Recent learned helplessness/irrelevance research in Japan: Conceptual framework and some experiments on learned irrelevance

In Section 1, a conceptual framework within which to study learned helplessness (LH), learned irrelevance (LI) and the related phenomena is introduced. In Section 2, three rat experiments on LI conducted in our laboratory using a conditioned suppression of licking preparation are introduced. In Experiment 1, the phenomena of LI and general LI were confirmed. In Experiment 2, random presentations of CSt/US were found to interfere with subsequent initial excitatory conditioning to CSl under random CSl/US presentations. In Experiment 3, pre-paired presentations of CSn or CSt with US before random CSt/US presentations was found to have an attenuating effect on the development of general LI.     

On learned helplessness

“Learned helplessness” and its Pavlovian analog, learned irrelevance, are phenomena thought integral to understanding depression, PTSD, psychosomatic vulnerability, and a variety of diseases and immune disorders. The origin and development of research on learned helplessness is briefly overviewed with attention to the reasons for the controversy that surrounds the study of learned helplessness and derived physiological, psychological, and behavioral phenomena. The need to remedy past focus on American research and English language journals in this area is noted. The heuristic value as well as the wide ranging empirical value of the research domain is lauded. The meretricious emerging social and legal barriers to this research are noted to be unrealistic and unfortunate.     

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 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.     

A parametric study of learned helplessness in humans

In two experiments designed to assess the effect of varying amounts of exposure to noncontingency training, it was discovered that performance decrements could be produced after relatively brief training and again after extended training. Between these conditions was a period of recovery during which no performance deficits were evident. There was also a tendency for individual differences in motivation to moderate deficits following brief but not extended training. A four-stage model is proposed to account for these results. In response to uncontrollable outcomes, individuals are said to pass through a phase of no effect, followed by temporary helplessness, recovery, and final helplessness. The model also proposes that motivational differences and perceptions of noncontingency exert independent and opposing influences on learned helplessness deficits.     

The distortion of self-perception by learned helplessness

This study examined the impact of learned helplessness on self-perception of competence. The participants were 180 undergraduates who were placed in control, failure, or success groups where they were given a list of traits on which to evaluate themselves, followed by an anagram-solution test. Significant performance effects were observed on the test; self-assessment was more representative of actual ability, however, than of the treatment situation. The results suggest that although experiencing uncontrollable failure may result in performance deficits, perception of ability may not be distorted.     

Epistemic needs and learned helplessness

This study assesses the impact of non-specific epistemic needs—the need for structure and the fear of invalidity—on expectancy of control and performance following unsolvable problems. Subjects answered a questionnaire tapping their non-specific epistemic needs and were exposed to either no feedback or failure in unsolvable problems. Then their expectancies of control and performance were assessed. The results showed that a high need for structure was associated with a transfer of the expectancy of uncontrollability and worse performance following failure. The results are discussed in terms of Kruglanski's lay epistemic theory.     

The effect of control and predictability in learned helplessness

The present 2 x 2 study deals with the influence of controllability and predictability of an aversive noise stimulus on a subsequent learning task. Eighty-four subjects participated in two experiments. In correspondence with the concept of learned helplessness, controllability was shown to be the dominant factor in the first experiment. In the second experiment, a modified test task was used in which both factors were shown to act in specific ways: The main influence of controllability is upon response measures (latency, omission), whereas unpredictability retardates learning of new predictive connections. The results are discussed in terms of contingency learning.     

Frustation and learned helplessness.

This article reports the transfer of learned helplessness from one aversive motivator, shock to another, frustration. In experiment 1, animals were trained to approach food in a runway and concomitantly exposed to either escapable, inescapable, or no shock in a different situation. Extinction was conducted in the runway, and subsequently the animals were tested for hurdle-jump escape from the frustrating goal box. Inescapably shocked rats failed to learn to hurdle-jump, whereas escapably or nonshocked animals learned the frustration escape response. Experiment 2 replicated the basic finidngs of Experiment 1 and showed transfer of learned helplessness from shock to frustration when no running response had been first acquired in the runway.     

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.     

Rats learn the relationship between responding and environmental events: An expansion of the learned helplessness hypothesis

Previous research has shown that preexposure to inescapable shock interferes with subsequent acquisition of escape responding, while pretraining with escapable shock facilitates subsequent acquisition of a different escape response. It has also been demonstrated that interference and facilitation persist when the aversive event is changed between the two phases of training. The present experiment extended these findings, showing generalized learning from an appetitive to an aversive situation. Six groups of rats received the following treatment in the presence of discriminative stimuli: One group was trained to nose press for food, a second to chain pull for food, and a third to chain pull to escape or avoid shock. Two groups received either signalled free food or inescapable shock, and a naive control group received no pretreatment. All groups were then tested in a nose-press escape-avoidance situation. The three groups with prior response training acquired responding most rapidly, and at the same rate. The naive controls acquired responding slowly, and the two groups with response-independent histories did not acquire responding during the 5 days of training. It was concluded that rats learn the relationship between responding and environmental events and that such learning strongly influences subsequent learning.     

Sex differences in attributions and learned helplessness

This investigation assessed the hypothesis that girls are more likely to be learned helpless in math than boys. Students in grades 5 through 11 completed questionnaires assessing their causal attributions for success and failure in mathematics, their self-concepts of math ability, and their expectations for both current and future success in math. Results indicated that sex differences in attributions depended on the type of methodology used (open-ended or rank-ordered questions). The most consistent difference involved the differential use and ranking of ability, skills, and consistent effort. No sex differences were found in either students' perceptions of their own math ability or in their current achievement expectations. Girls, however, rated their future expectations slightly lower than did boys. Taken together, these results provide little support for the hypothesis that girls are generally more learned helpless in mathematics than are boys.     

The role of extraversion in the development of learned helplessness

An experiment is reported which investigated the effect of the individual fdifference variable of introversion-extraversion on a typical learned-helplessness induction procedure. It was found that introverts displayed a much more marked helplessness effect than extraverts, in accord with predictions made by the Brebner-Cooper model of extraversion in terms of inhibition and excitation deriving from stimulus analysis and response organization. It was concluded that there are individual differences in response to uncontrollable outcomes which are not taken into account by the current theories of learned helplessness, and further, that these may be mediated by characteristics of the actual task employed.     

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.     

Predicting emotional concomitants of learned helplessness: The role of motivational orientation

Previous theoretical and empirical analyses indicate that an extrinsic motivational orientation, i.e., performing activities to please others or concern with criticism, predicts the cognitive and behavioral deficits associated with learned helplessness. Conversely, intrinsically motivated students, who perform activities for the inherent pleasure of mastery over challenge, have been shown to be virtually resilient to successive failure experiences and even show a facilitation effect. However, research has not yet addressed the extent to which motivational orientation predicts the emotional deficits associated with helplessness—namely, depression and a maladaptive attributional style. Furthermore, no research has examined the relative predictability of these variables to investigate subjects' feelings after an experimental manipulation of failure. The present research found support for the proposition that an extrinsic motivational orientation predicts depression and the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire. More importantly, our findings demonstrated that an extrinsic motivational orientation was a more reliable predictor of subjects' feelings after a failure manipulation than either depression or a maladaptive attributional style. These findings are discussed in light of intervention strategies to attenuate the development of an extrinsic motivational orientation in students.