Unpredictable and Uncontrollable Aversive Events

Seligman, Martin E. P.; Maier, Steven F.; Solomon, Richard L.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-137950-6.50011-0

Cited by 357 publications

(255 citation statements)

References 83 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

220

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A large amount of experimentation has focused on this phenomenon (c.f. Maier, Seligman, & Solomon, 1969;Seligman, Maier, & Solomon, 1971). However, during the test for intereference, most of this research has employed either the same or a lower shock intensity than was used during exposure to inescapable shock.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Rosellini

Seligman

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of shock intensity in the learned helplessness paradigm

Rosellini

Seligman

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…. Maier and Seligman (1976), Maier, Seligman, and Solomon (1969), and Seligman, Maier, and Solomon (1971) have proposed that this deficit results from the animal's learning during its exposure to inescapable shock, that its responses and reinforcement are independent. This learning is held to reduce the incentive for initiating responding and to interfere proactively with the subsequent learning that now reinforcement is contingent on responding.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inescapable shock interferes with the acquisition of an appetitive operant

Rosellini

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article reports the reinforcer generality of the interference effect resulting from exposure to inescapable shock. In Experiment 1, rats that received inescapable shock showed weak interference with the acquisition of an appetitive operant compared to animals exposed either to escapable or no shock. In Experiment 2, the response-reinforcer contingency was degraded by introducing a l-sec delay of reinforcement on the appetitive task. Inescapable shock produced much stronger interference with the acquisition of the operant response than in Experiment 1. The results demonstrate reinforcer generality of the debilitating effects produced by inescapable shock.

show abstract

“…In another group of studies, suppression or disturbance of appetitive baseline behavior by the introduction of aversive electric shocks has been studied for a wider time span, covering the entire session time. Among conditions that disturb an animal's appetitive behavior "chronically" (Seligman, 1968) are unpredictable and uncontrollable electric shocks (see, e.g., Imada & Soga, 1971;Seligman, Maier, & Solomon, 1971) or, more generally, "uncertainty" about impending aversive stimu- Ius conditions (Imada & Nageishi, 1982). But even in studies that examine behavior during the entire session time, rats spend most of the time in their home cages.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%