Learned Helplessness In Humans: Critique and Reformulation

Abstract

Criticizes and reformulates the learned helplessness hypothesis. It is considered that the old hypothesis, when applied to learned helplessness in humans, has 2 major problems: (a) It does not distinguish between cases in which outcomes are uncontrollable for all people and cases in which they are uncontrollable only for some people (universal vs personal helplessness), and (b) it does not explain when helplessness is general and when specific, or when chronic and when acute. A reformulation based on a revision of attribution theory is proposed to resolve these inadequacies. According to the reformulation, once people perceive noncontingency, they attribute their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or external. The attribution chosen influences whether expectation of future helplessness will be chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and whether helplessness will lower self-esteem or not. The implications of this reformulation of human helplessness for the learned helplessness model of depression are outlined. (92 ref)

Full text

Journal
of
Abnormal Psychology
1978, Vol.
87, No. 1,
49-74
Learned Helplessness
in
Humans:
Critique
and
Reformulation
Lyn Y.
Abramson
and
Martin
E. P.
Seligman
University
of
Pennsylvania
John
D.
Teasdale
Oxford
University,
England
The
learned
helplessness
hypothesis
is
criticized
and
reformulated.
The old
hypothesis, when
applied
to
learned
helplessness
in
humans,
has two
major
problems:
(a) It
does
not
distinguish between cases
in
which outcomes
are
uncontrollable
for all
people
and
cases
in
which
they
are
uncontrollable only
-
for
some
people
(univervsal
vs.
personal
helplessness),
and (b) it
does
not
explain when
helplessness
is
general
and
when specific,
or
when chronic
and
when
acute.
A
reformulation based
on a
revision
of
attribution theory
is
pro-
posed
to
resolve these inadequacies. According
to the
reformulation, once
people perceive noncontingency,
they
attribute
their
helplessness
to a
cause.
This
cause
can be
stable
or
unstable, global
or
specific,
and
internal
or
external.
The
attribution chosen influences whether expectation
of
future helplessness
will
be
chronic
or
acute,
broad
or
narrow,
and
whether helplessness will lower
self-esteem
or
not.
The
implications
of
this
reformulation
of
human
helplessness
for
the
learned helplessness model
of
depression
are
outlined.
Over
the
past
10
years
a
large number
of
experiments
have shown that
a
variety
of
orga-
nisms
exposed
to
uncontrollable events
often
exhibit
subsequent disruption
of
behavior (see
Maier
&
Seligman,
1976,
for a
review
of the
infrahuman
literature).
For
example, whereas
naive
dogs
efficiently
learn
to
escape shock
by
jumping
over
a
barrier
in a
shuttle box, dogs
that
first
received shocks they could neither
avoid
nor
escape show marked
deficits
in ac-
quisition
of a
shuttle escape response (Over-
mier
&
Seligman,
1967;
Seligman
&
Maier,
This work
was
supported
by
U.S. Public Health
Service
Grant
MH-19604,
National
Science
Founda-
tion Grant SOC-74 12063,
and a
Guggenheim fel-
lowship
to
Martin Seligman.
We
thank
Lauren
Al-
loy,
Judy
Garber,
Suzanne
Miller,
Frank
Irwin,
S. J.
Rachman,
and
Paul
Eelen
for
their critical com-
ments
on
earlier
drafts
of
this
paper.
Ivan
Miller (Note
1) has
proposed
an
almost
identical
reformulation.
We
believe
this work
to
have
been
done
independently
of
ours,
and it
should
be
so
treated.
Requests
for
reprints
should
be
sent
to
Martin
E.
P.
Seligman,
Department
of
Psychology,
University
of
Pennsylvania, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
19174.
1967).
Paralleling
the
experimental
findings
with
dogs,
the
debilitating consequences
of
uncontrollable
events have been demonstrated
in
cats (Masserman,
1971;
Seward
&
Hum-
phrey, 1967;
Thomas
&
Dewald,
1977),
in
fish
(Frumkin
&
Brookshire, 1969;
Padilla,
1973;
Padilla, Padilla, Ketterer,
&
Giacolone,
1970),
and in
rats (Maier,
Albin,
&
Testa,
1973; Maier
&
Testa,
197S; Seligman
&
Beagley,
1975;
Seligman,
Rosellini,
&
Kozak,
197S).
Finally,
the
effects
of
uncontrollable
events
have been examined
in
humans (Fosco
&
Geer,
1971;
Gatchel
&
Proctor,
1976;
Glass
&
Singer,
1972;
Hiroto,
1974;
Hiroto
&
Selig-
man,
1975; Klein,
Fencil-Morse,
&
Seligman,
1976;
Klein
&
Seligman,
1976;
Krantz, Glass,
&
Snyder, 1974; Miller
&
Seligman, 1975;
Racinskas, 1971; Rodin, 1976; Roth, 1973;
Roth
&
Bootzin, 1974; Roth
&
Kubal,
1975;
Thornton
&
Jacobs, 1971; among others).
Hiroto's experiment
(1974)
is
representative
and
provides
a
human analogue
to the
animal
studies.
College student volunteers were
as-
signed
to one of
three groups.
In the
con-
trollable noise group, subjects received loud
noise
that they could terminate
by
pushing
Copyright
1978
by the
American
Psychological
Association,
Inc.
All
rights
of
reproduction
in any
form
reserved.
49