No abstract

College students (N = 120) participated in experiment concerning the influence of self-statements following failure on subsequent symptoms of learned helplessness. One third of the students were given solvable concept-formation problems (nonhelpless condition) and two thirds were given unsolvable concept-formation problems (helpless condition). A multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant difference between helpless and nonhelpless students on cognitive/motivational and affective measures of learned helplessness and on self-statements regarding performance. However, when multiple regression and correlational analyses were performed within the group of students who failed the concept-formation problems, no stable relationship was found between self-statements (cognitions) about concept-formation performance and the measures of learned helplessness. The implications of these results for Beck's (1967) cognitive model of depression and the reformulated learned helplessness model of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) are discussed.

No abstract

Eighty undergraduate females participated in a study investigating the relation of sex role identity and sex-stereotyped tasks to the development of learned helplessness in women. Half of the women from four sex role identity groups received bogus feedback and were forced to fail on a concept formation task described to them as either a male- or a female-stereotyped task; the other 40 women succeeded on the task. Failure on the concept formation task produced dysphoric mood in the women, regardless of their sex role identity and regardless of how the concept formation task was described. However, cognitive/motivational symptoms of helplessness were found only among low-masculine women who failed on a male-stereotyped task. These results are compared with previous findings and suggest that feminine-sex-typed women may be particularly susceptible to some helplessness symptoms in contexts defined as male appropriate.

Two investigations were conducted to explore peer ratings of males and females exhibiting different sex roles. In the first study, 160 males and females representing four sex-role groups were rated by close, same sex friends on Gough's Adjective Check List. The results indicated that for both males and females, the four sex-role groups were perceived differently by their friends. I n the second investigation, peer rated adjectives which differentiated between the sex-role groups in Study I were evaluated on a positive/negative dimension; self-rated adjectives differentiating between the four sex-role groups in an earlier study (Baucom, 1980) were evaluated similarly. The findings showed that the peer-rated and self-rated adjectives which differentiated androgynous males and females from the other sex-role groups were viewed more positively than adjectives describing any other group: peer-rated and self-rated adjectives describing undifferentiated persons were consistently viewed negatively. Significant differences between the evaluations of the peer-rated and self-rated adjectives suggest that conclusions about the effects of sex roles are likely to vary, depending upon whether self-report inventories or peer ratings are investigated. Cautions are presented regarding generalizations from only one method of measurement.