Helplessness

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Helplessness
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PY503 helplessness aims

• After this lecture you should
• Know what is meant by Illusion of Control
• be able to contrast helplessness with depression
• Be capable of describing Seligman's work on
  helplessness optimism, Alloy et als. experiment
  
• Be aware of research on mastery over helplessness
  Be able to describe two research related to
  prevention of helplessness, especially in
  children and undergraduates.

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PY503 LH contingency
no contingencies between behaviour and outcome
--gt affects learning. -----gtlearned
helplessness and learned optimism. Contingency
And Non Contingency contingency relationship.
probability of an outcome following a response,
or no response
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PY503 LH expts
Solomon stated Organisms can learn responses
only when their responses produces reward or
punishment. With unrelated reward, no learning
would occur. ....Animals don't have cognitions.

• shuttling
• Dog in left, shock in left ? right
• Dog in right, shock in right ?left

Pretreatment Shock, no escape or avoidance no
contingency
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PY503 LH expts
Non-Contingency, Learned Helplessness Seligman
Maier (1967) non-contingencies dogs in a shuttle
box experiment with a triadic design. passive
---gt sick Hiroto (1974) human shuttle box
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PY503 LH quote
Seligman named Learned Helplessness Non
Contingency of reinforcement to instrumental
responses can lead to cognitive, emotional and
motivational deficits. i.e. a state of learned
helplessness
Information about the contingency
Cognitive representation
Behaviour
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PY503 LH symptomsLH depression

• Passivity
• Negative cognitive set
• Spontaneous Recovery
• Weight loss
• Norepinephrine depletion
• Ulcers

• Passivity
• Difficulty Learning
• Dissipates in time
• Weight loss
• Norepinephrine depletion
• Ulcers

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PY503 LH causeLH depression

• responding reinforcement independent

• Believe responding is useless

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PY503 LH cureLH depression

• Forced exposure
• Electro convulsive shock
• Time
• Drugs
• Immunisation by mastery

• Electro convulsive shock
• Time
• Drugs
• Immunisation by mastery

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PY503 LH attributions
Look at wiki on explanatory style (Abramson,
Teasdale, Seligman 1979) The ASQ (Peterson,
Seligman) And the CAVE technique (Peterson et
al.)

• personal
• Internal - external
• permanent
• stable - unstable
• pervasive
• global - specific

• due to factors inside oneself, or in the outside
  world
• factors remain the same, or change over time
• factors that are true in lots of situations, or
  just one

Depression characteristic explanatory style
internal, stable and global set of attributions
after failure
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PY503 LH Illusion of control Alloy Abramson
(1979)

• non-depressed over estimate if outcome is good
  even when in fact they had no control.
• p(O/R) p(O/R) 2525 50 of both D and ND
  said they had no control,
• 7575, 94 non depressed control, vs 50
  depressed
• Sadder but Wiser.

Look at wiki on despressive realism Check
booklet (pp55) on dice throwing,
typists. Swimmers (Selig et al., 1990) get worse
if poor style, better if good style. Insurance
agents (Selig Shulman, 1990) best to pick on
basis of ASQ
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PY503 Learned Optimism

• characteristic explanatory style of an optimist
  internal, stable and global set of attributions
  after success and the opposite constellation
  after failure
• ? Optimists catch fewer infections
• Optimists have better health habits
• Our immune system is better if optimistic
• Optimists live longer than pessimists

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PY503 change in depression

• Klerman, 1979, less depression in old
• Until 1960's depression was unusual, mainly
  reported by middle aged women.
• If born in the 1930s first depression between 30
  and 40. If born in 1956 first depression 20 - 25
• Lewinsohn born 1972-74 by 14, 7.2 depressed born
  1968-71 only 4.5 depressed.
• Of 3000 14 yr olds children in southern states,
  9 depressed.