Effects of Motivation on Learned Helplessness

Effects of Motivation on Learned Helplessness Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to act or behave helpless in a particular situation, even when it has the power to change its unpleasant or even harmful circumstance (Seligman, 1975). This feeling of helplessness is generated when the individual has been exposed to previous uncontrollable events and thus learns to fail in the current situation because responding in the past had yielded insignificant results (Nation & Massad, 1975). Therefore by attributing uncontrollable negative outcomes to internal and lasting causes, people might perceive that future events will also be uncontrollable. As such, helplessness is manifested in behavioral, cognitive, and affective domains. Behavioral effects would include passivity, giving up, and procrastination. Cognitive effects include decrease in problem solving ability, frustration, and lower self-esteem. Affective deficits usually feature dysphoria or depressed mood following learned helplessnes. Since people with learned helplessness are more vulnerable to develop psychological disorders (Mineka &Zinbarg, 1996) it is important to find ways to reduce learned helplessness. Thus, the purpose of this experiment was to determine if motivation helps in reducing learned helplessness among young adults. Motivation is “what moves people to act, think, and develop” (Deci &Ryan, 2008, p.14). It comprises of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is engaging in an activity because the activity itself is internally satisfying (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Extrinsic motivation is doing an activity because it results in an outcome separate from the person such as getting tangible rewards or avoiding an unpleasant consequence (Deci & Ryan, 2008). As such, the learned helplessness theory states that learned helplessness (the expectation that outcomes are uncontrollable) reduces the motivation needed (motivational