Document Type

Thesis

Date of Degree Completion

Spring 1974

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Larry M. Sparks

Second Committee Member

Philip Tolin

Third Committee Member

James P. Levell

Abstract

While it has been experimentally demonstrated that "learned helplessness" can be conditioned in a number of species, the subjects commonly employed have been dogs. This paper presents an attempt to investigate "learned helplessness" in rats (a variant of the Long-Evans strain), and examine the question of its generalizability from shock as an aversive stimulus to noise. It also explores the possible generality of "helplessness" to exploratory behavior in an open field. The results demonstrated that the Ss were susceptible to "helplessness" conditioning across shock conditions; however, "helplessness" did not generalize across shock to noise conditions. The present study also showed that "helplessness" training did not interfere with exploratory behavior in the open field.

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