Learned helplessness, depression and the perception of reinforcement

Depressed and nondepressed subjects were given escapable, inescapable, or no noise. Then, their perceptions of reinforcement contingencies in skill and chance tasks were assessed. Depressed-no noise and nondepressed-inescapable noise subjects exhibited smaller decreases in expectancy following failu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBehaviour research and therapy Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 7 - 17
Main Authors Miller, William R., Seligman, Martin E.P.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Ltd 1976
Subjects
Avoidance Learning
Depression - etiology
Female
Humans
Male
Models, Psychological
Noise
Reinforcement (Psychology)
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Summary:Depressed and nondepressed subjects were given escapable, inescapable, or no noise. Then, their perceptions of reinforcement contingencies in skill and chance tasks were assessed. Depressed-no noise and nondepressed-inescapable noise subjects exhibited smaller decreases in expectancy following failure in skill, but not in chance, than nondepressed-no noise subjects. So, depression and inescapable noise both produced perception of failure in skill as response-independent. Contrary to predictions, neither depression nor inescapable noise had a significant effect on increases in expectancy after success. These results partially support the learned helplessness model of depression which claims that a belief in independence between responding and reinforcement is central to the etiology and symptoms of depression in man.
ISSN:0005-7967
1873-622X
DOI:10.1016/0005-7967(76)90039-5