Learned Helplessness

Question 1

Adaptive versus Maladaptive Achievement Patterns Associated with Learned Helplessness

Answer 1

• Cognitive
• Motivational
• Emotional

Question 2

Cognitive

Answer 2

Adaptive:
- challenge seeking and high persistence in the face of obstacles/failure
Maladaptive:
- challenge avoidance and low persistence in the face of obstacles/failure

Question 3

Emotional

Answer 3

Adaptive: Pride and satisfaction in terms of degree of effort exerted in both successful and unsuccessful situations
Maladaptive:
- pride and satisfaction only from ability exhibited in successful conditions; failure conditions signify low ability and yield little pride and satisfaction

Question 4

Entity Theory

Answer 4

Performance goal:
Confidence high –> Mastery
Confidence low –> Helpless

Question 5

Incremental Theory

Answer 5

Learning goal –> Confidence high or low –> Mastery

Question 6

Internal Attribution

Answer 6

• any attribution that gives the cause of an event as something to do with the person, as opposed to something in the outside world.
• eg. if you believe that you failed the test becasue youre stupid

Question 7

External Attribution

Answer 7

• blaming an outside factor as the cause of an event, something that is out of your control
• eg. blaming the test, believing that it was hard

Question 8

Stable attribution

Answer 8

• one that doesn’t change over time or across situations

- believing that you failed because you’re stupid; the fact that you’re stupid wont change depending on the situation

Question 9

Global attribution

Answer 9

• believing that the factors affecting the outcome apply to a large number of situations, not just one of them
• eg. if you believe that you failed a test because you’re stupid, because it is true in that class and in many others

Question 10

Study: Learned Helplessness in Sport

Answer 10

Purpose:

• tennis players
• to examine whether athletes have maladaptive achievement patterns associated with learned helplessness
• a second purpose was to examine the attributional dimensions used by athletes exhibiting maladaptive achievement patterns to explain unsuccessful outcomes

Question 11

Maladaptive achievement pattern questionnaire

Answer 11

• cognitive (6 items)
  eg. when you are losing a match do you find that your strategies to change the situation deteriorate or become more sophisticated?
• motivational (2 items)
  eg. when you are losing a match do you try harder or less?
• emotional (4 items)
  eg. when you are losing a match do you get down or pick yourself up?

Question 12

Coaches role?

Answer 12

• used a 7 point scale anchored at the two extremes by the descriptors “very persistent” and “gives up easily”
• coaches were blinded to the hypotheses of the study
• all ratings were carried out independently
  Found: helpless group were judged by their coaches to be significantly less persistent in their matches than those in the helpless group

Question 13

Attribution Questionnair

Answer 13

• athletes choose 3 main reasons from each 3 categories (personal, match situation, mental)
• using these factors as reference, each player responded to 3 questions representing locus, stability and globality

Question 14

Locus

Answer 14

• was the cause of your difficulty returning your opponent’s serve due to something about you or something about your opponent?

Question 15

Stability

Answer 15

• is the same problem likely to occur in other matches against this opponent?

Question 16

Globality

Answer 16

• is this cause only present when you play one particular opponent, or most of your opponents

Question 17

Conclusions

Answer 17

• subjects classified with maladaptive achievement pattern associated with LH had a different attributional style to explain failure performances than those with a non maladaptive achievement pattern
• findings are consistent with attribution theory of LH