Untrained normal achievers attributed failure to adoption of specific task strategies, while untrained learning disabled boys attributed failure to task difficulty. Characteristics of learned helplessness were apparent in the impaired performance of the learning-disabled boys. Normal achievers appeared to have developed active and independent…

Compared high-school students differing in achievement motivation in a learned helplessness experiment. A strong helplessness effect was observed in both high- and low-achievement motivation groups. Results show a strong learned helplessness effect unrelated to individual differences in achievement motivation and refute claims that helplessness…

Examined relationships among sex roles, sex, and learned helplessness. Students were given unsolvable concept-formation problems or solvable concept-formation problems. Feminine-sex-typed and masculine-sex-typed students showed cognitive and motivational deficits as well as dysphoric mood in helpless conditions. Helpless androgynous students…

Females reported higher levels of depression and anxiety. Both males and females with more liberal scores on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale scored higher on the Well-Being Scale. (Author)

Examines the relative effectiveness of either partial or total success training as a preventive agent against the debilitating effect of noncontingent reinforcement. (Author/RK)

Examined factors thought to be related to adolescent suicidal ideation: absence or disruption of interpersonal attachments, conviction of personal helplessness, and sense of hopelessness. Found nearly 61 percent of 191 college students to have some suicidal ideation. Low- and moderate- to high-level ideators reported poorer parent relationships…

Study of the role of personality factors in health and disease suggests that motivational variables are related to and influence physiological systems. Affiliative trust and a greater sense of agency are associated with better health, while affiliative cynicism and a sense of helplessness are associated with more illness. (AF)

Reviews a series of studies documenting that key aspects of helpless reactions to failure are present in preschool and early elementary school children. Proposes a preliminary model in which a general conception of self and the notion of this self as an object of contingent worth are sufficient conditions for helplessness. (HTH)

Individual differences in industriousness are discussed. It is proposed that reinforcement for increased physical or cognitive performance, or the tolerance of aversive stimulation, gives a reward value to the sensation of high effort and reduces effort's aversiveness. Applications for self-control, moral development, and education are described.…

A workable referral system, using resources within a school and within the community, becomes important when a sudden death or suicide occurs. When managing a crisis, helping professionals need to have the means for restoring a school and community to its precrisis equilibrium. Provides specific information pertinent to developing an effective…

Forty-eight young adults with mental retardation were placed into high and low learned helplessness groups based on responses to a questionnaire. Participants were presented with vignettes and asked what they would do. Results found low learned helplessness participants obtained significantly higher decision-making scores. Additional information…

Argues that little research has been directed toward exploring cognitive variables that characterize students with poor school attendance. Presents the findings of a pilot study that compared a small sample of truants and non-truants on locus of control and attributional style. Finds that attributional style is a significant factor in explaining…

A powerful practical reclaiming strategy for youth at risk is to tap their potential for service to others. This counters a sense of learned helplessness. The term "learned helplessness" (Seligman, 1975) comes to mind when the author thinks about when she began working with troubled youth more than 20 years ago. Her and her co-workers often spoke…

This paper reviews the development of attribution theory as it relates to sport from Fritz Heider's original model of attribution theory in 1958 to the present. The original model explains that individuals use four attribution factors to interpret and predict the outcome of an event--ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Bernard Weiner built…

This paper surveys and evaluates the research since 1975 on college and university student suicidality in the United States. It focuses on factors which contribute to suicidality, preventive responses to suicide and how well the preventive responses address the contributing factors. Contributing factors examined include various feeling states…