Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-kch4j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T08:46:45.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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
Get access

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, J. D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Begg, I., & Denny, J. P. (1969). Empirical reconciliation of atmosphere and conversion interpretations of syllogistic reasoning errors. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81, 351–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, J. S., & Kennelly, K. J. (1976). Learned helplessness: The result of uncontrollable reinforcements or uncontrollable aversive stimuli?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 138–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulman, R. J., & Wortman, C. B. (1977). Attributions of blame and coping in the “real world”: Severe accident victims react to their lot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 351–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Channon, S., & Baker, J. (1994). Reasoning strategies in depression: Effects of depressed mood on a syllogism task. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 707–711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Channon, S., Baker, J. E., & Robertson, M. M. (1993). Effects of structure and clustering on recall and recognition memory in clinical depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 323–326.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cox, B. J., Enns, M. W., Borger, S. C., & Parker, J. D. A. (1999). The nature of the depressive experience in analogue and clinically depressed samples. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37, 15–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, C. G., Lehman, D. R., Wortman, C. B., Silver, R. C., & Thompson, S. C. (1995). The undoing of traumatic life events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 109–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. (1998). Personal control from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. In Kofta, M., Weary, G., & Sedek, G. (Eds.), Personal control in action: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms (pp. 5–26). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flett, G. L., Vredenburg, K., & Krames, L. (1997). The continuity of depression in clinical and nonclinical samples. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 395–416.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frankel, A., & Snyder, M. L. (1978). Poor performance following unsolvable problems: Learned helplessness or egotism?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1415–1424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilhooly, K. J., Logie, R. H., Wetherick, N. E., & Wynn, V. (1993). Working memory and strategies in syllogistic reasoning tasks. Memory and Cognition, 21, 115–124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gronwall, D. (1977). Paced auditory serial addition task: A measure of recovery from concussion. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 44, 367–373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartlage, S., Alloy, L. B., Vazquez, C., & Dykman, D. (1993). Automatic and effortful processing in depression. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 247–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Healy, D., & Williams, J. M. G. (1988). Dysrythmia, dysphoria, and depression: The interaction of learned helplessness and circadian dysrythmia in the pathogenesis of depression. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 163–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiroto, D. S., & Seligman, M. E. (1975). Generality of learned helplessness in man. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 311–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, M. (1976). Stress response syndromes. New York: J. Aronson.Google Scholar
Hertel, P. T. (2004). Memory for emotional and nonemotional events in depression: A question of habit? In Reisberg, D. & Hertel, P. (Eds.), Memory and emotion (pp. 186–216). New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, A. M., Balleine, B. W., & Minor, T. R. (2003). Helplessness and escape performance: Glutamate-adenosine interactions in the frontal cortex. Behavioral Neuroscience, 117, 123–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, R. L., Alexander, J. H., & Maier, S. F. (1980). Learned helplessness, inactivity, and associative deficits: Effects of inescapable shock on response choice escape learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 6, 1–20.Google ScholarPubMed
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1989). Assumptive worlds and the stress of traumatic events: Applications of the schema construct. Social Cognition, 7, 113–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kliegl, R., Mayr, O., & Oberauer, K. (2000). Resource limitations and process dissociations in individual differences research, In Hecker, U., Dutke, S., & Sedek, G. (Eds.), Generative mental processes and cognitive resources: Integrative research on adaptation and control (pp. 337–366). Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kofta., M. (1993). Uncertainty, mental models, and learned helplessness: An anatomy of control loss. In Weary, G., Gleicher, F., & Marsh, K. L. (Eds.), Control motivation and social cognition (pp. 122–153). New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kofta, M., & Sedek, G. (1989a). Egotism versus generalization-of-uncontrollability explanations of helplessness: Reply to Frankel & Snyder. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 413–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kofta, M., & Sedek, G. (1989b). Repeated failure: A source of helplessness, or a factor irrelevant to its emergence?Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 3–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kofta, M., & Sedek, G. (1998). Uncontrollability as a source of cognitive exhaustion: Implications for helplessness and depression. In Kofta, M., Weary, G., and Sedek, G. (Eds.), Personal control in action: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms (pp. 391–418). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyubomirsky, S., Kasri, F., & Zehm, K. (2003). Dysphoric rumination impairs concentration on academic tasks. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 309–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maier, S. F., & Minor, T. R. (1993). Dissociation of interference with the speed and accuracy of escape produced by inescapable shock. Behavioral Neuroscience, 107, 139–146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1976). Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105, 3–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markman, K. D., Gavanski, I., Sherman, S. J., & McMullen, M. N. (1993). The mental simulation of better and worse possible worlds. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 87–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markman, K. D., & Weary, G. (1998). Control motivation, depression, and counterfactual thought. In Kofta, M., Weary, G., & Sedek, G. (Eds.), Personal control in action: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms (pp. 363–390). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, U., Kliegl, R., & Krampe, R. T. (1996). Sequential and coordinative processing dynamics in figural transformations across the life span. Cognition. International Journal of Cognitive Science, 59, 61–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McIntosh, D. N., & Sedek, G. (2005). Uncontrollability, clinical depression and dual task performance. Manuscript in preparation.
McIntosh, D. N., Silver, R. C., & Wortman, C. B. (1993). Religion's role in adjustment to a negative life event: Coping with the loss of a child. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 812–821.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, W. R., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Depression and learned helplessness in man. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84, 228–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Minor, T. R., Chang, W. C., & Winslow, J. L. (1994). Stress and adenosine: I. Effect of methylxanthine and amphetamine stimulants on learned helplessness in rats. Behavioral Neuroscience, 108, 254–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Minor, T. R., & Hunter, A. M. (2002). Stressor controllability and learned helplessness research in the United States: Sensitization and fatigue processes. Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science, 37, 44–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Minor, T. R., Jackson, R. L., & Maier, S. F. (1984). Effects of tasks irrelevant cues and reinforcement delay on choice escape learning following inescapable shock: Evidence for deficit in selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 10, 543–556.Google Scholar
Necka, E. (1996). Attentive mind: Intelligence in relation to selective attention, sustained attention, and dual task performance. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 27, 3–24.Google Scholar
Necka, E. (1997). Attention, working memory, and arousal: Concepts apt to account for the “process of intelligence.” In Matthews, G. (Ed.), Cognitive science perspectives on personality and emotion (pp. 503–554). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1996). Chewing the cud and other ruminations. In R. S. Wyer, Jr. (Ed.), Ruminative thoughts (pp. 135–144). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Oberauer, K. (2001). Removing irrelevant information from working memory: A cognitive aging study with the modified Sternberg task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 27, 948–957.Google ScholarPubMed
Oberauer, K., & Kliegl, R. (2001). Beyond resources: Formal models of complexity effects and age differences in working memory. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13, 187–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overmier, J. B., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1967). Effects of inescapable shock upon subsequent escape and avoidance learning. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 63, 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papageorgiou, C., & Siegle, G. J. (2003). Rumination and Depression: Advances in Theory and Research. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 243–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ric, F., & Scharnitzky, P. (2003). Effects of control deprivation on effort expenditure and accuracy performance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 103–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, M. S., & Alloy, L. B. (2003). Negative cognitive styles and stress-reactive rumination interact to predict depression: A prospective study. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 275–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedek, G., & Kofta, M. (1990). When cognitive exertion does not yield cognitive gain: Toward an informational explanation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 729–743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedek, G., Kofta, M., & Tyszka, T. (1993). Effects of uncontrollability on subsequent decision making: Testing the cognitive exhaustion hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1270–1281.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sedek, G., & McIntosh, D. N. (1998). Intellectual helplessness: Domain specificity, teaching styles, and school achievement. In Kofta, M., Weary, G., & Sedek, G. (Eds.), Personal control in action: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms (pp. 391–418). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedek, G., & Hecker, U. (2004). Effects of subclinical depression and aging on generative reasoning about linear orders: Same or different processing limitations?Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 237–260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seligman, M. E. P. (1978). Comment and integration. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 165–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seligman, M. E. P., & Maier, S. F. (1967). Failure to escape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Siegle, G. J., Steinhauer, S. R., Carter, C. S., Ramel, W., & Thase, M. E. (2003). Do the seconds turn into hours? Relationships between sustained pupil dilation in response to emotional information and self-reported rumination. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 365–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, M. L., & Frankel, A. (1989). Egotism versus learned helplessness as an explanation fort he unsolvable problem effect: Comment on Kofta and Sedek (1989). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 409–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sweeney, P. D., Anderson, K., & Bailey, S. (1986). Attributional style in depression: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 974–991.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhaeghen, P. (2000). The parallels in beauty's brow: Time accuracy functions and their implications for cognitive aging theories, In Perfect, T. J., & Maylor, E. A. (Eds.), Models of cognitive aging (pp. 50–86). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Verhaeghen, P., Kliegl, R., & Mayr, U. (1997). Sequential and coordinative complexity in time-accuracy functions for mental arithmetic. Psychology and Aging, 12, 555–564.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hecker, U., & Sedek, G. (1999). Uncontrollability, depression, and the construction of mental models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 833–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Hecker, U., Sedek, G., & McIntosh, D. N. (2000). Impaired systematic, higher order strategies in depression and helplessness: Testing implications of the cognitive exhaustion model. In Hecker, U., Dutke, S., & Sedek, G. (Eds.), Generative mental processes and cognitive resources: Integrative research on adaptation and control (pp. 245–276). Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wortman, C. B., & Brehm, J. W. (1975). Responses to uncontrollable outcomes: An integration of reactance theory and the learned helplessness model. In Berkowitz, L. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 8, 277–336. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×