Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1978, Vol. 87, No. 1, 49-74 Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation Lyn Y. Abramson and Martin E. P. Seligman University of Pennsylvania John D. Teasdale Oxford University, England 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 pro- posed 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. Over the past 10 years a large number of 1967). Paralleling the experimental findings experiments have shown that a variety of orga- with dogs, the debilitating consequences of nisms exposed to uncontrollable events often uncontrollable events have been demonstrated exhibit subsequent disruption of behavior (see in cats (Masserman, 1971; Seward & Hum- Maier & Seligman, 1976, for a review of the phrey, 1967; Thomas & Dewald, 1977), in infrahuman literature). For example, whereas fish (Frumkin & Brookshire, 1969; Padilla, naive dogs efficiently learn to escape shock by 1973; Padilla, Padilla, Ketterer, & Giacolone, jumping over a barrier in a shuttle box, dogs 1970), and in rats (Maier, Albin, & Testa, that first received shocks they could neither 1973; Maier & Testa, 197S; Seligman & avoid nor escape show marked deficits in ac- Beagley, 1975; Seligman, Rosellini, & Kozak, quisition of a shuttle escape response (Over- 197S). Finally, the effects of uncontrollable mier & Seligman, 1967; Seligman & Maier, events have been examined in humans (Fosco & Geer, 1971; Gatchel & Proctor, 1976; Glass & Singer, 1972; Hiroto, 1974; Hiroto & Selig- This work was supported by U.S. Public Health man, 1975; Klein, Fencil-Morse, & Seligman, Service Grant MH-19604, National Science Founda- 1976; Klein & Seligman, 1976; Krantz, Glass, tion Grant SOC-74 12063, and a Guggenheim fel- & Snyder, 1974; Miller & Seligman, 1975; lowship to Martin Seligman. We thank Lauren Al- Racinskas, 1971; Rodin, 1976; Roth, 1973; loy, Judy Garber, Suzanne Miller, Frank Irwin, S. J. Rachman, and Paul Eelen for their critical com- Roth & Bootzin, 1974; Roth & Kubal, 1975; ments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thornton & Jacobs, 1971; among others). Ivan Miller (Note 1) has proposed an almost Hiroto's experiment (1974) is representative identical reformulation. We believe this work to have been done independently of ours, and it should and provides a human analogue to the animal be so treated. studies. College student volunteers were as- Requests for reprints should be sent to Martin E. signed to one of three groups. In the con- P. Seligman, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, trollable noise group, subjects received loud Pennsylvania 19174. noise that they could terminate by pushing Copyright 1978 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 49 50 L. ABRAMSON, M. SELIGMAN, AND J. TEASDALE a button four times. Subjects assigned to the Historically, the learned helplessness hy- uncontrollable noise group received noise that pothesis was formulated before helplessness terminated independently of subjects' respond- experiments were performed with human sub- ing. Finally, a third group received no noise. jects. In the main, early studies of human In the second phase of the experiment all helplessness attempted to reproduce the ani- groups were tested on a hand shuttle box. In mal findings in humans and were rather less the shuttle box, noise termination was con- concerned with theory building. Recently, trollable for all subjects; to turn off the noise, however, investigators of human helplessness subjects merely had to move a lever from one (e.g., Blaney, 1977; Golin & Terrell, 1977; side of the box to the other. The results of the Wortman & Brehm, 1975; Roth & Kilpatrick- test phase were strikingly similar to those ob- Tabak, Note 2) have become increasingly dis- tained with animals. The group receiving prior enchanted with the adequacy of theoretical controllable noise as well as the group receiv- constructs originating in animal helplessness ing no noise readily learned to shuttle, but the for understanding helplessness in humans. typical subject in the group receiving prior And so have we. We now present an attribu- uncontrollable noise failed to escape and tional framework that resolves several the- listened passively to the noise. oretical controversies about the effects of un- Although a number of alternative hypothe- controllability in humans. We do not know ses (see Maier & Seligman, 1976, for a re- whether these considerations apply to infra- view) have been proposed to account for the humans. In brief, we argue that when a per- debilitating effects of experience with uncon- son finds that he is helpless, he asks why he is trollability, only the learned helplessness hy- helpless. The causal attribution he makes then pothesis (Maier & Seligman, 1976; Maier, determines the generality and chronicity of Seligman, & Solomon, 1969; Seligman, 1975; his helplessness deficits as well as his later Seligman et al., 1971) provides a unified the- self-esteem. In developing the attributional oretical framework integrating the animal and framework, we find it necessary to refine at- human data. The cornerstone of the hypothe- tribution theory (cf. Heider, 1958; Weiner, sis is that learning that outcomes are uncon- 1972, 1974). Finally, we discuss the implica- trollable results in three deficits: motivational, tions of the reformulation for the helplessness cognitive and emotional. The hypothesis is model of depression (Seligman, 1972, 1975; "cognitive" in that it postulates that mere ex- Seligman, Klein, & Miller, 1976). posure to uncontrollability is not sufficient to render an organism helpless; rather, the orga- Personal Helplessness Versus Universal nism must come to expect that outcomes are Helplessness uncontrollable in order to exhibit helplessness. Inadequacy 1 of the Old Theory In brief, the motivational deficit consists of retarded initiation of voluntary responses and Several examples highlight a conceptual is seen as a consequence of the expectation problem encountered by the existing learned that outcomes are uncontrollable. If the orga- helplessness hypothesis when applied to hu- nism expects that its responses will not affect man helplessness. Consider a subject in Hi- some outcome, then the likelihood of emitting roto's experiment (1974) who is assigned to such responses decreases. Second, the learned the group that received uncontrollable noise. helplessness hypothesis argues that learning The experimenter tells the subject there is something he can do to turn off the noise. that an outcome is uncontrollable results in a Since the noise is actually uncontrollable, the cognitive deficit since such learning makes it subject is unable to find a way to turn off the difficult to later learn that responses produce noise. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, that outcome. Finally, the learned helpless- the subject may come to believe the problem ness hypothesis claims that depressed affect is is unsolvable; that is, neither he nor any other a consequence of learning that outcomes are subject can control noise termination. Alterna- uncontrollable. tively, the subject may believe that the prob- CRITIQUE AND REFORMULATION 51 lem is solvable but that he lacks the ability jects perceived tasks of skill as if they were r to solve it; that is, although he can't control tasks of chance. A puzzling finding, however, noise termination, other subjects could suc- was consistently obtained in these studies. On cessfully control the noise. The old helpless- postexperimental questionnaires, helpless and ness hypothesis does not distinguish these two nonhelpless subjects rated skill as playing the states, either of which could be engendered by same large role in a person's performance on the procedure of presenting uncontrollable the skill task. Both helpless and nonhelpless outcomes. subjects said they viewed the skill task as a In a recent publication, Bandura (1977) skill task. Thus, the relation between the con- discussed a similar distinction: cepts of external control and uncontrollability may be more complex than implied by the old Theorizing and experimentation on learned helpless- hypothesis. ness might well consider the conceptual distinction between efficacy and outcome expectations. People Taken together, these examples point to can give up trying because they lack a sense of ef- one conceptual problem concerning the no- ficacy in achieving the required behavior, or they tions of uncontrollability and helplessness. Re- may be assured of their capabilities but give up try- call the distinction