Learned helplessness: Noncontingent reinforcement in video game performance produces a decrement in performance on a lexical decision task

Abstract

Contingent subjects played a video game involving their firing a missle at an erratically moving target and receiving true feedback whenever they scored hits and misses. Noncontingent subjects played the same game but were yoked to contingent subjects, so that they received the same pattern of “hits” or “misses” as their yoked cohorts, independently of their own true accuracy. This was accomplished by having the target speed up or slow down to produce the required “hits” or “misses,” without the subjects’ becoming suspicious that the feedback was noncontingent. Control subjects were told that, because the machine was not working properly, they could not play the game. All subjects then completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) and were then presented with a lexical decision task. Ninety-two strings of letters were presented one at a time, and the subjects had to indicate as quickly as possible whether or not each was a word. Subjects then filled out a questionnaire assessing their feelings of helplessness, attributions, etc. Noncontingent subjects performed significantly more poorly on the lexical decision task than did the contingent or control subjects, who did not differ from each other. The control group showed less hostility than did the other two groups on the MAACL, but aside from that, none of the mood or cognitive measures differentiated the groups. Learned helplessness was thus demonstrated independently of the cognitive processes usually adduced to explain it.