Learned helplessness: a survey of cognitive, motivational and perceptual-motor consequences in motor tasks

The aim of this study was to observe the effects of demonstration and controllability on causal attributions, self-efficacy expectations, number of attempts and performances on a pistol shooting task. Video demonstrations were used to induce different social comparisons bound to personal or universal helplessness. Students were randomly assigned in a 3 x 3 (demonstration x controllability) factorial design. The demonstration conditions were: watching a video designed to have participants believe the task was very easy (1), or very difficult (2), or not being exposed to a demonstration (3). The controllability conditions were: a controllable shooting task at a moving target on the computer screen (1), an uncontrollable task at a moving target on the computer screen (2), and a control condition in which participants were given a reading task (3). Finally, a different shooting task was used as a test measure. Analyses of variance showed that different demonstration conditions did not distinguish between personal and universal helplessness. Participants in the controllable condition demonstrated the best performances. Participants confronted with the uncontrollable condition were the least persistent. These findings in part support the general literature on learned helplessness and warrant further research into motor skills.