Attributional components of learned helplessness and facilitation.

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Abstract
Sought to assess the effect of task difficulty cues on S. Roth and L. Kubal's (see record 1977-02502-001) proposed curvilinear relationship between experiences of no-control and helpless behavior. Roth and Kubal's study appears to have confounded causal ascriptions for lack of control with amount of helplessness training in such a fashion as to exaggerate the effects of the helplessness induction. Helplessness training in the present study, which used 49 undergraduates as Ss, consisted of varying degrees of experience with noncontingent reinforcement on concept formation problems with differing cues as to the difficulty of the training task. In support of Roth and Kubal's formulation, both facilitation and helplessness effects were obtained. However, instructions suggesting a difficult task reversed the helplessness effects and actually produced a facilitation effect. Results are discussed in terms of psychological reactance and attribution theory. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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