Learned helplessness and learned effectiveness: Effects of explicit response cues on individuals differing in personal control expectancies

Children's Moral Reasoning about Self and Others

In two studies, we examined children's reasoning about prosocial moral dilemmas in which the cost of helping and/or the identity of the story protagonist (self versus a third-person other) were varied. In Experiment 1, preschool children who responded to stories in which they themselves were characters verbalized more hedonistic reasoning, used less reasoning in which they were oriented toward the other's needs, and were less likely to say that they should help the needy other than were children who reasoned about third-person others. In Experiment 2, identity of the protagonist, cost of helping for the protagonist (a low cost condition was added), and age of the subject (preschool versus first grade) were varied. For children in the high cost condition (but not the low cost condition), the pattern of results was similar to that in Experiment 1. Age differences in judgments were somewhat greater when the cost of helping was low.

Depression and helplessness-induced cognitive deficits in the aged

Sixty-six community-residing elderly (mean age = 72.5) were categorized as depressed (mean = 11.3) or nondepressed (mean = 3.9) based on Beck Depression Inventory scores. After a pre-test battery measuring short-term memory and crystallized/fluid intelligence, the subjects responded to a word association task, disguised as a test of interpersonal empathy, under response dependent or response independent reinforcement conditions, or were assigned to a no treatment control. A post-test battery of alternate forms followed. Four of seven measures showed significant pre- to post-test declines in performance. For two of these four, response dependent reinforcement prevented otherwise significant declines. With pre-test differences statistically controlled, depression produced significant post-test deficits in three measures. Response dependent reinforcement eliminated this depression deficit in one measure. The results indicate that depression may exacerbate fatigue effects for the elderly and response dependent reinforcement may prevent fatigue-caused deficits in short-term memory.

Methodological difficulties in demonstrating learned helplessness in humans

This paper outlines methodological difficulties in experimentally demonstrating the learned helplessness effect in humans. It is argued that most of the reported attempts to do so have failed to overcome these difficulties although a new experimental paradigm is described which appears to avoid most of them. It is concluded that the effect is a genuine one, although dependent on a variety of situational and individual difference variables which need to be systematically explored before a satisfactory theory can be developed.