Prediction, control, and learned helplessness.

Abstract

Perceived control over aversive events and perception of the predictability of those events have been confounded in learned helplessness research. The independent effects of perceived control over and perceived predictability of an aversive event on subjects ' performance on a memory task and depressive affect were examined. Subjects who received noise blasts that were both uncontrollable and unpredictable displayed performance decrements and depressive affect relative to a no-noise group, whereas subjects who were able either to control or to predict the aversive event did not. The perception of control or predictability concerning the aversive event was thus sufficient to mitigate learned helplessness, suggesting the functional equivalence of perceived control and predictability. Finally, results revealed that subjects high in the "desire for control over events " reacted to the aversive noise more than did subjects low in the desire for control. Research on the concept of learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Seligman, 197S) has been concerned largely with the debilitating effects on task performance following subjects ' perception that their outcomes are not contingent on their responses as well as their affective responses to this perception (most notably depression). The individual's subjective reaction to the helplessness situation has often been described as the perception or expectation of having little or no control over the events of concern. Typically, subjects given a degree of actual or perceived control over aversive stimuli perform better on subsequent tasks and show less affective response than subjects who do not perceive that they have control. However, an interesting confound of control and predictability exists in this research. Subjects provided with control over events characteristically have been accorded a large degree of predictability over the occurrence of those events as well. In many situations to which the learned Requests for reprints should be sent to Jerry M.

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