Kinesiology 1070A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Learned Helplessness

• School: Western University
• Department: Kinesiology
• Course: Kinesiology 1070A/B
• Professor: Harry Prapavessis

Document Summary

Adaptive vs. maladaptive achievement patterns associated with learned helplessness. Cognitive: adaptive: maintenance of effective strategies or development of new strategies under adverse situations, maladaptive: deterioration of effective strategies or a failure to develop new strategies under difficult situations. Motivational: adaptive: challenge seeking and high persistence in the face of failure, maladaptive: challenge avoidance and low persistence in the face of obstacles. Further research has shown that the way people view the negative events that happen to them can have an impact on whether they feel helpless or not. An attribution is the factor that a person blames for the outcomes of a situation. Attributions can be made for both positive and negative events. The ones that most likely cause learned helplessness are internal, stable, and global. An internal attribution is an one that gives the cause of an event as something to do with the person, as opposed to something in the outside world.