The reformulated learned helplessness model claims that the tendency to explain bad events by internal, stable, and global causes potentiates quitting when bad events are encountered. We tested this prediction in the work setting with individuals who frequently experience bad events. Explanatory style, as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), correlated with and predicted the performance of life insurance sales agents. In a cross-sectional study of 94 experienced agents, individuals scoring in the top half of the ASQ sold 37% more insurance in their first 2 years of service than those scoring in the bottom half. In a prospective 1-year study of 103 newly hired agents, individuals who scored in the top half of the ASQ when hired remained in their job at twice the rate and sold more insurance than those scoring in the bottom half of the ASQ. These two studies support the claim that a pessimistic explanatory style leads to poor productivity and quitting when bad events are experienced, and extend the usefulness of the ASQ to the workplace.According to the reformulation of the learned helplessness model, individuals with a "pessimistic" explanatory style are more likely to display helplessness deficits when confronted with a bad event than individuals with an "optimistic" explanatory style (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978;Seligman, Abramson, Semmel, & von Baeyer, 1979). Individuals who habitually construe the causes of bad events as internal, stable, and global ("it's my fault, it's going to last forever, and it's going to undermine everything I do") should, when they experience bad events, be more susceptible to helplessness deficits than those with the opposite style. Peterson and Seligman (1984) reviewed 12 studies that confirm this model by finding depressive deficits associated with a pessimistic explanatory style in students, depressed patients, prisoners, and children.Here we report two field studies of this model, using a theoretically relevant population, life insurance sales agents, and investigate a central helplessness deficit-quitting. These studies have two purposes: First, they test the Abramson et al. (1978) model, in which the pessimistic explanatory style predisposes giving up, and the rejections inherent in selling life insurance trigger giving up when this disposition is present. The interaction of the pessimistic explanatory style and of the rejections, though neither necessary nor sufficient conditions, increases the likelihood of helplessness deficits. This is a species of a diathesisstress model, in which the diathesis, though probably not constitutional, is a pessimistic explanatory style, and the stress is The authors thank Dan Oran, Judy Saltzberg, and Jack Riley for their help at various stages of this study. We also thank