PSY402 Theories of Learning Chapter 11 – Cognitive Control of Behavior (Cont.)

Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness Theory Seligman – depression is learned. Depression occurs when people believe: Failures are due to uncontrollable events. Failure will continue as long as events are beyond their control. Depression arises from helplessness.

Animal Research Step 1 -- three groups of dogs: Inescapable shock – no control. Escapable shock -- terminated if the dog pressed a panel. No shock Step 2 – 10 trials of signaled avoidance training in shuttle box. 2/3 of inescapable shock dogs did not learn to jump during step 2.

Step 1 Step 2

Dogs Fail to Escape

Helplessness in Humans Hiroto – three groups of college students: Uncontrollable group – wrongly told that pushing button would end noise. Escapable group – pushing button ended noise. Control – no noise. Tested using finger shuttle box. Uncontrollable group did not escape

Human Results Mimic Depression Depressed (no noise) and Inescapable Noise conditions Non-Depressed Escapable Noise and no noise conditions

Characteristics of Helplessness Motivational impairment – unable to initiate voluntary behavior. Mice in water maze. Nonspecific – carries over to a variety tasks and test situations. Intellectual impairment – incapable of benefiting from future experience – even if they jump, don’t learn. Emotional trauma – negative affect.

Studies of Depressives Show similar results to learned helplessness studies. Depressed individuals do not escape noise, responding like inescapable non-depressed individuals. Depressed individuals do not adjust likelihood of succeeding upward when they experience success. They credit chance not skill.

Criticisms of Seligman’s Theory There is more to depression than learned helplessness. Helplessness subjects described the task as a skill task, even though acting as if it were a chance task. Failure to replicate performance deficits in humans – facilitation of performance instead. Results may be due to personal attributions.

Attribution Theory Attribution = the perceived cause of an event. Causal attributions of failure have three dimensions: Internal-external – internal traits or characteristics vs environmental forces Stable-unstable – past causes will persist vs new forces will determine future outcomes Global-specific – outcome relates only to one task vs outcome effects everything.

Attributional Model of Depression Internal External Dimension Stable Unstable Global I’m unattractive to men My conversation some-times bores men Men are overly competitive with intelligent women Men get into rejecting moods Specific I’m unattractive to him My conversation bores him He’s overly competitive with women He was in a rejecting mood

Two Kinds of Helplessness Personal helplessness – an individual’s inability causes failure. Universal helplessness – the environment is structured so that no one can control future events. Abramson -- both kinds lead to depression. Vary on external-internal dimension. Low self-esteem only with personal.

Severity of Depression Depression can be transient if attributed to global but changing conditions. Severe depression occurs when attributions are: Internal Global Stable Better if external, specific, unstable.

Hopelessness Depression Hopelessness – the expectation that desired outcomes will not occur. Learned helplessness -- no control over undesired outcomes. Accounts for anxiety without depression. Anxiety – possibility that a person may have no control over negative events. Depression occurs when certain.

Pessimism and Optimism Langer suggests perceived control is basic to human functioning – mastery, competence. Negative explanatory style – hopeless style predicts susceptibility to depression. Positive explanatory style – optimists are hopeful, feel they can control events, tend to be more successful, more healthy. They are not depressed when life goes wrong.

Learned Hopefulness Seligman believes a more positive attributional style can be taught. Enhancing positive attributional style in depressed patients decreased their symptoms. Changing the attributional style of college students via a workshop & ongoing coaching prevented development of depression.

Biological Changes Weiss has suggested that repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress causes biochemical changes in people and animals. Rats showed decreased feeding & sex drive, less grooming, lack of voluntary response, early morning wakefulness – signs of depression. Related to increased activity in locus coeruleus and increased glutamate – similar to depressed individuals.

Cognitive View of Phobia Bandura – two kinds of expectancy maintain a phobia: Stimulus-outcome expectancy – about the nature of the stimulus. A statistics class will be aversive. Response-outcome expectancy – about the likely result of behavior. I cannot pass the statistics class. Why does phobia lead to avoidance behavior with negative outcomes? Self-efficacy expectancy – belief that one can or (with phobia) cannot execute a particular action.

Self-Efficacy Expectations Types of information used to establish self-efficacy expectations: Personal accomplishments, success. Task difficulty, amount of effort. Observations of success/failure of others – vicarious modeling. Emotional arousal – we feel less able to cope when agitated or tense. High self-efficacy predicts approach behavior.

Criticisms of Efficacy View Efficacy expectations may be epiphenomenal (not causal) – they may arise with anxiety but have no effect on responding. Three types of anxiety: Cognitive – affects self-efficacy Physiological – affects physiology Behavioral – directly influences responding. Lang – contribution of each depends on prior experience and the situation.

Remainder of Chapter Concepts and comparison of human and animal learning are part of PSY 334. This material will not be on the final exam.