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.     

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.     

Effects of differences in achievement motivation and amount of exposure on responses to uncontrollable rewards

Within a triadic experimental design, 80 subjects classified as high or low in achievement motivation were given either standard or extended exposure to uncontrollable rewards. Subjects high in achievement motivation displayed facilitation following standard training that was eliminated following extended training. While this conforms with Wortman and Brehm's model integrating reactance theory and learned helplessness theory, in general the results were more accurately described by predictions based on a modification of the theory of achievement motivation. Because the experimental procedure induced the perception of uncontrollability independently of perceived failure, the results were seen as extending the generality of the latter theory.     

Learned helplessness in high school students following experience of noncontingent rewards

High school students differing in achievement motivation were subjects in a learned helplessness experiment using a yoked triadic design with noncontingent rewards. A strong helplessness effect was observed in both high- and low-achievement motivation groups. A postexperimental questionnaire revealed that perceived response-outcome independence was induced under the noncontingent reinforcement condition, but was not associated with perceived failure. The results were seen as strong support for the original learned helplessness model in two important respects. First they refute recent claims that learned helplessness depends on aversive outcomes, and second they show that human helplessness can be distinguished from experimenter-induced failure.     

Sex and sycophancy: Communication strategies for ascendance in same-sex and mixed-sex superior-subordinate dyads

The purpose of this study was to examine communication strategies for ascendance in same-sex and mixed-sex superior-subordinate dyads. The strategies, operationalized in terms of task and social facilitation, were derived from Bales' Interaction Process Analysis categories. Corollary data were collected relative to the subordinate's expected job satisfaction under male versus female supervision. Results indicated that (1) the perceived importance of task versus social facilitative strategies varied both within and across the four types of dyads, and (2) female subordinates expected to be more satisfied working under female supervision than did male subordinates.The authors would like to thank Ralph Kilmann and John Grant, Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, for their assistance in providing subjects for this study.     

Learned helplessness deficits: Uncontrollable outcomes or perceived failure?

An experiment is described showing that learned helplessness deficits are produced by prior exposure to uncontrollable outcomes rather than perceived failure. Although the controllability manipulation did produce differences in perceived success or failure, similar differences were also induced by means of instructional feedback. These latter differences, within the controllable and uncontrollable groups, were not associated with poorer performance by subjects given failure feedback. Moreover, the instructional feedback did not influence subjects' perceptions of controllability or uncontrollability. The results confirm that helplessness deficits cannot be explained as reactions to task failure.This research was supported by Research Grant A28015473 from the Australian Research Grants Scheme.     

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.     

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.     

Necessary versus sufficient causal schemata for success and failure

197 subjects judged the perceived presence or absence of ability or effort, given information about task outcome (success or failure), the difficulty of the task (easy, intermediate, or difficult), and the state of the complementary cause (effort or ability). The data revealed that a multiple sufficient causal schema is used to explain common events. That is, the presence of ability or effort is perceived as enough to produce success at an easy task, while the absence of ability or effort is perceived as sufficient to result in failure at a difficult task. On the other hand, a multiple necessary schema tends to be employed to explain uncommon events. Success at a difficult task is believed to require both ability and effort, while failure at an easy task tends to be perceived as caused by low ability and low effort. In addition, there were disparities in the causal judgments for success and failure: failure outcomes are more likely to elicit a multiple sufficient schema. Further, in achievement-related contexts ability and effort are perceived as negatively covarying causal determinants of typical successes and failures. In addition to supporting hypotheses from attribution theory, the data shed further light upon the perceived determinants of success and failure, and demonstrate the influence of cognitive structures on achievement-related causal judgments.     

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.     

Causal attributions as a function of locus of control, initial confidence, and performance outcomes.

Causal attributions and body movements indicative of tension were recorded while subjects completed an anagrams task that was more extensive than most similar tasks used in attribution studies. Nine trials each containing 10 anagrams were presented such that most subjects succeeded on three sets of relatively simple anagrams, failed on three sets of difficult anagrams, and either succeeded or failed on three sets of intermediately difficult anagrams. Attributions and body movements were predicted by a combination of locus of control, initial confidence, and type of outcome. High-confident internals attributed responsibility for outcomes to themselves more than did low-confident externals, and this difference was most prominent when subjects failed. Tension-indicating body movements were also less common among the former than the latter subjects and were in greater evidence with failure than with success. The data indicate that there is consistency between locus of control and causal attributions obtained during performances. The data also correspond to the findings on helplessness in which aversive agents prove to be more deleterious when individuals perceive themselves as unable to alter their negative circumstances.     

Goals: an approach to motivation and achievement

This study tested a framework in which goals are proposed to be central determinants of achievement patterns. Learning goals, in which individuals seek to increase their competence, were predicted to promote challenge-seeking and a mastery-oriented response to failure regardless of perceived ability. Performance goals, in which individuals seek to gain favorable judgments of their competence or avoid negative judgments, were predicted to produce challenge-avoidance and learned helplessness when perceived ability was low and to promote certain forms of risk-avoidance even when perceived ability was high. Manipulations of relative goal value (learning vs. performance) and perceived ability (high vs. low) resulted in the predicted differences on measures of task choice, performance during difficulty, and spontaneous verbalizations during difficulty. Particularly striking was the way in which the performance goal-low perceived ability condition produced the same pattern of strategy deterioration, failure attribution, and negative affect found in naturally occurring learned helplessness. Implications for theories of motivation and achievement 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.     

Three accounts of the learned helplessness effect

Two experiments tested predictions drawn from test anxiety theory, learned helplessness theory, and Wortman and Brehm's (1975) integration of helplessness and reactance theories. Experiment 1 demonstrated that performance deficits predicted by learned helplessness do not rely on experimenter-induced failure. It also showed such deficits to be unrelated either to negative affect following exposure to pretreatment or to causal attributions about pretreatment task performance. Experiment 2 showed that experience of uncontrollability need not result in impaired performance, because failure on an unimportant task did not produce the deficits predicted by learned helplessness theory. This result provides qualified support for the integrative model. Finally, because the subjective measures used in Experiment 2 were not consistent with performance measures, the reliability of self-reports is questioned.     

Vicariously and directly learned helplessness and effectiveness1

Experiment 1 demonstrated the typical helplessness effect of inescapability on directly participating female subjects. Predictions drawn from social learning theory and comparison level theory on vicariously learned helplessness and effectiveness were then tested in a second study employing the prototypical learned helplessness induction design. In Experiment 2, 180 women served as either observers or direct participants and were pretreated as dyads with escapable, inescapable, or irrelevant noise. Consistent with social learning theory, subsequent instrumental task performance demonstrated facilitation effects of escapability on observers, and the same effect on direct participants also was found. No debilitation effects of vicariously or directly experienced inescapability were obtained. The combined results suggest that the induction of helplessness and effectiveness may depend on the social context in which relative controllability is operative, and are discussed primarily in terms of possible coaction effects.     

Perceived dimensionality of attributions following success and failure by paraplegic males

Review of the literature suggests that perceived dimensionality (locus, stability and control) following success differs from this construct following failure. This study challenges these findings and expands the scope of attribution to perceived dimensionality of more than one cause assigned to each outcome. Thirty paraplegic subjects were given a competitive task in which each experienced success and failure. They were asked to rate more than one cause for the outcome, and then to complete a perceived dimensionality questionnaire. The results indicated that causes following success were perceived as more internal and stable but not more controllable than those following failure. Consistency in perceived locus and stability after success and failure is not inherent, and the relationship between subsequent ratings of causes on perceived dimensionality is moderate. The authors suggest further consideration in future research of perceived dimensionality following successful and unsuccessful outcomes.     

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.     

A revised model of learned helesspleness in humans1

The present paper presents a revised model of learned helplessness in humans. The conditions under which performance deficits (helplessness) or enhanced performance (facilitation) will result from exposure to objective noncontingency are defined by a number of variables that have been shown to have an impact on human helplessness. The reformulated model specifies the operation of moderating variables as they affect a number of relationships: that between objective noncontingency and the perception of noncontingency; that between the perception of noncontingency and the future expectancy of response-reinforcement independence; and finally that between the expectancy of response-reinforcement independence and the behavirol deficits associated with learned helplessness. It is argued that exposure to noncontingency can affect both the value of future reward and the perceived probability of obtaining it. Performance deficits or enhanced performance will result from the perception of noncontingency depending on the nature of this double-edged effect of exposure to noncontingent delivery of reward.     

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.     

Learned helplessness and learned resourcefulness: effects of noncontingent success and failure on individuals differing in self-control skills

We designed two experiments to investigate the role of self-control processes in learned-helplessness studies by assessing the differential reactions to uncontrollability of subjects who presumably had either a rich (high resourceful, or HR) or poor (low resourceful, or LR) repertoire of self-control skills. HR and LR subjects received noncontingent success feedback, failure feedback, or no feedback on a task that ostensibly assessed "therapeutic abilities." Subjects were subsequently tested on insolvable puzzles (Experiment 1) or on solvable anagrams (Experiment 2). According to Kanfer and Hagerman's (1981) self-regulation model, self-regulatory activities are evoked primarily in situations in which subjects are faced with repeated failure. Hence we predicted that individual differences in self-control would influence performance on the insolvable puzzles and not anagram performance after exposure to noncontingent failure. This prediction was confirmed: Only the performance of LR subjects on the insolvable puzzles was debilitated by the helplessness induction, whereas HR and LR subjects showed equal helplessness-induced deficits on the anagrams. The latter finding was interpreted in terms of the learned-helplessness model without the mediating effects of self-regulatory processes. As predicted from the self-control model, HR subjects more frequently checked statements indicating positive self-evaluations and task-oriented thoughts and less frequently checked negative self-evaluations than did LR subjects during exposure to uncontrollability in both experiments. We concluded that the self-control model accounts best for subjects' self-reactions during exposure to uncontrollability or failure, whereas the learned-helplessness model accounts for the generalization of helplessness from uncontrollable situations to controllable ones.