Generality of learned helplessness in man.

Abstract

Learned helplessness, the interference with instrumental responding following inescapable aversive events, has been found in animals and man. This study tested for the generality of the debilitation produced by uncontrollabl e events across tasks and motivational systems. Four experiments with college students were simultaneously conducted: (a) pretreatment with inescapable, escapable, or control aversive tone followed by shuttlebox escape testing; (b) pretreatment with insoluble, soluble, or control discrimination problems followed by anagram solution testing; (c) pretreatments with inescapable, escapable, or control aversive tone followed by anagram solution testing; (d) pretreatments with insoluble, soluble, or control discrimination problems followed by shuttlebox escape testing. Learned helplessness was found with all four experiments: Both insolubility and inescapability produced failure to escape and failure to solve anagrams. We suggest that inescapability and insolubility both engendered expectancies that responding is independent of reinforcement. The generality of this process suggests that learned helplessness may be an induced trait. Inescapable aversive events presented to animals or to men result in profound interference with later instrumental learning (e.g., Hiroto, 1974; Overmier & Seligman, 1967; Seligman & Maier, 1967; Thornton & Jacobs, 1971). If a subject can escape the aversive event, later instrumental behavior remains normal. This phenomenon has been interpreted as learned helplessness (Maier, Seligman, & Solomon, 1969; Seligman, Maier, & Solomon, 1971). This interpretation claims that organisms learn that responding and reinforcement (e.g., shock termination) are independent when shock is inescapable. Such learning undermines the motivation for initi