Performance Deficits Following Failure: Integrating Motivational and Functional Aspects of Learned Helplessness

2015 ◽  
pp. 157-168
Keyword(s):  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Performance Deficits ◽  
Functional Aspects

A Parametric Study of Learned Helplessness in Humans

1989 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Parametric Study ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Performance Deficits ◽  
Brief Training ◽  
Extended Training ◽  
Pass Through

In two experiments designed to assess the effect of varying amounts of exposure to noncontingency training, it was discovered that performance decrements could be produced after relatively brief training and again after extended training. Between these conditions was a period of recovery during which no performance deficits were evident. There was also a tendency for individual differences in motivation to moderate deficits following brief but not extended training. A four-stage model is proposed to account for these results. In response to uncontrollable outcomes, individuals are said to pass through a phase of no effect, followed by temporary helplessness, recovery, and final helplessness. The model also proposes that motivational differences and perceptions of noncontingency exert independent and opposing influences on learned helplessness deficits.

Coping and learned helplessness: Effects of coping strategies on performance following unsolvable problems

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Mikulincer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Stress Coping ◽  
Coping Response ◽  
Performance Deficits ◽  
Coping Model ◽  
Unsolvable Problems

The current study assesses the effects of individuals' coping strategies for dealing with stress on cognitive performance following unsolvable problems. In this study, subjects responded to a questionnaire tapping the use of problem‐focused and emotion‐focused coping strategies in dealing with failure in achievement settings. Then they were exposed to either no‐feedback or failure in four unsolvable problems. Upon completing these problems, subjects performed a visual search task with a memory component. Results showed that failure, as compared with no‐feedback, produced performance deficits among subjects who habitually relied on a single coping strategy, either problem‐ or emotion‐focused, and among subjects who did not rely on any coping response. Only subjects who relied on both problem‐focused and emotion‐focused strategies did not show any performance deficit following unsolvable problems. The results are discussed in terms of Lazarus and Folkman's stress‐coping model.

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