Individual differences in conceptual behaviour following manipulated controllability

Expectations of controllability are thought to influence subsequent behaviour, such that perceived non-contingency between behaviour and outcomes can produce a “learned helplessness” reaction by the organism. Since cognitive processes are implicated in this debilitation, the present study examines the influence of manipulated controllability upon the intrinsic individual differences (among females) in a disjunctive conceptual behaviour recovery task. Three-mode factor analysis is used to explore the process variability in a multivariate time-series design. Results indicate that intrinsic task processes are altered by the controllability pretreatment, but the nature of the impact reflects substantial individual differences in reaction.