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9 - Cognitive Performance After Preexposure to Uncontrollability and in a Depressive State: Going with a Simpler “Plan B”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2010

By
Daniel N. McIntosh ,
Grzegorz Sedek ,
Susan Fojas ,
Aneta Brzezicka-Rotkiewicz  and
Miroslaw Kofta
Edited by
Randall W. Engle ,
Grzegorz Sedek ,
Ulrich von Hecker  and
Daniel N. McIntosh
Daniel N. McIntosh
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Denver
Grzegorz Sedek
Affiliation:
Director of the Institute of Social Psychology, Warsaw School of Social Psychology in Poland and professor at the Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Susan Fojas
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208
Aneta Brzezicka-Rotkiewicz
Affiliation:
Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Chodakowska 19/31, 03–815 Warsaw, Poland
Miroslaw Kofta
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7 Warsaw, Poland
Randall W. Engle
Affiliation:
Georgia Institute of Technology
Grzegorz Sedek
Affiliation:
Warsaw School of Social Psychology and Polish Academy of Sciences
Ulrich von Hecker
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
Daniel N. McIntosh
Affiliation:
University of Denver
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Summary

What is a helpless mind to do? Extending previous work noting parallels between cognitive impairments in depression and after preexposure to uncontrollability (Cox, Enns, Borger, & Parker, 1999; Flett, Vredenburg, & Krames, 1997; Hartlage, Alloy, Vazquez, & Dykman, 1993; Healy & Williams, 1988; Seligman, 1978), we present in this chapter new evidence that the mind switches to a simpler, less effortful “Plan B.” In examining the pattern of performance of complex cognitive tasks observed among helpless or depressed participants, we observe that this lowered level of performance is still clearly above the threshold of random or chaotic behavior. In our presentation of previous and new experimental evidence, we are guided by the view that the switch to the less efficient, but still not chaotic, performance (i.e., a switch to a cognitive exhaustion state, see Kofta & Sedek, 1998; von Hecker, Sedek, & McIntosh, 2000; von Hecker & Sedek, 1999) might represent an adaptive way of adjusting to prolonged uncontrollability and might also describe characteristic aspects of cognitive functioning in depression. In these states, there are not merely decrements across all measures, but instead there are impairments specifically in higher-order processes.

After we recall the origins of uncontrollability research, we unpack our perspective first by noting the similar pattern of cognitive deficits after exposure to uncontrollability among two very smart, although completely different, populations: laboratory rats and high school students. We then describe the cognitive exhaustion model of uncontrollability and depression and briefly summarize existing research evidence.

Type
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Information
Cognitive Limitations in Aging and Psychopathology , pp. 219 - 246
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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