Author: Matute, Helena
Description: Recent research has shown superstitious behavior and illusion of control in human subjects exposed to the negative reinforcement conditions that are traditionally assumed to lead to the opposite outcome (i.e. learned helplessness). The experiments reported in this paper test the generality of these effects in two different tasks and under different conditions of percentage (75% vs. 25%) and distribution (random vs. last-trials) of negative reinforcement (escape from uncontrollable noise). All three experiments obtained superstitious behavior and illusion of control and question the generality of learned helplessness as a consequence of exposing humans to uncontrollable outcomes.
Subject headings: Uncontrollable outcomes; Superstitions; Illusion of control; Learned helplessness; Humans; Behavior
Publication year: 1995
Journal or book title: The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Section B
Volume: 48
Issue: 2
Pages: 142-157
Find the full text: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14640749508401444
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Serial number: 3370