stressors. In both experiments half the subjects were pretreated with shock, half with underwater exposure. For each pretreatment stressor, half the subjects were allowed to escape, the other half were not. The experiments differed in the test task used. Approximately 24 hr after pretreatment, one-half the subjects from each pretreatment group received 20 water-escape trials in an underwater maze, the other half received 20 shock-escape trials in a two-way shuttle box. The subjects in each of the inescapable pretreatment conditions were slower to escape in the subsequent shock-escape and water-escape tasks when compared with subjects in the corresponding escapable pretreatment condition. The “learned helplessness” effect appeared to be no smaller when aversive stimuli were changed between pretreatment and test than when they remained the same.     

The measurement and conceptualization of curiosity

In this study, the authors tried various methods to measure and conceptualize curiosity. A sample of 369 education students (103 men, 266 women) who were attending universities on the East Coast of the United States completed 5 paper-and-pencil curiosity measures in 1 of their classes. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors found that the data best fit a 3-factor curiosity model consisting of cognitive curiosity, physical thrill seeking, and social thrill seeking. These findings supported the development of new instruments that specifically measured those 3 curiosity types, new empirical research predicting meaningful curiosity-related outcomes, and subsequent theory building concerning how and why curiosity is a fundamental part of optimal human functioning.     

现象学伦理学的基础:意向性感受

E. Husserl’s reflections in Logical Investigations on “intentional feelings” and “non-intentional feelings” are significant in both his later ethical explorations and M. Scheler’s thought on ethics. Through the incorporation of the views of Husserl and Scheler, we find that the phenomenology of the intentional feeling-acts is not only the foundation of the non-formal ethics of values in Scheler’s phenomenology, but also at least the constitutive foundation of the ethics of Husserl’s first orientation. Translated by Yu Xin and Zhang Wei from Huazhong keji daxue xuebao 华中科技大学学报 (Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology), 2007, (6): 14–20     

The learned helplessness hypothesis: A framework in disguise

This article focuses on the theoretical statements of the reformulated helplessness hypothesis (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). The argument is that the reformulated hypothesis should be regarded primarily as a psychological framework. However, most interpretations of the hypothesis have treated it as a specific, experimental model. Consequently, some of the more essential ideas presented in the original helplessness statements have been criticized inappropriately. If the helplessness position is acknowledged as a framework, the possibility of resolving some of these questions will be more realistic. Examples of research strategies which rely on interdisciplinary approaches are presented as potential means to this end.     

The psychology of anxiety: A phenomenological description

Abstract

The psychology of anxiety continues to be debated by researchers, as well as therapists. By investigating it with phenomenological methods, I have been able to determine its three existential preconditions; the way in which an anxious situation announces a crisis of one's efforts to surpass one's unacceptable incompleteness; being anxious as being impeded, if not fundamentally blocked, and moving beyond being anxious as either ambivalently reaffirming the viability of the projects and relations in which one was already invested, or as transformatively accepting those projects and relations as fundamentally uncertain and hence, as open to future determination.     

The psychology of anxiety: A phenomenological description

Abstract

The psychology of anxiety continues to be debated by researchers, as well as therapists. By investigating it with phenomenological methods, I have been able to determine its three existential preconditions; the way in which an anxious situation announces a crisis of one's efforts to surpass one's unacceptable incompleteness; being anxious as being impeded, if not fundamentally blocked, and moving beyond being anxious as either ambivalently reaffirming the viability of the projects and relations in which one was already invested, or as transformatively accepting those projects and relations as fundamentally uncertain and hence, as open to future determination.     

Learned helplessness versus reactance: The effects of sex-role stereotypy

Both learned helplessness and reactance theories hypothesize that the effects of noncontingent reinforcement on later performance are related to the amount of experience with noncontingent reinforcement and to the subjects' expectations of control. In addition, learned helplessness theorists have suggested that performance may depend upon the causes to which subjects ascribe failure. The present study investigated these hypotheses by defining expectation of control as the degree of sex-role stereotypy and by assessing causal attributions. Forty men and 40 women were given either zero, three, four, five, or six discrimination problems for which they received noncontingent reinforcement; they were subsequently tested on anagrams and math problems. Causal attributions were rated after each set of tasks. The data suggested the following. (1) In general, under conditions of noncontingency, high masculinity subjects performed better on anagrams and low masculinity subjects performed worse on anagrams than subjects in the control conditions; stereotypic femininity was not related to performance. (2) Ratings of attributions for failing the discrimination problems were generally unrelated to performance, although there was weak support for the facilitating effects of effort attributions. (3) Subsequent to anagram and math performance, women rated external attributions higher following success and internal attributions higher following failure than did men. The implications for learned helplessness and reactance theories are discussed.The authors would like to thank Stephen Haynes and Jack McKillip for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.