Cognition and Emotion

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Learned helplessness revisited: biased evaluation

of goals and action potential are major risk factors
for emotional disturbance

Klaus R. Scherer

To cite this article: Klaus R. Scherer (2022) Learned helplessness revisited: biased evaluation
of goals and action potential are major risk factors for emotional disturbance, Cognition and
Emotion, 36:6, 1021-1026, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2022.2141002

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2141002

Published online: 02 Nov 2022.

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COGNITION AND EMOTION
2022, VOL. 36, NO. 6, 1021–1026
https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2141002

EDITORIAL

Learned helplessness revisited: biased evaluation of goals and action

potential are major risk factors for emotional disturbance
Klaus R. Scherer
Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The present theory section deals with learned helplessness produced by pervasive Learned helplessness; goal
experiences of failure or negative events, leading to decreased motivation and risk directedness; depression;
for depression. In their target article, Boddez, van Dessel, and de Houwer apply this causal attribution; action
concept to different forms of psychological suffering and propose a goal-directed potential
mechanism –generalisation over similar goals. Duda and Joormann define goal
similarity by action-outcome contingencies and highlight individual differences in
attribution styles. Brandstätter proposes incentive classes as the organising
principle for goal similarity and explores outcomes such as deterioration of
cognitive ability. Mikulincer and Lifshin focus on differences between goals and
introduce the notion of motivated helplessness, serving as an anxiety buffer in
uncontrollable life settings. Finally, potential contributions from emotion science
are outlined, in particular individual differences and biases in appraising goals and
coping potential likely to produce negative emotion dispositions. In conclusion,
the need to elaborate a more comprehensive theoretical framework for
helplessness that can guide empirical studies using multifactorial and longitudinal
designs is emphasised. Given the strong increase in the prevalence of anxiety and
depression worldwide, better understanding of predispositions and eliciting factors
is needed for early diagnosis and the development of intervention programmes to
reduce psychological suffering.

When people encounter pervasive or recurring experi-
ences of failure or other negative events, they often
experience a stressful feeling of helplessness and
loss of control that may engender a lack of motivation
and effort in goal pursuit and even lead to emotion
disorders such as depression or generalised anxiety.
A major theoretical orientation in this domain has
been labelled “learned helplessness” by Seligman
and Maier (1967), based on an operant learning exper-
iment with dogs experiencing inescapable electric
shocks. After more than half a century, and many criti-
cal assessments and reformulations, learned helpless-
ness is still alive and kicking – in motivation science as
well as in many applied areas, in clinical psychology
and psychiatry but also in educational and organis-
ational psychology. Despite this long history of theor-
etical effort and empirical research, a comprehensive
theoretical framework for the causal factors and the
mechanisms involved is still missing. For example,
the important role of the emotions generated by
the feeling of helplessness has not yet been eluci-
dated. Similarly, the nature of the goals a person
fails to achieve remains to be further examined. The
current theory section is devoted to these concerns,
with an emphasis on recent theorising on goal-direct-
edness in motivation science.
In their invited target article, Yannik Boddez, Pieter
van Dessel, and Jan de Houwer (this issue), while
acknowledging the profound influence of the
learned helplessness concept in the domain of
depression-related disorders, propose to extend this
perspective to serve as an explanatory framework
for other forms of psychological suffering such as
attachment problems, burn-out, and complaints of

CONTACT Klaus R. Scherer klaus.scherer@unige.ch

© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
1022 K. R. SCHERER
fatigue. To facilitate this generalisation of the under-
lying principle of prior exposure to uncontrollable
negative events, the authors propose to conceptual-
ise learned helplessness as persistent lack of reinforce-
ment, both negative (avoidance) or positive
(approach). More importantly, Boddez et al. suggest
combining the operant, stimulus-based level of expla-
nation, based on the initial proposal by Seligman and
Maier (1967; Seligman, 1975), with a goal-directed
perspective on behaviour (Kuhl, 1981; Moors et al.,
2017), focusing on the evaluation of events based
on mental representations of goal structures. Specifi-
cally, they conceptualise learned helplessness as a
dysregulation of goal-directed responding due to a
failure to reach a goal: People stop trying, because
(1) (former) goals lose value and / or (2) they no
longer believe that further effort will result in attain-
ing their goals.
To illustrate their learned helplessness approach,
Boddez et al. (this issue) elaborate three types of
psychological suffering – attachment problems in
adulthood due to unresponsive parents, burn-out
due to lack of recognition of work achievements,
and fatigue symptoms due to an inability to find
help for the treatment of a chronic pain condition.
The authors posit that learned helplessness resulting
from experienced lack of reinforcement (or goal
attainment) will generalise to other life domains due
to the similarity of discriminative stimuli but, even
more importantly, due to the similarity among goal
stimuli belonging to the same category, sharing
similar features. Because goals tend to be hierarchi-
cally organised, the effect may spread widely over
different types of goals. Boddez et al. then relate
their learned helplessness framework to alternative
approaches, such as attachment and depletion the-
ories. Based on the theoretical framework proposed,
they indicate potential interventions to treat
different forms of psychological suffering: (1) reducing
the similarity between the failed goal and other goals,
and (2) relying on (generalisation from) a success
experience to counter the generalisation from failure.
In their invited commentary, Jessica Duda and
Jutta Joormann (this issue) express their general
appreciation of the learned helplessness framework
proposed by Boddez et al. but suggest that it may
be the similarity in the action-outcome contingencies
or the perceived controllability that accounts for gen-
eralisation (rather than the similarity of goals in terms
of goal categories, e.g. work vs. leisure related goals).
They also propose additional cognitive factors that
have been shown to have reliable effects on learned
helplessness. In particular, Duda and Joormann
mention causal attribution styles (e.g. external vs.
internal, stable vs. variable, general vs. specific
causes), expectancies (e.g. pervasive anticipation of
low self-efficacy and/or general pessimism), and
memory biases (e.g. mood-congruent negative
memory biases). Regarding the treatment options
proposed by Boddez et al., Duda and Joormann
suggest that these can be combined with existing
techniques for cognitive restructuring to reduce fear
generalisation. Overall, they highlight the urgent
need for further research in this area to validate
these approaches and to examine to what extent a
goal-directed approach, focusing on appetitive con-
texts, can be generalised to aversive contexts (in
which more automatic, stimulus-driven processes
might dominate).
Next, Veronika Brandstätter (this issue) addresses
three major issues in her invited commentary:
(1) the distinction between motivational and func-
tional helplessness, (2) the role of goal-related
failure and its consequences, and (3) the issue of gen-
eralising failure experience due to the similarity of
goals. She proposes that the explanatory concepts
for learned helplessness can be expanded beyond
the basic notion of expectancy-value theories,
suggesting that uncontrollable failure to reach goals
leads to lowered control beliefs and a devaluation of
goal values. Specifically, Brandstätter adds the
notion of a decrease in “functional efficiency” (as
suggested by Kuhl, 1981), predicting a deterioration
of cognitive functioning after persistent failure experi-
ences (for example, due to rumination), which may
lead to a decrement in goal performance. This
approach has also been proposed by other research-
ers interested in the volitional aspects of goal
pursuit and how these account for individual differ-
ences in reactions to repeated failure experiences.
In addition, Brandstätter briefly reviews a number
of research traditions that have shown important indi-
vidual differences in the reactions to goal failure,
especially in relation to long-term goals. Thus, there
is empirical evidence that in many cases failure experi-
ences can actually increase goal pursuit efforts, at
least for a certain time (Brunstein, 1993; Klinger,
1977). Brandstätter refers to some of the research by
herself and her collaborators on what she calls an
“action crisis”, the struggle between persistence and
disengagement in the case of major difficulties in
goal attainment (Brandstätter & Bernecker, 2022).

Finally, Brandstätter takes up the notion of goal simi-
larity as advanced by Boddez et al. She suggests that
the central basis for learned helplessness effects
spreading over different types of goal pursuits may
be the similarity of the underlying motive or incentive
classes, like achievement, affiliation, or power.
Another potential mechanism is suggested by Lin-
ville’s (1987) affective spillover model, which predicts
that low self-complexity (defined as having a low
number of relevant self-definitions with high overlap
in content) facilitates a spreading of (negative) affect
from one domain to others (see also Rothermund &
Meiniger, 2004).
In their commentary, Mario Mikulincer and Uri
Lifshin (this issue) suggest that the notion of “simi-
larity of goals” is a complex issue, given the difference
between the nature of goals in different life domains,
and that Boddez et al.’s attempt to elaborate a general
model of learned helplessness might not result in a
workable framework for future research. By contrast,
Mikulincer and Lifshin propose that there are qualitat-
ively different kinds of helplessness that require a
more in-depth analysis. They feel that the complex-
ities of human suffering and the motivational
sources of feelings of helplessness require taking
into account a larger scale of human concerns, includ-
ing existential concerns, attachment, or management
of death anxiety, and the respective affective and pro-
tective responses.
Mikulincer and Lifshin (this issue) formulate, and
empirically examine, the concept of motivated help-
lessness. From this perspective, a sense of helplessness
in coping with threats in a specific domain can –
somewhat paradoxically – serve an anxiety-buffering
function and protect people from experiencing fear,
anxiety, guilt, or self-esteem injuries related to the
specific threat or to their actions or inactions. In a
series of studies, Mikulincer and Lifshin examined
this hypothesis in the context of the current COVID
crisis. They interpret the results of their own and
similar studies as showing that an increase in motiv-
ated helplessness, feeling unable to have any impact
on the development of the pandemic (for example,
fatalism), will indeed reduce feelings of anxiety. The
downside is, however, that this may also reduce the
willingness to engage in protective behaviours. Miku-
lincer and Lifshin conclude that
Motivated helplessness may differ from learned helpless-
ness in many ways. While motivated helplessness may
protect us from experiencing negative emotions in a
COGNITION AND EMOTION 1023
specific context and is associated with improved psycho-
logical wellbeing (e.g. Lifshin et al., 2020), learned help-
lessness is associated with depressive feelings and
causes psychological suffering. (e.g. Mikulincer, 1994)
The emphasis on the difference between feelings of
anxiety and depression in the contribution by Mikulin-
cer and Lifshin brought to my attention that the
central role of emotion is rarely touched upon as an
independent factor in the discussion of the origin
and effects of helplessness, both in the contributions
in this theory section and in the helplessness literature
in general. After all, depression and generalised
anxiety are emotion disorders and it might be useful
to consider what emotion science can contribute to
this field. So, before closing, allow me to examine to
what extent appraisal theories of emotion may
provide useful contributions to the complex phenom-
enon of helplessness. Even though much of emotion
research focuses on the immediate affective reaction
to specific events happening to the individual at a
certain point in time, the appraisal perspective can
be applied to more enduring phenomena such as
changes in world view, perception of preferences or
goals as well as a series of failure experiences.
Appraisal theorists generally agree on the major
categories of appraisal dimensions that contribute
to the nature of the emotion elicited (Ellsworth &
Scherer, 2003, Table 29.1): Novelty, Valence, Goals/
needs, Agency/Coping, and Norms/Values). These
serve as the basis for detailed predictions for the
profiles of appraisal outcomes that are expected to
produce specific emotions (see chapters by Lazarus,
Roseman, Scherer, Smith & Kirby, and Frijda & Zeelen-
berg, in Scherer et al., 2021). This approach can
account for a large number of different emotional dis-
orders (Roseman & Kaiser, 2001, Table 14.1). In par-
ticular, one can assume that there are individual and
socio-cultural differences in the nature of the apprai-
sal process, producing appraisal biases (e.g. persistent
underestimation of one’s own control and power in
dealing with adversity), which can lead to emotion dis-
positions (like frequent feelings of worry or despair).
These, in turn, are predicted to contribute to the
development of emotion disorders such as helpless-
ness, hopelessness, depression and general anxiety
disorders (Scherer & Brosch, 2009, Table 2). Recent
large-scale international survey studies have
confirmed predictions on (1) the existence of apprai-
sal biases and emotion dispositions (Scherer, 2021)
and (2) their effects on the risk for disorders such as
1024 K. R. SCHERER
depression and general anxiety symptomatology
(Scherer et al., 2022).
The appraisal perspective is very much in line with
the importance of individual difference factors men-
tioned in passing in the articles in this issue. For
example, attributional (or explanatory) style has
been advanced as a major cause of learned helpless-
ness (Alloy et al., 1984; Joiner & Wagner, 1995; Peter-
son & Park, 1998), in some cases generalising to
optimism vs. pessimism. The father of attribution
theory, Bernard Weiner, has been quite critical of
some of the assumptions (and simplifications) made
in this area (Weiner, 1991; see also Miller & Norman,
1979). Partly based on earlier proposals, his own
theory (Weiner, 1985) highlights the perception of
causality (causal attribution) and posits three dimen-
sions: stability (stable and unstable), locus of control
(internal and external), and controllability (controlla-
ble or uncontrollable). The coping ability category in
the appraisal dimensions mentioned above includes
these factors, adding power and adjustment potential
as additional criteria.
To my knowledge, there has been no attempt so
far to systematically consider the causes of helpless-
ness from an appraisal theory perspective. But, evi-
dently, theories of learned helplessness, including
the version proposed by Boddez et al. in this issue,
implicitly assume an appraisal of repeated negative
events (failure or other types of negative reinforce-
ment with low controllability). However, emotions
are likely to be different depending on a combination
of the appraisal of locus of causation (internal – my
fault – or external – someone else or fate are to
blame) and locus of controllability (control is generally
impossible vs. consequences could be controlled if
one had enough power). In addition, a major factor
is how easily a person can adjust to the negative con-
sequences if they cannot be changed. In all of these
cases, appraisal theorists would predict rather
different emotions and it seems reasonable to
assume that there may also be different types of help-
lessness. For example, in the case of Mikulincer and
Lifshin’s (this issue) motivated helplessness, there
are external causes (e.g. a contagious virus circulating)
that the person cannot control but where an adjust-
ment to the situation can still be envisaged. It might
be promising to consider the possible combinations
of appraisal outcomes on these different dimensions
and their effects on different varieties of feeling help-
lessness. The consideration of different appraisal
configurations may also help in the avowed aim of
Boddez et al. to extend the explanatory principle
behind the helplessness framework to other forms
of psychological suffering such as attachment pro-
blems, burn-out and complaints of fatigue.
Boddez et al. (this issue) acknowledge the impor-
tance of individual differences in attribution or per-
ceived control, suggesting that their approach may
allow tracing the underlying developmental factors
when people learn to treat certain goal stimuli as
more or less similar. However, here we face the
common chicken-or-egg problem: It seems also poss-
ible that a bias toward unrealistic appraisal makes
people react in similar fashion to problems with
similar goal pursuits. Experiencing a negative reinfor-
cer would seem to always depend on an appraisal of
the respective events in terms of expectancy, goal
conduciveness, and coping potential. Appraisal is
not limited to humans. The dogs that had been
treated with escapable shock in the first phase of
the original experiment by Seligman and Maier
(1967), showed more energetic behaviour and many
more successes in the trial-and-error phase than the
group that had been exposed to inescapable shocks.
One could argue that the dogs in the former group
had learned to appraise (1) that expectancy was
unstable and (2) that they disposed of means for
coping. As to individual differences in appraisal ten-
dencies, even in the group treated initially with ines-
capable shock, one-third did learn to escape, albeit
after a larger number of trials. The reason for the
success of those dogs might well have been the
ability of adopting a more realistic appraisal over time.
The evidence reported in many of the studies cited
in the contributions to this theory section strongly
suggest that bias in the appraisal of low controllability
of events and low coping ability is a major factor for
the development of risk for depression and anxiety
disorders. As outline above, I also suggest that there
is a mediating factor – emotion dispositions for
sadness and worry – which seem to be a direct conse-
quence of a control/coping bias. Recurring bouts of
experiencing these emotions may reinforce the risk
for emotion disorder. Therefore, adding the assess-
ment of individual differences in appraisal biases (or
attribution styles) and emotion dispositions may be
a useful addition to current theoretical frameworks
for helplessness.
What could be the origin of individual differences
in appraisal processing? Unfortunately, there is little
focused research on this topic in the literature. A
review article by Hankin et al. (2009) provides an

overview of potential developmental origins of the
main cognitive vulnerabilities, including dysfunctional
attitudes, negative cognitive style, and rumination (all
quite similar to the notion of appraisal biases), and
explores the evidence for genetic factors, tempera-
ment, parents and peers as salient interpersonal influ-
ences, and stressful life events. The authors emphasise
the need for additional conceptual and empirical
work integrating these disparate processes together
into a coherent, developmental psychopathological
model of cognitive vulnerabilities to depression.
Overall, the contributions in this issue of the theory
section raise the question of whether the concept of
“learned” helplessness is still timely. After all, it is
based on an operant learning experiment with dogs
(Seligman & Maier, 1967). Early on, Martin Seligman,
together with two co-authors, suggested a major
reformulation of the underlying mechanism: “once
people perceive noncontingency, they attribute
their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be
stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or
external”. (Abramson et al., 1978, p. 49). The contri-
butions in this section show that recent theorising
and evidence suggest complex interactions between
the attributions, or more general the appraisals, of
goal structure and action potential determined by
the nature and causality of the event as well as per-
sonal control or coping potential. Of course, learning
from experience is involved but so are many other
factors including stable individual differences such
as attribution styles and other appraisal biases. Thus,
the feeling of helplessness is but one, albeit impor-
tant, component in a process affecting emotional
stability and increasing the risk for major emotion
disorders.
In general, there is a pressing need for the domain
of helplessness as a precursor of emotion disorders,
requiring major research efforts using multifactorial
approaches and longitudinal studies. Scientific evi-
dence for the predisposition and elicitation factors
involved is central to allow early diagnosis and the
development of appropriate intervention pro-
grammes to prevent or at least reduce the psychologi-
cal suffering from emotion disorders that can cause
serious disability. Obtaining such evidence is becom-
ing extremely urgent. In March 2022, the World
Health Organization (WHO) published a wake-up call
to all countries to step up mental health services
and support, given that the COVID-19 pandemic has
triggered a 25% increase in the prevalence of
anxiety and depression worldwide (WHO, 2022). It
COGNITION AND EMOTION 1025
would seem that an essential complement to this
effort should be to also step up incentives and
funding of theory-driven interdisciplinary and longi-
tudinal research on the complex interactions of the
etiological factors involved.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
ORCID
Klaus R. Scherer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9526-0144
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