Psychologists have also looked at the long-term effects of playing violent
video games. One study found that adolescents who play a lot of violent
video games are more likely to argue with teachers and get into physical
fights (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004). Similarly, college students
who frequently play these games were more likely to have engaged in violent
acts (destroying property, hitting, threatening to hurt someone) during the
past year than students who rarely played such games (Anderson & Dill,
2000). One team of researchers measured how often young adolescents (aver-age age 13 years) played violent video games and how often they engaged in
violent behavior 30 months later (Moller & Krahe, 2009). The investigators
found a significant increase in violence (hitting, threatening to hit, pullinghair) during the two and a half year period among those who had played a
lot of violent video games. In short, consistent with Bandura ’s theory and
research on the effects of mass media violence, it appears violent video games
also contribute to aggressive behavior.
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Consider the following three cases. A woman is fired from her job becauseher employer believes the position is too demanding for her abilities. After afew frustrating weeks of job-hunting, she decides to just stay home. She stops
going out with friends and shuts down other parts of her life she once
enjoyed —dancing, movies, jogging. She becomes more and more depressed,
develops lower and lower self-esteem, and has little faith in her ability to get
another job. An elderly man is moved to a senior residential community and
is told the staff will take care of all the chores he used to do. He no longerhas to cook for himself or clean his room or even do the shopping. Shortly
after the move, he becomes less active. He is less talkative and less cheerful.
His health begins to fail. A fourth-grade boy does poorly on a math test. Hebecomes frustrated and distressed on his next few math assignments and
eventually refuses to even try. He begins to struggle in other subjects and
soon loses interest in school altogether.
What these three hypothetical people have in common is that they are all
examples of what researchers refer to as learned helplessness . Psychology ’s
interest in learned helplessness began with the curious behavior of some dogs in a
classical conditioning study but soon evolved into a widely applied phenomenon.
Learning to Be Helpless
Like so many of the topics to come out of the behaviorist tradition, research
on learned helplessness began with studies on laboratory animals. In the
original learned helplessness experiments, harnessed dogs were subjected to aseries of electric shocks from which they could not escape (Overmier &
Seligman, 1967; Seligman & Maier, 1967). After several trials of inescapable
electric shock, the animals were placed in an avoidance learning situation.Whenever a signal sounded, the dogs could avoid electric shocks by jumping
over a small partition to the other side of a shuttle-box (Figure 14.8). Naturally,
dogs that had not gone through the earlier shock experience scurried aboutLearned Helplessness 395