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Journal ArticleDOI

Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: sadder but wiser?

01 Dec 1979-Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 108, Iss: 4, pp 441-485
TL;DR: In this article, the learned helplessness theory of depression was used to predict the degree of contingency between responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingencies, and the predicted subjective judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments.
Abstract: SUMMARY How are humans' subjective judgments of contingencies related to objective contingencies? Work in social psychology and human contingency learning predicts that the greater the frequency of desired outcomes, the greater people's judgments of contingency will be. Second, the learned helplessness theory of depression provides both a strong and a weak prediction concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies. According to the strong prediction, depressed individuals should underestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. According to the weak prediction, depressed individuals merely should judge that there is a smaller degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes than nondepressed individuals should. In addition, the present investigation deduced a new strong prediction from the helplessness theory: Nondepressed individuals should overestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. In the experiments, depressed and nondepressed students were presented with one of a series of problems varying in the actual degree of contingency. In each problem, subjects estimated the degree of contingency between their responses (pressing or not pressing a button) and an environmental outcome (onset of a green light). Performance on a behavioral task and estimates of the conditional probability of green light onset associated with the two response alternatives provided additional measures for assessing beliefs about contingencies. Depressed students' judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments. Nondepressed students, on the other hand, overestimated the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes when noncontingent outcomes were frequent and/or desired and underestimated the degree of contingency when contingent outcomes were undesired. Thus, predictions derived from social psychology concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies were confirmed for nondepressed students but not for depressed students. Further, the predictions of helplessness theory received, at best, minimal support. The learned helplessness and self-serving motivational bias hypotheses are evaluated as explanations of the results. In addition, parallels are drawn between the present results and phenomena in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and animal learning. Finally, implications for cognitive illusions in normal people, appetitive helplessness, judgment of contingency between stimuli, and learning theory are discussed.

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success, and the evidence suggests that positive affect may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness.
Abstract: Numerous studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. The authors suggest a conceptual model to account for these findings, arguing that the happiness-success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because positive affect engenders success. Three classes of evidence--crosssectional, longitudinal, and experimental--are documented to test their model. Relevant studies are described and their effect sizes combined meta-analytically. The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect--the hallmark of well-being--may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness. Limitations, empirical issues, and important future research questions are discussed.

5,713 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The hopelessness theory is silent about the time lag between formation of hopelessness and onset of the symptoms of depression as mentioned in this paper, however, the hopelessness cause, as opposed to a hopelessness subtype, of depression has not been examined.
Abstract: Summary and Future Directions On the basis of the aforementioned studies, the hopelessnesstheory appears promising However, further research is neededFor example, although powerful tests of the attributional diath-esis-stress component have been conducted, no one has exam-ined the cognitive diatheses of inferring negative consequencesor characteristics about the self or whether the cognitive stylediathesis-stress interaction predicts clinically significant de-pression Moreover, it is crucial to determine if this interactionpredicts the development of the hypothesized symptoms ofhopelessness depression More generally, an important short-coming of the prior work is that it has not focused on the symp-toms of hopelessness depression in particular and, instead, sim-ply has examined the symptoms of depression in general Fu-ture investigators need to test more fine-grained predictionsabout the hypothesized symptoms of hopelessness depressionThe issue of the stability of the cognitive diatheses has not beenresolved satisfactorily We have only begun, in a preliminaryway, to investigate the issues of specific vulnerability and media-tional processes Finally, further tests of the predictions aboutcourse, cure, and prevention are needed We eagerly await thisresearchDifficult methodological issues may arise in the search forhopelessness depression, however For example, the hopeless-ness theory is silent about the time lag between formation ofhopelessness and onset of the symptoms of hopelessness depres-sion If it is very short, then a major challenge will be to developmethods with sufficient temporal resolving power to determineif hopelessness indeed precedes the occurrence of the hypothe-sized symptoms of hopelessness depression (see Alloy, Hartlage,et al, 1988, for proposed methods for testing the hopelessnesstheory) The results of work to test the hopelessness theory willdetermine if the concept of hopelessness depression needs tobe revised For example, perhaps the statement of the causalpathway is correc t bu culminate n a differen se f symp-toms than those currently hypothesized to compose hopeless-ness depression In this case, the symptom—but not thecause—component of the hopelessness theory would need to bemodifiedIn discussing how to search for hopelessness depression, wenote the possibility that future work may not corroborate theexistence of hopelessness depression as a bona fide subtype withcharacteristic cause, symptoms, course, treatment, and preven-tion Instead, the etiological chain featured in the hopelessnesstheory may be one of many pathways to a final common out-come of depression In this case, it would be more compellingto speak of a hopelessness cause, as opposed to a hopelessnesssubtype, of depression

3,427 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1991

3,388 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment is presented and findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive mode of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes.
Abstract: The present article presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from four principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. The more dependable the experiential sources, the greater are the changes in perceived selfefficacy. A number of factors are identified as influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arising from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes. Possible directions for further research are discussed.

38,007 citations

Book
B. J. Winer1
01 Jan 1962
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the principles of estimation and inference: means and variance, means and variations, and means and variance of estimators and inferors, and the analysis of factorial experiments having repeated measures on the same element.
Abstract: CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Design CHAPTER 2: Principles of Estimation and Inference: Means and Variance CHAPTER 3: Design and Analysis of Single-Factor Experiments: Completely Randomized Design CHAPTER 4: Single-Factor Experiments Having Repeated Measures on the Same Element CHAPTER 5: Design and Analysis of Factorial Experiments: Completely-Randomized Design CHAPTER 6: Factorial Experiments: Computational Procedures and Numerical Example CHAPTER 7: Multifactor Experiments Having Repeated Measures on the Same Element CHAPTER 8: Factorial Experiments in which Some of the Interactions are Confounded CHAPTER 9: Latin Squares and Related Designs CHAPTER 10: Analysis of Covariance

25,607 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This chapter discusses design and analysis of single-Factor Experiments: Completely Randomized Design and Factorial Experiments in which Some of the Interactions are Confounded.

24,665 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it, and individuals may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement.
Abstract: The effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it. Acquisition and performance differ in situations perceived as determined by skill versus chance. Persons may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. This report summarizes several experiments which define group differences in behavior when Ss perceive reinforcement as contingent on their behavior versus chance or experimenter control. The report also describes the development of tests of individual differences in a generalized belief in internal-external control and provides reliability, discriminant validity and normative data for 1 test, along with a description of the results of several studies of construct validity.

21,451 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an integrative theoretical framework to explain and predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment, including enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources.

16,833 citations