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Results for “Helplessness, Learned”

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PubMed1993

Learned helplessness as an interacting variable with self-care agency: testing a theoretical model.

This article describes the theoretical development and initial testing of a model outlining the interaction of the concepts of self-care agency and learned helplessness in healthy working adults. Orem's theory of self-care and the reformulated learned helplessness theory are discussed as the theoretical basis for the study. The self-care agency conditioning factors, age and gender, were examined for relationships to the main variables. In a descriptive, correlational design, the hypothesis, that learned helplessness was inversely related to self-care agency, was supported (r = -.57). Neither age nor gender was related to main variables in the population. Implications for nursing research, self-care theory clarification, and nursing practice are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

An examination of learned helplessness among attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered boys.

We employed a learned helplessness paradigm to compare the performance of 23 boys with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a comparable group of 22 nonreferred boys. The boys attempted to solve two different sets of 10 find-a-word puzzles, one set following exposure to solvable puzzles, and one set following exposure to insolvable puzzles. Results revealed that the ADHD boys solved significantly fewer puzzles than did the control boys. In addition, the ADHD boys gave up on significantly more puzzles, and this was especially true following the insolvable condition when it occurred during the second set of puzzles. The ADHD boys also reported being more frustrated by the task than were the control boys. Finally, among the control boys, support was obtained for Diener and Dweck's (1978) distinction between mastery-oriented and helpless children. However, this distinction did not appear to operate in the same fashion for the ADHD boys.

Achievement↗
PubMed1985

Learned helplessness and judgments of control.

One of the central hypotheses of learned helplessness theory is that exposure to noncontingency produces a reduced ability to perceive response-outcome relations (the postulated "cognitive deficit"). To test this hypothesis, subjects were exposed to a typical helplessness induction task and then asked to make judgments of the amount of control their responses exerted over a designated outcome (the onset of a light). Support for the postulated cognitive deficit would be found if subjects who experienced the induction underestimated the relation between their responses and outcomes. The results, however, demonstrated that induction subjects (n = 30) made higher and more accurate judgments of control than subjects in a no-treatment control group (n = 30). This finding clearly fails to support the postulated cognitive deficit and highlights the need for other direct tests of the basic hypotheses of helplessness theory.

Cognition↗
PubMed1985

An anxiogenic benzodiazepine receptor ligand induces learned helplessness.

Rats treated with the anxiogenic beta-carboline, N-methyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxamide (FG-7142), failed to acquire an escape response 24 h after treatment. Administration of FG-7142 resulted in a behavioral effect equivalent to a session of inescapable tailshock in this paradigm of learned helplessness. Pretreatment of rats with the selective benzodiazepine receptor antagonist Ro15-1788 blocked the development of learned helplessness elicited by FG-7142. These findings suggest that 'anxiety' may be a major factor in the development of learned helplessness.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Agonistic behavior during stress prevents the development of learned helplessness in rats.

Male Wistar rats were subjected to unavoidable electrical pain stimulation either in individual cages or in pairs. During the procedure, rats stressed in pairs fought. After 48 h, rats were tested in a shuttle box for the ability to develop active avoidance responses. The proportion of escape and avoidance responses was significantly lower in rats stressed individually as compared with intact animals and animals stressed in pairs. Plasma corticosterone was assayed one day later, at rest and after dexamethasone administration. There were no significant differences in resting corticosterone level between groups of animals. Administration of dexamethasone significantly reduced the plasma corticosterone level in intact rats and in animals stressed in pairs, but not in rats stressed individually. Thus, agonistic behavior during unavoidable stress prevents the development of pathological changes in adaptive behavior and the endocrine system.

Agonistic Behavior↗
PubMed1992

Reduction of learned helplessness by central administration of quaternary naltrexone.

Prior research has established that escape impairment resulting from prior inescapable shock (IS) could be reversed by the peripheral administration of the opiate antagonist naltrexone (NTX), but not the quaternary form of naltrexone (QNTX), which when systemically administered, does not readily pass the blood-brain barrier. As it was unclear whether the failure of systemically administered QNTX to reduce shuttle escape deficits following exposure to IS could be attributed to reasons other than the restricted access of QNTX to receptor sites in the brain, rats were affixed with chronic indwelling ventricular cannulae to allow direct brain administration of QNTX. The present experiment found a significant attenuation of the escape deficit produced by prior inescapable shock following the intracerebroventricular (ICV) administration of QNTX (10 micrograms/rat). These data provide further evidence of a mediational role for central opiate receptors in the expression of escape interference following inescapable shock.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Differential regulation of nerve growth factor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor in a mouse model of learned helplessness.

Stress-induced helplessness in rodents constitutes a well-defined model to investigate neurobiological mechanisms of depression. Neurotrophins like nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have both been shown to be involved in neurobiological changes of physiological and pathological reactions to stress. In this study we investigated NGF and BDNF protein levels in the frontal cortex and hippocampus in mice treated with an established model of inducible helplessness via electric footshocks compared to untreated controls at various times (0 h up to 14 days after treatment). NGF levels were transiently decreased by one forth in the frontal cortex of shocked mice at 6 h after the stress treatment, whereas BDNF levels remained unchanged in the brain areas investigated throughout the time course. In addition, frontal cortex BDNF levels showed a significantly higher concentration in the right compared to the left hemisphere (up to 3-fold). This effect was detectable independently of treatment, namely in shocked and control mice at any time point measured. In conclusion, a transient decrease of frontal NGF constitutes the most striking correlate of neurobiological changes in this animal model of stress-induced change of behaviour. Interhemispherical differences of BDNF content in the frontal cortex are a new finding that might reflect intracerebral side dominance. Thus, subsequent studies of frontal cortex BDNF expression should carefully consider an interhemispherical variance to avoid misinterpretation.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

The L-type calcium channel blocker nimodipine mitigates "learned helplessness" in rats.

We assessed the effect of nimodipine, an L-type calcium channel blocker, on the escape deficit induced by prior exposure to inescapable shock in rats in four experiments. In Experiment 1, we injected rats at each of three time points (i.e., before shock exposure, after shock exposure, and before shuttle escape testing) with one of four doses of nimodipine (0, 0.5, 2.5, 5.0 mg/kg). The 5.0-mg/kg dose was most effective, acting to reduce shuttle escape latencies of inescapably shocked rats to a level comparable with nonshocked controls. No benefit occurred in Experiment 2, however, when nimodipine was administered at only one of the three time points used in the first experiment. Moreover, escape performance did not improve when rats received injections of nimodipine on the 2 days prior the experiment, and then one additional injection at one of the three time points identified above in Experiment 3. Finally, administration of nimodipine at two of the three time points did improve escape responding, but only when injected immediately prior both to shock exposure and the shuttle escape test.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Learned helplessness in the cockroach (Periplaneta americana).

For 3 consecutive days cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were exposed to either escapable, inescapable, or no shock in an escape task. Twenty-four hours later they were tested in a shuttlebox escape task. There were reliable differences between escapable and inescapable animals and between inescapable and control animals in both escape latencies and the number of failures to escape.

Animals↗
PubMed1983

Sex role identity and the decision to regain control among women: a learned helplessness investigation.

In an investigation focusing on women's attempts to regain control of their environments, women from four sex role identity groups underwent either an initial loss of control (helpless) or control (nonhelpless) experience. Subsequently, they were allowed to choose their role in a team problem-solving task. They could either (a) have total control over the team's decisions, (b) have no control over the team's decisions, or (c) not participate in the task. Compared to women low on masculinity, women high on masculinity chose to be in control of team problem-solving in both the helpless and nonhelpless conditions. Particularly striking, none of the 14 feminine-sex-typed women chose to control the team's decisions in the helpless condition, whereas 10 of the 14 masculine-sex-typed women made this choice. Results are discussed relative to the high rates of depression among women.

Decision Making↗