Learned helplessness as conditioned inattention to the target stimulus.

Abstract

Learned helplessness theory explains the impaired performance that follows exposure to uncontrollable outcomes by assuming learned expectation of response-outcome independence that is transferred between tasks. Recent evidence has shown that introducing a second neutral stimulus, contingent on the offset of the uncontrollable stimulus, removes the subsequent interference. This finding has been claimed to support the view that the interference is a result of conditioned inattention rather than of the expectation of response-outcome independence. These conflicting explanations were examined in a series of four experiments that varied induction procedures (passive exposure or inescapability) and stimulus quality (aversive or nonaversive). All four experiments found the predicted interference, but only one, in which passive exposure was combined with an aversive stimulus, obtained results supporting the conditioned inattention hypothesis. We conclude that learned helplessness probably involves more than a single mechanism and that the passive exposure procedure may not be appropriate for demonstrating genuine helplessness deficits.

Unemployment, Underemployment, Occupational Stress and Psychological Well-Being

“…The ten year longitudinal study conducted by Winefield, Tiggemann, Winefield, and Goldney (1993) arose from an experimental research program on learned helplessness in humans (Barber & Winefield 1986;Winefield, Barnett & Tiggemann 1985).…”

When cognitive exertion does not yield cognitive gain: Toward an informational explanation of learned helplessness.

“…That is, knowledge about the factors critical to human helplessness is far from being coherent, as indicated by the rapidly growing number of divergent theoretical explanations (e.g., L. Y. Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Barber & Winefield, 1986; Boyd, 1982; Frankel & Snyder, 1978; Kuhl, 1981; Maier & Seligman, 1976; Roth, 1980; Williams & Teasdale, 1982; Zuroff, 1980) and the recent controversy about the mediating processes (Alloy, 1982; Oakes & Curtis, 1982; Silver, Wortman, & Klos, 1982; Tennen, Drum, Gillen, & Stanton, 1982).…”

Uncontrollability as irreducible uncertainty

“…Namely, it helps understand why exposure to unpredictable events so frequently results in behavioral and aective disruption analogous to that produced by response±outcome noncontingency (e.g. Barber & Wine®eld, 1986;Burger & Arkin, 1980;Glass & Singer, 1972;Overmier & Wielkiewicz, 1983;Schultz, 1976). This disruption is dicult to explain in terms of generalized`no control' beliefs (the mediating process postulated by the classical LH theoryÐsee Seligman, 1975;Maier & Seligman, 1976), because formation of such beliefs obviously requires that overt responses are generated by an organism ( for similar criticism, see also Barber & Wine®eld, 1986).…”