responsibility and control typically exercised by these residents in several
ways. Administrators gave a presentation urging the residents to take controlof their lives. Here is an excerpt from that talk:
You have the responsibility of caring for yourselves, of deciding whether or not
you want to make this a home you can be proud of and happy in. You should bedeciding how you want your rooms to be arranged —whether you want the staff
to help you rearrange the furniture. You should be deciding how you want tospend your time, for example, whether you want to be visiting friends or whether
you want to be watching television, listening to the radio, writing, reading, orplanning social events. In other words, it ’s your life and you can make of it
whatever you want. (Langer & Rodin, 1976, p. 194)
In addition, participants were offered a small plant as a gift. The residents de-
cided whether they wanted a plant and which plant they wanted, and weretold they were responsible for taking care of it. Residents on the other floor
served as the comparison group. They listened to a talk about allowing the
staff to take care of things for them. They were given a plant (chosen by the
staff) and were told the staff would take care of the plant for them.
The differences between the two floors were soon evident. Within a few
weeks, the residents in the responsibility-induced condition reported feelinghappier. Staff members noted they were visiting more and sitting around
less. Nurses, who did not know a study was going on, reported 93% of these
residents showed improved adjustment. Only 21% of the residents in the com-parison group showed improvement. But the effects of the treatment did not
stop there. The researchers returned to the home 18 months later to find that
many of these differences in happiness and activity level remained (Rodin &Langer, 1977). Most dramatically, only 15% of the responsibility-induced resi-
dents had died during the 18-month period, compared to 30% of the compari-
son group.
Several subsequent investigations have discovered similar advantages
when elderly people retain a sense of control over their lives (Chipperfield &
Perry, 2006; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1999; Wrosch, Schulz, & Heckhausen,
2002). One team of researchers looked at mortality rates from all causes
over a 5-year period for 20,323 middle-aged and older adults living in the com-
munity of Norfolk, England (Surtees, Wainwright, Luben, Khaw, & Day,
2006). Citizens who had indicated on earlier psychological tests that they felt
a sense of mastery over their lives were significantly more likely to survive
than those who expressed a general sense of helplessness. These findings do
not mean we should abandon those who genuinely need assistance, but some-
times letting people take care of themselves is in everyone ’s best interest.
Learned Helplessness and Psychological Disorders
Soon after the demonstrations of learned helplessness in humans, psycholo-
gists noticed some striking parallels between research participants and people
suffering from depression (Seligman, 1976). Clinical psychologists have long
observed that depressed patients often act as if they are helpless to controlLearned Helplessness 399