Learned helplessness and cocaine dependence: an investigation

Low personal control and a sense of meaninglessness of life, attributes associated with a pattern of human learned helplessness, have also been described as contributing to the onset of adolescent drug use, as well as the maintenance of chronic substance abuse. However, despite its intuitive appeal as an etiologic factor, the absence of psychometrically sound and easily administered measures of learned helplessness has limited the ability of researchers to empirically test its role in the addiction process. Accordingly, the publication by Quinless and Nelson (1988) of a relatively brief Learned Helplessness Scale (LHS) led us to administer it to a sample of 30 consecutive cocaine dependent individuals seeking treatment for the first time at our facility. Our results indicated that the LHS was internally consistent when administered to this clinical sample and that theoretically meaningful and statistically significant relationships with other measures of psychological functioning were observed. Moreover, scores on the LHS were related to treatment retention/outcome.