Journal of Abnormal Psychology
1975, Vol. 84, No. 3, 228-238
Depression and Learned Helplessness in Man
William R. Miller and Martin E. P. Seligman
University of Pennsylvania
Similarity of impairment in naturallyoccurring depression and laboratory-induced,
learned helplessness was demonstrated in college students. Three groups each of
depressed and nondepressed studentswere exposed to escapable, inescapable,or no
noise. Then they were tested on a series of 20patterned anagrams. Depressed - no
noise subjects were much poorer at solving individual anagrams and seeing the
pattern than aondepressed - no noise subjects. Inescapablenoise produced parallel
deficits in nondepressed subjects relative to escapable or no noise, but inescapable
noise did not increase impairment in depressed subjects. These findings support the
learned helplessnessmodel of depression, which claims that a belief in independence
between responding and reinforcement is central to the etiology, symptoms, and
cure of reactive depression.
Overmier and Seligman (1967) and Seligman
and Maier (1967) used the term learned helplessness
to describe the interference with
escape/avoidance learning produced in dogs
by prior exposure to uncontrollable electric
shock. A number of studies have demonstrated
that learned helplessness can be produced in
a variety of situations, with different types
of uncontrollable, aversive events, and in a
wide variety of species (see Seligman, 1975b
for a comprehensive review of these studies).
Seligman, Maier, and Solomon (1971) argued
that the main behavioral symptoms of learned
helplessness—deficits in response initiation
and in associating reinforcement with responding—result
from learning that reinforcement
and responding are independent.
Such learning is said to lower performance by
reducing the incentive for instrumental responding,
which results in lowered response
initiation. In addition, learning that reinforcement
and responding are independent interThis
paper is based on a dissertation submitted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD
degree in the Department of Psychology of the University
of Pennsylvania by the first author under the
direction of the second author, Michael Parrish, and
Burton Rosner. The authors gratefully acknowledge
the assistance of Donald Hiroto and Elizabeth Miller
with various aspects of this study. The research reported
here was supported by National Institute of
Mental Health Grants MH 19604, MH 19989, and
MH 08209.
Requests for reprints should be sent to William R.
Miller, Department of Psychology, University of
Pennsylvania, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania 19174.
feres with learning that responses later control
reinforcement.
Two research strategies have been used to
study helplessness in humans. One strategy
uses the learned helplessness paradigm to
replicate the animal findings in man. Of the
seven studies of this type, three have convincingly
demonstrated learned helplessness in
man (Hiroto, 1974; Hiroto & Seligman, 1975;
Racinskas, Note 1), two yielded mixed results
(Roth, 1973; Roth & Bootzin, 1974), and two
seemed to produce learned helplessness, although
they involve methodological departures
from the paradigm, thus making interpretation
difficult (Fosco & Geer, 1971; Thornton &
Jacobs, 1971).
Seligman (1972, 1973, 1975a, 1975b) and
Seligman, Klein, and Miller (in press) have
claimed that learned helplessness is a laboratory
model for naturally occurring depression
in man, and the second research
strategy concerns testing this claim. Studies of
this type have looked for the behavioral
symptoms of learned helplessness in depressed
subjects (Miller & Seligman, 1973; Miller,
Seligman, & Kurlander, Note 2).
The experiment reported here tests the
learned helplessness model of depression by
integrating these research strategies. Depressed
and nondepressed college students first received
escapable, inescapable, or no noise.
Next, the subjects were faced with a test task
that provided measures of response initiation
and learning. The button-pressing pretreatment
task and the anagrams test task of Hiroto
228
DEPRESSION AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN MAN 229
and Seligman (1975) were used. In addition,
the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List,
Today Form (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965),
which indexes depression, anxiety, and hostility,
was administered before and after the
pretreatment. The learned helplessness model
of depression predicts the following:
1. As found by Hiroto and Seligman with
randomly selected college students, nondepressed
subjects in the inescapable noise group
should exhibit response initiation and learning
deficits on anagrams relative to nondepressed
subjects in the escapable noise group and no
noise control group. So, nondepressed subjects
in the inescapable noise group should (a) require
more trials to learn the anagram pattern,
(b) exhibit longer latencies in solvinganagrams,
(c) fail to solve more anagrams, and (d) require
more consecutive anagram solutions before
solving the pattern.
2. Untreated depressed subjects should exhibit
response initiation and learning deficits
relative to untreated nondepressed subjects,
thereby mimicking the effects of uncontrollability.
In addition, higher Beck Depression
Inventory (Beck, 1967) scores, reflecting increasing
depth of depression, should correlate
with degree of impairment on the anagrams.
3. The learned helplessness model of depression
does not make explicit predictions about
the interaction of escapable and inescapable
noise with depression. Intuitively, however,we
might expect that depressed subjects would be
highly susceptible to helplessness-inducing
procedures. In addition, we might expect that
experience controlling escapable noise would
alleviate the effects of depression on anagram
performance, although such "mastery" effects
following exposure to escapable trauma have
usually not been found in the learned helplessness
literature.
METHOD
Subjects
Fifty-seven undergraduate students at the University
of Pennsylvania were obtained through campus advertisements
for a "noise pollution experiment." These 57
subjects were assigned to depressed and nondepressed
groups on the basis of their scores on the Beck Depression
Inventory. The mean Beck Depression Inventory
score for college students, found by Miller and Seligman
(1973), was used as the cutting score. Subjects with
Beck Depression Inventory scores of 9 or above were
assigned to the depressed group, whereas those with
TABLE 1
MEAN BECK DEPRESSION INVENTORY SCORES AND
STANDARD DEVIATIONS
Group
Inescapable noise
Escapable noise
No noise
Depressed
M
14.88
13.88
15.00
SD
6.18
3.52
4.81
Nondepressed
M
3.38
2.88
3.38
SD
2.39
2.48
1.92
Note. Each cell contains eightsubjects.
scores of 8 or lower were assigned to the nondepressed
group. The subjects were then randomly assigned to the
inescapable, escapable, or no noise pretreatments. Nine
subjects (four nondepressed and five depressed) assigned
to the escapable noise pretreatment were excluded
from the final sample because they failed to
learn how to escape the noise.1
There were 23 males and
25 females in the final sample of 48. The means and
standard deviations of the Beck Depression Inventory
scores for the six groups are shown in Table 1.
A pparatus
The pretreatment task consisted of a spring-loaded
button in the center of a 12-inch (30.48-cm) circular
base. Two 24-V dc lights were located symmetrically
on each side of the button. The aversive stimulus was a
3,000-Hz, 90-db. tone produced by an Eico audio
generator (Model 377). All decibels use as a reference
20 p N/m2
. The tone was presented to the subjects
through calibrated Grason-Stadler earphones (Model
TDH-39). The circuitry and recording devices were
contained in a room separated from the experimental
room by a one-way mirror.
The anagram task devised by Hiroto and Seligman
(1975) was used as the test task. This task consisted of
20 anagrams that were individually placed on file cards
contained in a small, spiral notebook. Each of the 20
anagrams, which were selected from a list of five-letter
anagrams (Tresselt & Mayzner, 1966), consisted of five
letters arranged in a standard sequence of 3-4-2-5-1
(i.e., the first letter of the solution word was the fifth
letter of the anagram; the second letter of the solution
word was the third letter of the anagram; etc.).
Procedure
The subjects were administered the Beck Depression
Inventory and the Multiple Affect Adjective Check
1
These nine subjects could not be included in the
escapable noise group because they had, in effect,
received inescapable noise. They could not be included
in the inescapable noise group because they were not
yoked to escapable noise subjects. The net result of
this exclusion is that subjects in the escapable noise
group only were selected for escape learning ability.
The difficulty that this selection provides for interpretation
of the results for this group is discussed later.
230 WILLIAM R. MILLER AND MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN
List, Today Form, and were then assigned to the appropriate
subject group. Subjects in the two noise groups
were first given a brief sample of the tone before being
asked to continue. No subjects dropped out.
Subjects in the escapable noise group could escape the
noise by pressing the button four times. Each subject
in the inescapable noise group was yoked to an escapable
noise subject for the duration of noise exposure. There
were 50 trials with the unsignaled 90-db. tone, each
trial 5secin duration, with an intertrial interval ranging
from 10 to 25 sec (mean intertrial inverval was 14 sec).
Subjects in the no noise group were asked to sit and wait
while the experimenter adjusted the apparatus in the
next room. The length of the waiting period was approximately
the same as the time required for the 50
noise trials (mean of 20 min).
Subjects in the escapable and inescapable noise groups
were given the following instructions:
From time to time, a loud tone will come on for
awhile. When the tone comes on, there is something
you can do to stop it. There are two lights located on
the base in front of you, and these lights will serve
as signals for you. One of the two lights will go on
after each time the noise stops. If the blue light goes
on after the noise stops, then you have just made the
correct response and have stopped the noise. If, on
the other hand, the red light goes on, then you have
not stopped the noise, but rather the noise has
stopped automatically according to a preprogrammed
schedule. Taking the earphones off and dismantling
the apparatus in any way are not acceptable waysof
stopping the noise.
Following the pretreatment or the waiting period for
the no noise control group, the subjects were retested
with the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, Today
Form. Before retesting with the check list, the subjects
were told:
This is the same as one of the questionnaires you
filled out earlier. Your answers may or may not be
the same as they were before—that is not important.
The important thing is to check off all those adjectives
that describe how you are feeling right now.
After retesting with the Multiple Affect Adjective
Check List, all subjects were presented the anagrams.
Although each of the 20 anagrams could be solved
individually, the easiest method was to learn to use the
standard letter sequence described above, and subjects
were alerted to this by the instructions. The subjects
were allowed 100 sec to solve each anagram; response
latencies were measured with an electric timer. The
subjects were given the following instructions:
The next task is an anagrams task. As you know,
anagrams are words with their letters scrambled, and
your task is to unscramble the letters so that they
form a word. When you think you know the word,
tell me what it is, and I'll tell you if you're right or
wrong. The anagrams are contained in this booklet.
Now, there may be a pattern or principle by which
you can solve the anagrams, but that is up to you to
figure out. Do not open the booklet and do not turn
any pages until you are told to do so.
The same three dependent measures used by Hiroto
and Seligman (1975) were obtained from the anagrams
task: (a) the mean response latency for the 20 anagrams,
(b) the number of trials to criterion for solving the
anagram pattern, defined as three successive trials
with a response latency less than 15 sec, and (c) the
number of failures to solve, defined as the number of
trials with latencies of 100 sec. A fourth dependent
measure, not used by Hiroto and Seligman, was also
obtained— (d) the number of consecutive, successful
anagram solutions that occurred prior to reaching
criterion for learning the pattern. This additional
measure was included because the number of trials
needed to learn the anagram pattern is not independent
of failures to solve anagrams; failure trials provide no
information on the pattern.
Following the test phase, the subjects completed a
postexperimental questionnaire, were debriefed, and
were paid $2.
RESULTS2
In general, the effects of inescapability and
depression were as predicted: Both produced
impairment of anagram solution. We will consider
separately the results obtained for the
pretreatment trials, the test trials, and the
Multiple Affect Adjective Check List.
Pretreatment
The following question was included in the
postexperimental questionnaire to assess the
effectiveness of the inescapability manipulation
: "Did you feel at any time that no matter
what you did, you could not solve the buttonpressing
task?" Subjects responded to this
question on a 7-point scale with higher scores
indicating a belief in insolvability. Both inescapable
groups believed that no matter what
they did, they could not solve the buttonpressing
task relative to the escapable noise
groups. The mean ratings for depressed - inescapable
andnondepressed - inescapable groups
were 6.00 (SD = 1.66) and 6.13 (SD = 1.05),
respectively, whereas the mean ratings for
depressed - andnondepressed - escapable noise
groups were 4.25 (SD = 1.85) and 1.88 (SD
= 1.97), respectively.
A 2(depressed versus nondepressed) X 2 (escapable
versus inescapable noise) analysis of
2
All tests are two-tailed.
DEPRESSION AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN MAN 231
variance conducted for this questionnaire item
yielded a highly significant main effect due to
noise pretreatment,^!, 28) = 22.59,p < .001.
The depression main effect was not significant.
Although the Depression X Noise Pretreatment
interaction did not reach statistical
significance, P(l, 28) = 3.92, p < .1, it should
be noted that for these ratings, depressed
subjects in the escapable noise group tended
toward a greatei4
belief in insolvability than
nondepressed - escapable noise subjects. This
questionnaire result matches the interesting
finding that depressed subjects required
significantly more trials than nondepressed
subjects to learn how to escape the noise.
Depressed subjects required a mean of 20.00
(SD = 8.69) trials to learn to escape the noise,
whereas nondepressed subjects needed a mean
of only 6.75 (SD = 2.91) trials. The difference
between depressed - escapable and nondepressed
- escapable noise groups was highly
significant, /(14) = 3.83, p < .002. In addition,
higher Beck Depression Inventory
scores, which reflect more intense depression,
were significantly correlated with greater
number of trials to learn to escape the noise
(r = .67,p < .01).
Subjects in the noise groups rated the aversiveness
of the tone on a 7-point scale with
higher ratings indicating greater aversiveness.
The mean ratings for the depressed - and nondepressed
- inescapable groups were 3.00 (SD
= 1.41) and 4.00 (SD = 1.26), respectively,
and the mean ratings for the depressed- and
nondepressed - escapable noise groups were
3.50 (SD = 1.12) and 3.38 (SD = 1.41), respectively.
A 2 (depressed versus nondepressed)
X 2 (escapable versus inescapable noise) analysis
of variance conducted for this aversiveness
rating yielded no significant main effects or
interaction. This finding should be noted in
light of the speculation (e.g., Miller & Weiss,
1969) that uncontrollable events are more
aversive than controllable events and that
such a difference is responsible for learned
helplessness effects.
Test Task
Overall, the results confirmed the experimental
predictions. The scores for the six
groups on the four dependent measures obtained
from the anagrams test task are presented
in Figure I.8
We now consider the predictions
in order.
Prediction 1. Nondepressed subjects in the
inescapable noise group should (a) requiremore
trials to learn the anagram pattern, (b) take
longer to solve anagrams, (c) fail to solve more
anagrams, and (d) require more consecutive
anagram solutions before solving the pattern
than nondepressed subjects in the escapable
and no noise groups. As Figure 1 shows, the
nondepressed subjects in the inescapable noise
group performed more poorly on the anagrams
task than the nondepressed subjects in the
escapable and no noise groups.
Two orthogonal comparisons tested for the
learned helplessness phenomenon in nondepressed
subjects. The first of these comparisons
contrasted nondepressed subjects in the inescapable
noise group with those in the escapable
and no noise groups. As predicted, the
nondepressed - inescapable noise group needed
significantly more trials to learn the anagram
pattern, F(l, 42) = 14.71, p < .001, took
significantly longer to solve anagrams, F(l, 42)
= 6.74, p < .05, and required significantly
more consecutive anagram solutions before
learning the anagram pattern, F(l, 38) = 8.66,
p < .01,than the nondepressed- escapable and
no noise groups. For number of failures to
solve anagrams, the difference between the
nondepressed - inescapable noise group and the
nondepressed - escapable and no noise groups
was marginally significant, F(l, 42) = 3.33,
/><.!.
The second orthogonal comparison contrasted
the nondepressed - escapable andno
noise groups. As expected, these two groups
did not differ significantly on any of the anagram
measures. Those findings parallel those
of Hiroto and Seligman (1975).
Prediction 2. In the no noise control group,
depressed subjects should (a) require more
trials to learn the anagram pattern, (b) take
3
The number ofconsecutive anagram solutions before
seeing the pattern could be computed only for those
subjects who actually learned the anagram pattern.
Four subjects (two subjects in the depressed - nonoise
group and one subject in both the depressed- and nondepressed
- inescapable noise groups) failed to reach
the criterion for learning the pattern and were, therefore,
excluded from analyses involving this measure.
232 WILLIAM R. MILLER AND MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN
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FIGURE 1. Means and standard deviations for the six groups on the four anagram measures. (Abbreviations:
IN = inescapable noise, EN = escapable noise, NN = no noise.)
longer to solve anagrams, (c) fail to solve
more anagrams, and (d) require more consecutive
anagram solutions before solving the
pattern than nondepressed subjects. As Figure
1 shows, depressed subjects performed more
poorly on the anagrams task than nondepressed
subjects within the no noise group. A planned,
nonorthogonal comparison contrasted the depressed
- and nondepressed - nonoise groups.
As predicted, the depressed - no noise group
required significantly more trials to learn the
anagram pattern F(l, 42) = 28.17, p < .001,
showed significantly longer mean latency in
solving anagrams, F(l, 42) = 24.88, p < .001,
failed to solve significantly more anagrams,
F(l, 42) = 20.62, p < .001, and required
significantly more consecutive anagram solutions
before solving the pattern, F(\, 38)
= 8.19, p < .01.
Also, for the no noise group, higher Beck
Depression Inventory scores, reflecting greater
depth of depression, should be significantly
correlated with more trials to learn the anagram
pattern, longer latencies, more failures,
and higher number of consecutive anagram
solutions before solving the pattern. The
prediction was confirmed: Increasing depth
of depression was significantly correlated with
increasingly poorer performance on the four
anagram measures for subjects in the no noise
group—for number of trials to learn the pattern,
r = .86 (p < .001); for latency, r - .69
(p < .01); for number of failures, r= .71
(p < .01); and for number of consecutive
anagram solutions before seeing the pattern,
r = .77 (p < .01).
Overall, as expected by the model, naturally
occurring depression mimicked the effects of
DEPRESSION AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN MAN 233
inescapability on nondepressed subjects. On
all measures, depressed-no noise subjects
performed at least as poorly as nondepressed inescapable
noise subjects.
Prediction 3. As noted above, the learned
helplessness model of depression does not make
specific predictions concerning the interaction
of escapable and inescapable noise with depression.
Figure 1 shows that depressed—
escapable noise subjects performed considerably
better, and depressed - inescapable noise
subjects performed slightly better, on the
anagrams than depressed - no noise subjects.
Two orthogonal comparisons assessed the
effects of the pretreatments on depressed
subjects' anagram performance. In contrast
to the results for nondepressed subjects, the
depressed - inescapable noise subjects didnot
differ significantly from the depressed - escapable
and no noise subjects on any of the anagram
measures. Comparison ofthe depressed escapable
and no noise groups indicated that
the depressed - escapable noise group performed
significantly better on the anagrams
in terms of trials to learn the anagram pattern,
F(l, 42) = 22.38, p < .001; mean latency,
F(l, 42) = 19.54, p < .001; number of failures
to solve, F(l, 42) = 14.07, p < .001; and
number of consecutive anagram solutions
before solving the pattern, F(l, 38) = 5.84,
p < .025.
It was suggested that depressed subjects
might be more sensitive than nondepressed
subjects to helplessness-inducing procedures.
This effect would be reflected in a significant
Depression X Treatments interaction. Although
the Depression X Treatments effect
was significant for each dependent measure,
the locus of this interaction effect is clearly
due to the difference between depressed and
nondepressed groups within the no noise condition.
Depressed and nondepressed groups
were highly similar on all four anagram measures
in both the inescapable and escapable
noise groups.
So, depression and inescapability were not
additive. These results suggest that pretreatment
with inescapable noise may have even
resulted in somewhat better anagram performance
for depressed subjects than no pretreatrrient
at all. Closer examination reveals that
the inescapable noise pretreatment did not
affect all depressed subjects in the same way.
There were two distinct effects that are obscured
by the averaged data. The anagrams
performance of six of the eight depressed inescapable
noise subjects was considerably
poorer than theperformanceofnondepressed inescapable
noise subjects (p < .05), and was
similar to theperformance of thedepressed - no
noise subjects. The other two depressed - inescapable
noise subjects were similar in solving
anagrams to the nondepressed - no noise
subjects. As will be seen, these two subjects
were made less depressed by the pretreatment.
Note, however, that even with the exclusion of
these two depressed - inescapable noise subjects,
theremaining six depressed - inescapable
noise subjects did not perform more poorly on
the anagrams than the depressed - no noise
subjects.
Analysis of the effects of subjects' sex on
anagram task performance indicated that
females performed better than males. (Female
undergraduates generally have higher verbal
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores than
males at the University of Pennsylvania.)
Depression X Treatments X Sex analyses of
variance (unweighted means analyses) yielded
significant main effects due to sex for the
number of trials to learn the anagram pattern
F(l, 36) = 9.75, p < .004; for mean latency
F(l, 36) = 7.29, p < .011; and for number of
failures to solve anagrams, F(l, 36) = 6.69,
p < .014. Since analyses of variance did not
yield significant interaction effects involving
the sex factor, the analyses above were conducted
for males and females combined. The
results of separate tests of the experimental
predictions for males and females revealed
no points of disagreement with the results
presented above.
Pretreatment and Mood
The effect of the pretreatments on subjects'
depression, anxiety, and hostility levels was
assessed by administering the Multiple Affect
Adjective Check List, Today Form, before
and after the pretreatment. The before and
after pretreatment scores are presented in
Table 2; the change scores for each group are
presented in Figure 2. The depressed groups
234 WILLIAM R. MILLER ANDMARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN
TABLE 2
MEAN MULTIPLE AFFECT ADJECTIVE CHECK LIST SCORES AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS
Score
Prior to pretreatment
Depression
Anxiety
Hostility
After pretreatment
Depression
Anxiety
Hostility
Inescapable noise
Depressed
19.63
(8.75)
10.88
(3.98)
10.63
(3.16)
19.38
(2.26)
11.63
(3.11)
15.00
(4.04)
Nondepressed
10.75
(4.20)
5.88
(2.75)
5.88
(3.40)
14.13
(4.29)
8.25
(2.87)
8.00
(3.59)
Escapable noise
Depressed
14.38
(7.80)
6.88
(4.12)
6.00
(4.54)
16.38
(7.46)
8.38
(3.50)
8.13
(3.31)
Nondepressed
12.75
(4.89)
7.13
(3.36)
8.38
(4.60)
13.88
(6.20)
7.00
(3.85)
8.63
(4.78)
No noise
Depressed
21.63
(7.93)
9.63
(2.77)
9.63
(3.29)
21.63
(7.13)
9.25
(3.24)
8.50
(3.59)
Nondepressed
10.88
(5.25)
7.38
(4.14)
6.25
(3.01)
10.88
(5-79)
5.88
(2.42)
5.75
(3.50)
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
had, as expected, higher depression scores than
the nondepressed groups.
The higher anxiety scores of the depressed
groups are consistent with the finding of Miller
et al. (Note 2) that virtually all depressed college
students scoreabovethe mean on the IPAT
Anxiety ScaleQuestionnaire (Scheier & Cattell,
1967). Depression X Treatments analyses of
variance for initial mood level scores yielded
significant depression main effects for the depression
score, F(i, 42) = 13Ai,p < .001, and
the anxiety score F(1, 42) = 5.13, p < .029,
whereas the depression main effect for the
hostility score was marginally significant,
7?(1, 42) = 3.18, p < .082. No significanttreatments
main effects werefound.
There was an unexpected,significant Depression
X Treatments interaction for the initial
hostility score, 7?(2, 42) = 4.12, p < .024.
Depressed subjects had higher initial hostility
scores than nondepressed subjects in the inescapable
and no noise groups, whereas the
reverse was found in the escapable noise group.
This finding may be related to the fact that
subjects in the escapable noise groups, unlike
those in the other two groups, were not randomly
selected. A relatively large number
of depressed - and nondepressed - escapable
noise subjects were excluded for failure to
learn to escape. The Depression X Treatments
interactions for initial depression and anxiety
scores were not statistically significant.
The effects of pretreatment on mood level
were examined by Depression X Treatments
analyses of covariance conducted for the depression,
anxiety, and hostility change scores,
with the initial Multiple Affect Adjective
Check List scores as covariates. Significant
treatments main effects emerged for anxiety
and hostility change scores, F(2, 42) = 3.86,
p < .05, and 7?(2, 42) = 12.20, p < .001, respectively,
but not for depression change
score. Figure 2 indicates that pretreatment
with inescapable noise resulted in relatively
large increases in anxiety and hostility scores,
but no pretreatment wasfollowed by decreases
in both hostility and anxiety scores.
Although the Depression X Treatments interaction
for depression change score was not
significant, inspection of Figure 2 suggests that
the depression scores of depressed and nondepressed
subjects were differentially affected
by inescapable noise. Separate comparisons of
depressed and nondepressed subjects indicate
that for nondepressed subjects the depression
change score was significantly higher in the
inescapable noise condition that in the no noise
condition, /(14) = 3.16, p < .007. For depressed
subjects, the depression change scores in the
inescapable and no noise conditions were not
significantly different. Recall that two of the
eight depressed - inescapable noise subjects
were similar to the nondepressed —no noise
subjects in solving anagrams. Both of these
DEPRESSION AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN MAN 235
subjects told the experimenter at the end of
the experiment that they had decided early
in the experiment that it had been rigged so
that they could not escape the noise and that
this had made them angry. Both of these
subjects showed, as a result of the pretreatment,
large decreases in Multiple Affect
Adjective Check List depression scores. (These
subjects also exhibited small decreases in
anxiety scores and moderate increases in
hostility scores.) Theremaining six depressed inescapable
noise subjects showed increases in
depression similar to those of the nondepressed
- inescapable noise subjects.
Finally, the only significant depression mam
effect was for hostility change scores, F(l, 42)
= 4.62, p < .05. Nondepressed subjects showed
smaller increases in hostility scores as a result
of the pretreatment than did depressed
subjects.
DISCUSSION
These results support the learned helplessness
model of depression by showing parallel
effects of depression and helplessness. In
addition, they provide a further demonstration
of learned helplessness in man. For nondepressed
subjects, pretreatment with inescapable
noise resulted in impairment of anagram
solving, whereas pretreatment with escapable
noise had no significant effect on anagram
performance. These results replicate thefinding
of cross-modal helplessness reported by Hiroto
and Seligman (1975) for college students
randomly selected as to depression.
If learned helplessness is a valid model of
depression, then nonpretreated depressed and
nondepressed subjects should differ from each
other in the same way and on the same tasks
that differentiate nondepressed subjects pretreated
with inescapable noise vs no noise.
This is, of course, precisely what was found.
In the no noise group, depressed subjects were
much poorer at solving anagrams than nondepressed
subjects. In fact, on three of the four
anagram measures, depressed-no noise subjects
tended to do worse than nondepressed inescapable
noise subjects. In addition, the
more depressed subjects in the noise condition
were, the poorer was their performance on the
anagrams.
Because inescapability and depression similarly
impair learning the anagram pattern, it
4.5
3.5
2.5
1.5
0.5
-0.5
-1.5
(S.D.)
" —
Depres
1 1 Nondep
IN EN NN
(790(2.67) (2.98X3.76) (3.071(1.41)
S
(J
4.5
3.5
2.5
1.5
0.5
-
-
•
' P
I 1
r^
-0.5 -
-I.5L
IN
(S.D,) (4.10)11.06)
EN
(1.40(4.19)
NN
(2.071(3.07)
4.5
to
£ 3.5
o
u
J 1.5
o
>> 0.5
| -Q5
I
-1.5
-
1
IN
nEN
LHNN
(S.D.) (3,11X1.46) (2.301(2.44) (3.231(1.41)
FIGURE 2. Mean depression, anxiety, and hostility
change scores and standard deviations for the six
groups. (Abbreviations: In = inescapable noise, EN
= escapable noise, NN = nonoise.)
seems that depressed and inescapable noise
subjects need more information before they
see the pattern than nondepressed - escapable
and no noise subjects. Hiroto and Seligman
(1975) designed the anagrams task as ameasure
of both response initiation deficits and "negative
cognitive set," that is, deficits in associating
reinforcement with responding. Response
initiation deficits (e.g., of mental juxtaposition
of letters or memory scan of similar words)
were believed to be reflected in longer latencies
and more failures to solve, whereas negative
cognitive set presumably resulted in more
trials to see the anagram pattern. Note, however,
that deficits on all three anagram measures
can be viewed as a result of either motivational
interference or cognitive interference,
or both.
236 WILLIAM R. MILLER AND MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN
The additional measureused here, numberof
consecutive solutions before perceiving the
pattern, seems to more clearly reflect the operation
of some sort of fundamental cognitive
interference rather than motivational deficit.
It could be argued, of course, that depressed
and inescapable noise subjects' deficit in seeing
the pattern was due to slowness of responding,
not to a need for more information,because, by
definition, reaching "criterion" for seeing the
pattern required short latency anagram solutions.
However, observation of subjects' performance
suggests that slowness of responding
was not the critical factor. No subject gradually
decreased his response latency to the point
of reaching criterion for pattern solving during
a consecutive series of anagram solutions.
"Insight" into the solution uniformly consisted
of relatively long latency responses (15 to
90 seconds) followed by an immediate decrease
to very short latency responses (about 1 to 4
seconds).
Although there is nothing in the present
findings that would allow us to decide between
cognitive and motivational explanations for
deficits in anagram performance, observations
of the subjects as they worked on the anagrams
task suggest that negative cognitive set may be
the primary factor. Depressed - no noise
subjects and subjects in the inescapable noise
groups clearly seemed to be attempting to
solve the anagrams on the first few trials. These
subjects looked like people trying very hard
to solve a difficult problem, and they looked
concerned when they failed. After the first few
anagram failures, however, depressed - nonoise
subjects and inescapable noise subjects showed
decreased concern over their poor performance.
Some of these subjects appeared to have given
up entirely after the initial trials.
These observations suggest that initially the
depressed - no noise subjects and inescapable
noise subjects are adequately motivated. It
may be that the initial poor performance is due
to some sort of cognitive interference and that
the resulting poor performance then leads to a
motivational deficit, loosely termed "giving
up." The issue of the relative importance of
cognitive and motivational factors in the production
of performancedeficits in learned helplessness
and depression is of great theoretical
and practical importance (cf. Miller, 1975).
Resolution of this issue awaits future research.
The findings for the escapable noise group
require special attention. These results suggest
that escapable noise has no effect on nondepressed
subjects' performance but significantly
improves depressed subjects' performance.
However, the methodological confound of excluding
subjects who failed to learn to escape
makes any interpretation of the escapable noise
group results difficult.
In an experiment similar to the present one,
Miller (1974) changed the escapable noise pretreatment
instructions in an attempt to reduce
the number of escapable noise subjects who
failed to escape. The instructional change had
the intended effect. However, in contrast to
the present results, Miller (1974) found that
escapable noise did not break up the effects of
depression on expectancy changes in a skill
task. Whether escapable noise will similarly
have no effect on the anagram performanceof
depressed subjects who are not selected for
escape learning ability must await future
research. However, there is clear evidence that
both escapable noise and solvable problem pretreatments
have no effect on the anagram performance
of nondepressed subjects who are not
selected for escape learning ability (Hiroto
& Seligman 1975; Klein et'al.^Note 1).
The results for depressed subjects in the
inescapable noise condition were unexpected.
It is interesting that the two depressed - inescapable
noise subjects who performed well
on the anagrams showed large decreases in
depression scores, exhibited moderate increases
in hostility, and reported being angry at the
experimenter. These results are consistent with
the finding that instigation to anger is an
effective means of breaking up depression
(Taulbee & Wright, 1971). The fact that the
other depressed - inescapable noise subjects
did not perform more poorly on the anagrams
than the depressed - no noise subjects may
have been due to a floor effect.
Although the model under consideration
specifically links learned helplessness with depression,
it is not unreasonable to suspect that
pretreatment with inescapable noise would
result in increased anxiety and/or hostility in
college students. The results for the Multiple
DEPRESSION AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN MAN 237
Affect Adjective Check List indicate that depression,
anxiety, and hostility all increased as
a result of the inescapable noise pretreatment.
The finding that inescapable noise did not
result in a significant increase in depression
for depressed subjects was due to the large
decreases in depression scores for the two subjects
discussed previously.
One possible alternative explanation for the
findings reported here is that subjects were
responding to the demand characteristics of
the experimental situation (Orne, 1962). However,
this alternative seems unlikely because,
in extensive debriefing, the subjects gave no
evidence of having discovered the purpose of
the study or what was predicted of them.
It might also be suggested that depressed
subjects were of lower intelligence level than
nondepressed subjects and that this difference
accounts for the depressives' inferior anagram
performance. However, this explanation cannot
account for the difference in anagram performance
of nondepressed - inescapable and no
noise subjects. Finally, Miller et al. (Note 2)
found no significant difference in Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Vocabulary
scores of depressed and nondepressed college
students.
In conclusion, we have found that nondepressed
subjects given helplessness training
exhibit an impairment in anagram performance
parallel to that shown by depressed subjects
given no pretreatment. In addition, we have
replicated the finding of cross-modal helplessness
in man. These findings provide additional
support for the learned helplessness model of
depression.
REFERENCE NOTES
1. Racinskas, J. R. Maladaptive consequences of loss or
lack of control over aversive events. Paper presented at
the meeting ofthe Eastern Psychological Association,
Boston, April 1972.
2. Miller, W. R., Seligman, M. E. P., & Kurlander,
H. M. Learned helplessness, depression, and anxiety.
Manuscript submitted for publication, 1974.
3. Klein, D. C., Morse, E. F., & Seligman, M. E. P.
Learned helplessness, depression, and the attributionof
failure. Manuscript submitted for publication, 1974.
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