Three accounts of the learned helplessness effect

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Learned helplessness theory explains performance deficits following uncontrollable events.
• Integrative models combine helplessness and reactance theories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test predictions from learned helplessness and integrated theories.
• To investigate the role of failure, affect, and attributions in performance deficits.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted.
• Experiment 1 examined performance deficits after induced failure.
• Experiment 2 explored the impact of failure on unimportant tasks.

Main Results:

• Performance deficits are not solely dependent on experimenter-induced failure.
• Deficits were unrelated to negative affect or causal attributions.
• Failure on unimportant tasks did not consistently produce predicted deficits.

Conclusions:

• Findings offer qualified support for integrated helplessness and reactance models.
• The reliability of self-report measures in psychological research is questioned.