The generality of learned helplessness in the rat

Altenor, Aidan; Kay, Edwin J.; Richter, Martin L.

doi:10.1016/0023-9690(77)90066-2

Cited by 56 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Learned inactivity and competing motor response hypotheses are consistent with the result since they would claim post hoc that the stimulus control of the interfering pattern generalizes narrowly. Unfortunately, this claim is inconsistent with the Altenor, Kay, and Richter (1977), Goodkin (1976), and Rosellini (1978) results showing generalization across reinforcers. So these pose a problem for all theories of the interference effect in rats.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

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Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Rosellini

Seligman

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Although there have been many studies of the interference effect produced by exposure to inescapable shock, little is known about the role of shock intensity. This experiment factorially manipulated four levels of shock intensity during exposure to inescapable shock and three levels of intensity during the test for interference. Interference occurred at each training shock intensity when training and test shocks were similar. Interference was not obtained when training intensity was high but testing intensity low or medium or when training intensity was low or medium and test intensity was high. These findings pose problems for learned helplessness, learned inactivity, competing motor response, and catecholamine depletion hypotheses of the interference effect in the rat.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

“…Rosellini (1978) reported that inescapable shock interfered with the acquisition of instrumental responding for food. Altenor, Kay, and Richter (1977) reported as much interference with the acquisition of a response to escape either shock or from an underwater maze following either uncontrollable shock or underwater experience.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Rosellini

Seligman

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…There are a number of reasons for this exclusion: For example, Altenor, Kay, and Richter (1977) have indicated that such a control condition may not be appropriate in investigations of learned helplessness. In addition, several studies (e.g., Jones et al, 1977;Seybert, Gilliland, Wilson, McClanahan, & Vandenberg, Note 1;Seybert, Wilson, & Vandenberg, Note 2) have shown that naive human subjects (or subjects in a no-pretreatment condition) perform no differently on a subsequent learning task than do subjects who experience 100% controllability in the pretreatment phase (a condition that was used in the present study).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human learned helplessness as a function of sex and degree of control over aversive events

Wilson

Seybert

Craft

1980

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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The effect of partial control over aversive auditory stimuli was examined in a learned helplessness paradigm. During a pretreatment phase, three groups of female and three groups of male subjects were allowed control over the termination of an aversive tone on 0%, 50%, or 100% of the trials. In a second phase, they performed an escape-avoidance task using an apparatus different from that used in pretreatment. During this phase, the subject was allowed complete control over the termination or prevention of the tone on each trial. Partial control over aversive stimuli during pretreatment produced responding levels on the escape-avoidance task that were intermediate to those of subjec~s who had complete control or complete lack of control, but only for female subjects. These findings were taken as evidence that different degrees of learned helplessness may be produced by varying the degree of prior control and also that males and females differ in their susceptibility to learned helplessness treatments, a fact that may be related to differences in perceived lack of control.

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“…It has been previously shown that rats exposed to uncontrollable electric shocks (1) later fail to learn to escape shock in a different situation (Maier, Albin, & Testa, 1973); (2) are slow to learn to escape in a water maze (Altenor, Kay, & Richter, 1977); (3) are slow to learn to escape from a goalbox in which expected reward is omitted (Rosellini & Seligman, 1975); (4) show reduced aggressiveness in a shockelicited aggression test (Maier, Anderson, & Lieberman, 1972); and (5) show physiological symptoms of severe stress (Weiss, 1968). Rats exposed to escapable (controllable) shocks do not show these deficits.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inescapable shock and food-competition dominance in rats

Rapaport

Maier

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Inescapable electric shock disrupts escape-avoidance learning in another apparatus. This . study demonstrates a deficit in a nonlearning task in which no aversive stimulus occurs.In Experiment 1, inescapable shock lowered rats' dominance in a food-competition situation relative to restrained controls. In Experiment 2, inescapable shock lowered rats dominance in the same food-competition situation relative to a group that received the equivalent amount of escapable shock, demonstrating that the inescapability of the shock caused at least part of the decrement observed in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 does not find that inescapable shock caused a significant difference in food consumed or running time when the rats were tested alone, showing it unlikely that the dominance effects were caused by decreased hunger or reduced running following inescapable shock.Variations in the degree to which organisms can control electric shocks to which they are exposed has both behavioral and physiological consequences (see Maier & Seligman, 1976 for a review), although the behaviors that have been shown to be influenced by exposure to inescapable shock all involve learning, aversive stimuli, or both. The range of behaviors influenced by prior exposure to inescapable shock remains unknown. There should be boundary conditions so that not all behaviors would be affected, but these conditions have not been explored. The purpose of the present series of studies was to discover whether exposure to inescapable shock can produce deficits in psychological processes other than learning in situations in which aversive stimuli do not occur. This seemed a reasonable first step in attempting to delineate the behavioral boundary conditions of inescapable shock effects.We chose to study whether exposure to inescapable shock would reduce the organism's position in a dominance hierarchy established in a food-competition situation. This seemed a reasonable choice because no obvious aversive stimulus such as electric shock is involved and the behavior does not appear to be learned during testing. It could be argued that the encounter between two rats during dominance testing is aversive, but it should be noted that the rats do not fight. Thus, at a minimum, physical pain is not involved. The behavior involved does not appear to be learned during testing, because the hierarchy typically appears on the very first test and remains stable if tested again (Stewart & Palfai, 1967). Because ines-

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The generality of learned helplessness in the rat

Cited by 56 publications

References 7 publications

Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Human learned helplessness as a function of sex and degree of control over aversive events

Inescapable shock and food-competition dominance in rats

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