Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation.

TLDR

The classic learned‑helplessness hypothesis fails to differentiate universal versus personal uncontrollability and to explain when helplessness is general or specific, chronic or acute. The paper proposes a reformulation grounded in attribution theory to address these shortcomings. The reformulation posits that perceived noncontingency leads individuals to attribute helplessness to a cause that can be stable/unstable, global/specific, internal/external, and that this attribution determines whether future helplessness is chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and its impact on self‑esteem. The authors outline how this revised model reshapes the learned‑helplessness framework for depression.

Abstract

The learned helplessness hypothesis is criticized and reformulated. The old hypothesis, when applied to learned helplessness in humans, has two major problems: (a) It does not distinguish between cases in which outcomes are uncontrollable for all people and cases in which they are uncontrollable only for some people (univervsal vs. personal helplessness), and (b) it does not explain when helplessness is general and when specific, or when chronic and when acute. A reformulation based on a revision of attribution theory is proposed to resolve these inadequacies. According to the reformulation, once people perceive noncontingency, they attribute their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or external. The attribution chosen influences whether expectation of future helplessness will be chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and whether helplessness will lower self-esteem or not. The implications of this reformulation of human helplessness for the learned helplessness model of depression are outlined.