Male-Female Performance in Learned Helplessness

The impact of uncontrollability and failure on adult males and females in a learned helplessness situation was investigated. It was hypothesized that females would show more helplessness effects. Twenty-four males and 24 females enrolled in a university psychology course were studied. Helplessness was induced through a series of anagram tasks used in earlier research by one of the authors. As expected, females showed more helplessness effects in the helplessness-induction manipulations of the anagram tasks. Discussion is offered in terms of possible sex differences in childhood training with regard to handling frustration and failure.