Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1979, Vol. 47, No. 5, 928-936
Influence of Sex Roles on the Development of Learned Helplessness Donald H. Baucom and Pamela Danker-Brown Texas Tech University One hundred sixty college students participated in an experiment concerning the relationships among sex roles, sex, and learned helplessness. Included in each of the four following sex role types were 20 males and 20 females: androgynous, masculine sex typed, feminine sex typed, and undifferentiated. Half the students in each sex role type were given unsolvable concept formation problems (helpless condition) ; the other students were given solvable concept formation problems (nonhelpless condition). Sex of experimenter was counterbalanced across sex of student, sex role type, and experimental condition. As predicted, the four sex role types responded differently to the helpless condition. Feminine-sex-typed and masculine-sex-typed students showed cognitive and motivational deficits as well as dysphoric mood in the helpless condition; helpless androgynous students showed only dysphoric mood; and undifferentiated students were unaffected by the helpless condition. This pattern of results was found for both males and females and was unrelated to sex of experimenter. One of the most commonly cited characteristics of depression is that it occurs more frequently in women than in men (cf. Levitt & Lubin, 1975; Malzberg, 1955). Several explanations that focus on the importance of sex stereotypes in the development of depression have been offered (cf. Chesler, 1972; Gove & Tudor, 1973; Kaplan, 1977). Although there are different variants of the sex sterotyping hypothesis, in general these hypotheses suggest that to an extent females as a group are treated differently from males regardless of the particular characteristics of the female, and this differential treatment of females may contribute to their susceptibility to depression. Another possible explanation for the observed sex difference in incidence of depres-
sion emphasizes not differential treatment and expectations for the two sexes, but the sex role identity l of the individual; that is, regardless of a person's sex, he or she may be more or less susceptible to depression depending on the degree to which he or she possesses masculine and/or feminine traits. The sex differences would then be explained by different levels of masculinity or femininity between the sexes. There is some evidence to support the importance of sex roles in depression. Ray and Bristow (Note 1) administered the Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974) to depressed and nondepressed women and found feminine-sex-typed identities significantly more frequently than androgynous or masculine-sex-typed identities among de-
We wish to thank Nancy Bell and Roger Greene for their comments on this article. We also thank Kathy Baird, Vikki Bales, Dean Matthys, Colleen Shepperd, Alan Tribble, and Keith Warren for assistance in gathering data and Gary Klein for statistical consultation. Requests for reprints should be sent to Donald H. Baucom, Psychology Department, Box 4100, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409.
1 To avoid confusion, in this article the terms sex stereotypes and sex roles have specific meanings. Sex stereotypes refer to behaviors that have traditionally been considered more appropriate for one sex than the other. Sex roles refer to the sex role identity of a particular individual, that is, the level of masculinity and femininity adopted by that individual.
Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-006X/79/470S-0928$00.7S
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SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
pressed women. Berzins, Welling, and Wetter (1978) reported that a group of clinically depressed hospitalized women obtained normatively low scores on the Masculinity subscale of the Personality Research Form ANDRO scale. Although these results are suggestive, studies that are correlational in nature cannot establish a cause and effect relationship. Both studies examined the pattern of sex role scores of women who were already depressed; it is unknown if the women would have obtained the same scores before becoming depressed. Findings to the contrary also exist. Jones, Chernovetz, and Hansson (1978), using the BSRI, concluded that there are no sex role differences in susceptibility to learned helplessness, which was employed as an analog of depression. However, this finding must be viewed cautiously, since the helpless and nonhelpless groups did not differ significantly on any dependent variables, indicating that their helplessness manipulation was not effective. Employing the learned helplessness model as an analog of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Seligman, 1972, 1975), the current study examined the following hypothesis: Feminine-sex-typed persons were expected to be affected by exposure to unsolvable problems more than were androgynous persons or masculine-sextyped persons; the feminine-sex-typed persons' increased susceptibility to helplessness was expected to be evident on cognitive, motivational, and affective measures. There was no sufficient basis for predicting the response of undifferentiated persons (persons low on both masculinity and femininity) to unsolvable problems. The present hypothesis assumes that persons with given sex roles are more susceptible to helplessness than are those with other sex roles, regardless of the person's sex; therefore this pattern of results was expected for both females and males. Method Subjects Three hundred male and female undergraduates completed Baucom's (1976) masculinity (MSC)
929
and femininity (FMN) scales. Using Baucom's original cutoff points for college students, these students were categorized as high or low on MSC and on FMN; the various combinations of high and low scores resulted in the placement of students into one of four sex role types. Next, within each sex, 20 persons from each sex role type were randomly selected to take part in the current study: 20 androgynous (high MSC/high FMN), 20 masculine-sex-typed (high MSC/low FMN), 20 feminine-sex-typed (low MSC/high FMN), and 20 undifferentiated (low MSC/low FMN) students. This procedure resulted in a total of 80 male and 80 female subjects. Within each sex and each sex role group, half (10) of the students were randomly assigned to the experimental (helpless) condition and half were assigned to the control (nonhelpless) condition. Since the variables of sex roles and sex were being studied, we felt that it was important to determine whether the obtained results were a function of the sex of the experimenter. Therefore, the sex of the experimenter was counterbalanced across experimental conditions. Although the students were aware that they were selected on the basis of their responses to a "personality test," they were not informed about the nature of the test (i.e., that it measured sex roles).
Materials Task 1. The first task for all groups was a concept formation task developed by Lester and Baucom (Note 2), which is similar to the task used by Hiroto and Seligman (1975) to induce helplessness. The task is composed of a series of 10 cards. On each card there are two figures, each figure incorporating four relevant dimensions. Each of the four dimensions has two values: (a) either the letter A or the letter T, (b) either a circle or a square, (c) either a black letter or a white letter, and (d) either a large letter or a small letter. For example, the figure on the left on Card 1 is a small black T surrounded by a square; the figure on the right is a large white A surrounded by a circle. The student's task was to discover which of the eight stimulus values—for example, a circle—was the one preselected by the experimenter. The cards were presented to the student one at a time, each for a period of 10 sec. At the end of that time period, the student was required to guess which of the two stimulus figures on the card contained the stimulus value that was correct, for example, the figure on the left. The student was then told whether his or her guess was right or wrong and was allowed to look at the next card. Using the feedback provided by the experimenter, the student could determine the correct stimulus value through a process of elimination. For example, if the student guessed the figure on the left for Card 1 and was told correct by the experimenter, the student knew the correct stimulus value was either small, black, T, or square. Similar informa-
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DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
tion provided on succeeding cards allowed the student to determine the single correct stimulus value. Depression Adjective Check List. All students were asked to complete a 34-item Depression Adjective Check List (DACL), Form E (Lubin, 1965) after completion of Task 1 in order to measure dysphoric mood. Task 2. The test task (to measure the extent of cognitive and motivational helplessness induced by the concept formation problems) for all groups was a series of 20 five-letter anagrams. These were the same anagrams used by Hiroto and Seligman (1975). The letter order for each anagram was 3, 4, 2, 1, 5. The anagrams were presented on cards, one at a time, and the student was given a maximum of 100 sec to solve each anagram. The student was told that there might be a pattern or principle by which to solve the anagrams and that he or she could give up and go on to the next anagram by asking the experimenter to proceed to the next card. The two dependent measures based on anagram performance were the number of anagrams not solved correctly (failures), and the total amount of time that the student could have used, but did not use, to solve the anagrams (wasted). Wasted, which is viewed as a measure of motivation, equaled the sum of time remaining for each presentation when the student gave up on an anagram and asked to go on to the next one. For example, if a student gave up on 2 anagrams, 1 after 40 sec and 1 after 70 sec, he or she wasted 90 seconds of time that could have been applied to solving the anagrams : (100 - 40) + (100 - 70) = 90.
Procedure The procedure can be divided into three phases: training, mood measurement, and testing. Students were tested individually. Training phase. To enhance the importance of successfully solving the problems (Roth & Kubal, 1975), the concept formation task (Task 1) was introduced as a test that had previously been employed to predict success in college. Each student was given five concept formation problems of 10 trials (cards) each. On the 10th trial, the student was asked to name the correct stimulus value, for example, circle. Students in the control group, who were given accurate feedback, correctly solved all five problems. To induce helplessness in experimental subjects, the experimenter gave them predetermined random feedback and always said, "That is the wrong answer," when they tried to name the correct stimulus value after Trial 10.2 Mood measurement phase. When Task 1 was completed, the student was given a copy of the DACL and was told that all persons participating in research in the psychology department were being asked to complete it for the purpose of some research unrelated to the present study. This rationale was given to minimize the likelihood that the student would recognize that the experiment
was concerned with performance and mood. The experimenter left the room while the student completed the checklist, and the student was provided with an envelope in which to put the anonymous DACL before returning it to the experimenter. Test phase. After completing the DACL, the student was presented with the 20 solvable anagrams (Task 2). Following the completion of Task 2, for each of the two tasks the student completed separate questionnaires that assessed whether he or she guessed the actual intent of the manipulations. Two experimental students were eliminated on this basis and were replaced by two additional students. After these questionnaires were completed, the student was informed of the true nature of the experiment. Results
As an overall test, a 2 (helpless, nonhelpless) X 2 (high MSC, low MSC) X 2 (high FMN, low FMN) X 2 (male subject, female subject) X 2 (male experimenter, female experimenter) multivariate analysis of variance was performed with failures, wasted, and DACL scores as the dependent variables. Although the hypothesis was stated in terms of sex role types, MSC and FMN were treated as separate factors in the analysis in order to explore whether one or both of these two factors independently affect helplessness; the hypothesis of the study predicted an in2 As Blaney (1977) and others have noted, almost all learned helplessness studies with humans have confounded control/no control with success/failure; that is, subjects who are said to have control are successful on experimental tasks, whereas those suffering from a loss of control are forced to fail. Deficits resulting from a supposed loss of control could merely be the result of failure. This criticism is also true of the current study. In fact, previous researchers (cf. Phares, 1971) have used a procedure similar to the one used in the current study to explicitly induce a perception of failure. The term learned helplessness is used in the current article in recognition of its relation to the body of learned helplessness literature that has used a similar methodology. The reader is advised, nonetheless, to keep in mind that deficits could be due to failure rather than to loss of control. What is crucial in this study is that regardless of the basis for the deficits, the procedure produces brief cognitive and motivational deficits along with dysphoric mood, which many people view as an acceptable analog to the long-term deficits observed in clinically depressed persons.
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
931
Table 1 Univariate Analysis of Variance Summary Failures
MS
Source Sex Helplessness MSC Helplessness X MSC X FMN Error
1 1 1 1 128
Wasted
MS
32.40 2.32 207.03 14.80** 8.10 .58 59.74 4.27* 13.99
390,260.03 7.40** 827,137.60 15.68*** 26,522.50 .50 276,276.07 5.24* 52,760.27
DACL
MS 270.40 8.85** 912.03 29.84*** 313.60 10.26** 108.87 3.56 30.56
Note. MSC = masculinity; FMN = femininity; DACL = Depression Adjective Check List. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
teraction effect of MSC and FMN on helplessness. As DeFronzo and Boudreau (1977) have indicated, treating MSC and FMN as two factors allows for testing hypotheses made on the basis of a sex role typology while allowing other outcomes such as effects due to a single dimension of masculinity or femininity to be clearly distinguished. The significant multivariate results were as follows: sex, .F(3, 126) = 5.03, p < .01; helplessness, F(3, 126) = 15.23, p < .0001; MSC, F(3, 126) = 3.66, p < .01; Helplessness X MSC X FMN, F(3, 126) = 2.87, p < .05. Appropriate univariate tests were performed for significant multivariate effects (Table 1). As expected, the helplessness manipulation significantly affected all three dependent variables, indicating that helplessness was induced. However, this main effect was overridden by the triple-order interaction described below, The hypothesis of this study was that some sex role types would be affected more than others by the helplessness manipulation. Statistically, this prediction would be shown by an interaction between helplessness and scores on MSC and FMN. The single significant multivariate triple-order interaction (Helplessness X MSC X FMN) confirms this hypothesis. None of the other 15 tripleorder or higher order interactions were significant. The univariate tests indicated that the MSC X FMN X Helplessness interaction was significant for both anagram-related measures and was marginally significant (p < .06) for the DACL. To explore these
univariate triple-order interaction effects further, corresponding tests of simple interaction effects and simple simple main effects were performed. Results of the tests of simple interaction following from the triple-order interaction indicate that under the nonhelpless (control) condition, the four sex role types did not reliably differ on failures, wasted, or the DACL. As expected, under the helpless condition, there was a significant MSC X FMN interaction for both anagram-related dependent variables and the DACL: failures, F(\, 76) = 4.89, p < .05; wasted, F(l, 76) = 7.68, p < .01; DACL, F(l, 76) = 8.13, p < .01. These findings make explicit that the triple-order interaction was due to some sex role types' performing more poorly and having a more dysphoric mood than other sex role types after experiencing a loss of control or failure. Tests of simple simple main effects plus additional comparisons were done to discover which sex role types were affected by helplessness (Table 2). The findings indicate that under the helpless condition, the two stereotypic sex role types, masculine sex typed and feminine sex typed, were significantly affected on all three dependent variables—failures, wasted, and DACL. Table 3 presents the means and standard deviations of the various groups (ignoring sex of the experimenter) for the dependent measures. Although Miller and Norman (1979) noted that statistically significant learned helplessness effects are often of small magnitude and therefore of questionable psychological im-
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DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
Table 2
Analysis of Variance Comparing Helpless and Nonhelpless Sex Role Types Dependent variable and source
df
MS
F
Androgynous Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
7.23 13.99
.52
1 128
6,350.40 52,760.27
.12
1 128
144.40 30.56
4.73*
Masculine sex typed Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
115.60 13.99
8.26**
1 128
387,105.63 52,760.27
7.34**
1 128
313.60 30.56
10.26**
Feminine sex typed Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
126.03 13.99
1 128
656,896.90 52,760.27
12.45***
1 128
518.40 30.56
16.96***
9.00**
Undifferentiated Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
16.90 13.99
1.21
1 128
93,993.03 52,760.27
1.78
1 128
62.50 30.56
2.05
Note. DACL = Depression Adjective Check List. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
portance, inspection of Table 3 indicates that the nonhelpless/helpless (control vs. experimental) differences for the two stereotypic sex role types were quite large in the cur-
rent study. For these two sex role types, most of the anagram-related scores for the helpless groups were at least twice as large as the scores for the corresponding nonhelpless group. The greatest changes occurred on wasted, in which the scores for the helpless groups ranged from 2.6 to 7.2 times as great as the corresponding scores for nonhelpless groups. The DACL results are also striking: For these two sex role types, the helpless groups averaged 13.8 on the DACL. The significance of this finding is illustrated by Lubin and Levitt's (1979) comment that in the general public "the rarity of raw scores above 13 makes their presentation [in a frequency distribution] not very meaningful" (p. 192). Comparisons of masculine-sex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons indicated that these two sex role types did not differ significantly from each other on any dependent measures under any condition. Therefore, these two sex role types performed essentially alike in the study. In contrast, in a comparison of the nonhelpless and helpless conditions, the androgynous persons showed no significant differences on either of the anagram-related variables, although they did express significantly more dysphoric mood on the DACL after the helpless condition than after the nonhelpless condition. The undifferentiated group showed no significant differences between the helpless and nonhelpless conditions on any dependent measures. The androgynous and undifferentiated groups did not differ from each other on the anagram-related measures during either condition. However, the undifferentiated group showed significantly greater dysphoric mood than did the androgynous group in the nonhelpless condition, F(l, 126) = S.23, p < .05; the two groups did not differ on the DACL under the helpless condition. The above findings are complex, and a brief summary is in order. The four sex role types were affected differently by the helpless condition. The two stereotypic sex role types—masculine sex typed and feminine sex typed—performed similarly to each other throughout the experiment and were affected
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
933
Table 3 Scores on Anagrams and Depression Adjective Check List Failures Group
M
Wasted
SD
M
SD
DACL
M
SD
Males Androgynous Helpless Nonhelpless Masculine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Feminine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Undifferentiated Helpless Nonhelpless
3.9 3.6
3.25 2.46
82.7 29.9
166.95 53.33
7.3 4.2
5.40 2.90
6.2 2.3
5.43 2.00
211.3 41.4
338.64 64.79
9.8 5.8
5.33 4.44
6.2 2,5
2.66 2.32
194.2 35.2
227.90 55.76
15.6
7.5
6.82 •3.57
5.2 3.6
3.94 3.10
166.2 58.3
273.56 114.66
9.2 7.4
4.94 5.52
5.21 3.14
Females Androgynous Helpless Nonhelpless Masculine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Feminine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Undifferentiated Helpless Nonhelpless
4.3 2.9
4.14 2.38
120.7 123.1
187.28 162.62
10.4
7.5 4.6
3.24 3.60
362.9 139.3
279.23 116.24
14.9
6.9 3.5
5.24 3.68
411.0 57.4
453.19 76.49
14.9
8.6
5.17 5.34
6.0 5.0
5.21 4.24
240.5 154.5
341.70 235.21
14.2 11.0
7.00 9.88
5.9 7.7
4.75 4.00
Note. DACL = Depression Adjective Check List.
on all dependent measures by the helpless condition. However, the anagram performances of the androgynous and undifferentiated groups were not affected by the helpless condition. Although the androgynous group's cognitive performance was not affected by loss of control, this group showed increased dysphoric mood in the helpless condition. The Undifferentiated group showed no affective change in response to helplessness, but this group was more dysphoric than the androgynous group under the nonhelpless condition. This pattern of results was not dependent on the sex of the student. As reported above, there was a significant main effect for sex on the DACL and wasted, with females scoring higher than males on both measures. These findings indicate that as in many previous samples, women in the current sample showed more dysphoric mood
and motivational deficits typical of depression than men did; however, in terms of changes induced by the helplessness manipulation, women were not affected more than men. Differential susceptibility to the helplessness manipulation was solely a function of sex roles, not sex per se. Thus, in this study, once sex roles were taken into account, females were not more susceptible than males to learned helplessness, the analog of depression. The final multivariate effect, MSC, is attributable to DACL scores. The dysphoric mood in the current study is consistent with Berzins et al.'s (1978) finding that depressed persons are low on masculinity. In the present study, high-MSC persons obtained a mean DACL score of 8.25, whereas the mean score for low-MSC persons was 11.05.
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DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
Discussion The results indicate that masculine-sextyped and feminine-sex-typed persons are particularly susceptible to the development of helplessness. To the extent that the procedure used in the current study is a meaningful analog of depression, the findings implicate sex roles as an important factor in the etiology of depression. However, the effect of sex roles was not entirely as predicted. The major focus of the study was based on the assumption that in the past males have more typically than females been masculine sex typed and females have more typically than males been feminine sex typed. The frequently observed sex difference in incidence of depression was hypothesized to be due to the increased susceptibility of feminine-sex-typed persons to depression. Since in this study masculine-sex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons were equally susceptible to the helplessness analog of depression, the results do not explain the commonly cited sex difference in incidence of depression. Although the susceptibility of femininesex-typed persons to helplessness was hypothesized, the effect of helplessness on the masculine-sex-typed students was not expected. However, some prior research provides possible explanations for this finding. Bern and her associates (Bern, 1975; Bern & Lenney, 1976; Bern, Martyna, & Watson, 1976) found that androgynous persons are more flexible and have a wider range of strategies for dealing with diverse situations than do masculine-sex-typed and femininesex-typed persons, who rely principally on one set of strategies for obtaining reinforcement. Therefore, one parsimonious explanation of the data is that following a loss of control or failure on initial tasks, masculinesex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons are likely to be less resilient and perform more poorly on subsequent tasks than androgynous persons. The above explanation is consistent with previous sex role research on the flexibility of androgynous persons; however, the explanation above does not explain the commonly cited sex differences in incidence of
depression. The above explanation and the view that sex roles help to account for sex differences in incidence of depression could both be correct if an additional feature of the experiment is considered. In the present study, masculine-sex-typed persons as well as persons with other sex roles were forced to lose control and fail. The results of this study should be interpreted as the response of various sex role types to situations in which they lose control and fail; however, there is no assurance that persons with different sex role types will encounter such situations with equal frequency in their natural environments. Previous research (Baucom, in press) suggested that masculine-sex-typed persons are leaders with effective social skills; they also appear to be achievers who make good use of their intellectual abilities. Masculine-sex-typed persons, like all people, exert an influence over their environment and attempt to structure it in a way that makes them comfortable. With the importance they place on control and success, coupled with their abilities, masculine-sex-typed persons may avoid helplessness situations in the real world to a large extent. It is possible that in the past through the socialization process, males have more often than females become masculine sex typed. Because of this sex typing, males may then have avoided uncontrollable situations more often than females. This avoidance of uncontrollable situations may account for the lower incidence of depression in males than in females. To understand the contribution of sex roles to the development of depression most fully, then, it may be necessary to consider two factors. The first factor, the focus of the current study, is the response of persons with different sex roles to potentially depression-producing or analog depression situations. Second, the ability of persons with different sex roles to structure their environment to avoid such situations needs to be considered. (Wachtel, 1973, provided a more detailed explanation of the effects of not taking into account an experimental subject's tendency to structure his or her own natural environment.) Thus, although masculine-sex-typed persons may handle
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
failure or loss of control poorly, they may still have a low incidence of depression if they are able to avoid such situations in their environments. Research that took both factors into account would help to resolve the impact of sex roles on the incidence of depression. The response of the undifferentiated persons to failure or loss of control is also worth noting. The helplessness manipulation did not affect the mood of the undifferentiated group. At least two reasons for this absence of an emotional response among the undifferentiated group are possible. First, undifferentiated persons may expect to fail and be accustomed to losing control; consequently, they are not upset when this happens. This interpretation is consistent with Baucom's (in press) finding that compared with the other three sex role types, members of the undifferentiated group have the poorest sense of well-being and are least likely to achieve in academic settings. Second, since undifferentiated persons present themselves as aloof, distant, and uninvolved (Baucom, in press), the undifferentiated group in the present study may actually have been less involved in the tasks. Consequently, losing control and failing in that situation were not as important to them as to the other groups, thereby producing less affective disturbance. Regardless of the cause of their behavior, the undifferentiated group did not let the helpless condition affect their mood or anagram performance, and they achieved on the anagram task at the same level as did the androgynous group. This is one of the few positive findings about undifferentiated persons that has appeared in the recent sex role literature. The above interpretations are based in part on the integration of current and prior findings, but overall they are speculative. They are offered not as definitive explanations for the findings but as new hypotheses to be investigated in future research. In spite of the positive finding that persons with different sex roles are differentially susceptible to a loss of control or failure experience, the generalizability of the results must be viewed cautiously. The current investigation
935
is an analog study, and as with any analog study, its relationship to real-life phenomena must be interpreted conservatively. Furthermore, as Seligman (1975) pointed out, learned helplessness is not intended as a model for all depressions; therefore, the relation of sex roles to different types of depression is open to question. Unsettled issues remain, and the encouraging findings from this study suggest that continued exploration in this area is likely to prove fruitful. Reference Notes 1. Ray, E. P., & Bristow, A. R. Sex-role identities in depressed •women. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, New Orleans, La., April 1978. 2. Lester, G., & Baucom, D. H. The effects of experimentally induced locus of control on learned helplessness. Unpublished manuscript, Texas Tech University, 1978.
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Chesler, P. Women and madness. New York: Avon Books, 1972. DeFronzo, J., & Boudreau, F. An alternative procedure for assessing effects of psychological androgyny. Psychological Reports, 1977, 41, 1059-1062. Gove, W., & Tudor, J, Adult sex roles and mental illness. American Journal of Sociology, 1973, 78, 812-935. Hiroto, D. S., & Seligman, M. E. P. Generality of learned helplessness in man. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 31, 311-327. Jones, W. H., Chernovetz, M. E. O'C, & Hansson, R. O. The enigma of androgyny: Differential implications for males and females? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1978, 46, 298-313. Kaplan, H. B. Gender and depression: A sociological analysis of a conditional relationship. In W. E. Fann, I. Karacan, A. D. Pokorny, & R. L. Williams (Eds.), Phenomenology and treatment of depression. Jamaica, N.Y.: Spectrum, 1977. Levitt, E. E., & Lubin, B. Depression: Concepts, controversies, and some new facts. New York: Springer, 1975. Lubin, B. Adjective checklists for measurement of depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1965, 12, 57-62. Lubin, B., & Levitt, E. E. Norms for the Depres-
sion Adjective Check Lists: Age group and sex. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1979, 47, 192. Malzberg, B. Age and sex in relation to mental disease. Mental Hygiene, 1955, 39, 196-224. Miller, I. W., Ill, & Norman, W. H. Learned helplessness in humans: A review and attribution theory model. Psychological Bulletin, 1979, 86, 93-118. Phares, E. J. Internal-external control and the reduction of reinforcement value after failure. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1971, 37, 386-390. Roth, S., & Kubal, L. Effects of noncontingent reinforcement on tasks of differing importance: Facilitation and learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 32, 680691. Seligman, M. E. P. Learned helplessness. Annual Review of Medicine, 1972, 23, 407-412. Seligman, M. E. P. Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San Francisco: Freeman, 1975. Wachtel, P. L. Psychodynamics, behavior therapy, and the implacable experimenter: An inquiry into the consistency of personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1973, 82, 324-334. Received April 30, 1979 •
Influence of Sex Roles on the Development of Learned Helplessness Donald H. Baucom and Pamela Danker-Brown Texas Tech University One hundred sixty college students participated in an experiment concerning the relationships among sex roles, sex, and learned helplessness. Included in each of the four following sex role types were 20 males and 20 females: androgynous, masculine sex typed, feminine sex typed, and undifferentiated. Half the students in each sex role type were given unsolvable concept formation problems (helpless condition) ; the other students were given solvable concept formation problems (nonhelpless condition). Sex of experimenter was counterbalanced across sex of student, sex role type, and experimental condition. As predicted, the four sex role types responded differently to the helpless condition. Feminine-sex-typed and masculine-sex-typed students showed cognitive and motivational deficits as well as dysphoric mood in the helpless condition; helpless androgynous students showed only dysphoric mood; and undifferentiated students were unaffected by the helpless condition. This pattern of results was found for both males and females and was unrelated to sex of experimenter. One of the most commonly cited characteristics of depression is that it occurs more frequently in women than in men (cf. Levitt & Lubin, 1975; Malzberg, 1955). Several explanations that focus on the importance of sex stereotypes in the development of depression have been offered (cf. Chesler, 1972; Gove & Tudor, 1973; Kaplan, 1977). Although there are different variants of the sex sterotyping hypothesis, in general these hypotheses suggest that to an extent females as a group are treated differently from males regardless of the particular characteristics of the female, and this differential treatment of females may contribute to their susceptibility to depression. Another possible explanation for the observed sex difference in incidence of depres-
sion emphasizes not differential treatment and expectations for the two sexes, but the sex role identity l of the individual; that is, regardless of a person's sex, he or she may be more or less susceptible to depression depending on the degree to which he or she possesses masculine and/or feminine traits. The sex differences would then be explained by different levels of masculinity or femininity between the sexes. There is some evidence to support the importance of sex roles in depression. Ray and Bristow (Note 1) administered the Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974) to depressed and nondepressed women and found feminine-sex-typed identities significantly more frequently than androgynous or masculine-sex-typed identities among de-
We wish to thank Nancy Bell and Roger Greene for their comments on this article. We also thank Kathy Baird, Vikki Bales, Dean Matthys, Colleen Shepperd, Alan Tribble, and Keith Warren for assistance in gathering data and Gary Klein for statistical consultation. Requests for reprints should be sent to Donald H. Baucom, Psychology Department, Box 4100, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409.
1 To avoid confusion, in this article the terms sex stereotypes and sex roles have specific meanings. Sex stereotypes refer to behaviors that have traditionally been considered more appropriate for one sex than the other. Sex roles refer to the sex role identity of a particular individual, that is, the level of masculinity and femininity adopted by that individual.
Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-006X/79/470S-0928$00.7S
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SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
pressed women. Berzins, Welling, and Wetter (1978) reported that a group of clinically depressed hospitalized women obtained normatively low scores on the Masculinity subscale of the Personality Research Form ANDRO scale. Although these results are suggestive, studies that are correlational in nature cannot establish a cause and effect relationship. Both studies examined the pattern of sex role scores of women who were already depressed; it is unknown if the women would have obtained the same scores before becoming depressed. Findings to the contrary also exist. Jones, Chernovetz, and Hansson (1978), using the BSRI, concluded that there are no sex role differences in susceptibility to learned helplessness, which was employed as an analog of depression. However, this finding must be viewed cautiously, since the helpless and nonhelpless groups did not differ significantly on any dependent variables, indicating that their helplessness manipulation was not effective. Employing the learned helplessness model as an analog of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Seligman, 1972, 1975), the current study examined the following hypothesis: Feminine-sex-typed persons were expected to be affected by exposure to unsolvable problems more than were androgynous persons or masculine-sextyped persons; the feminine-sex-typed persons' increased susceptibility to helplessness was expected to be evident on cognitive, motivational, and affective measures. There was no sufficient basis for predicting the response of undifferentiated persons (persons low on both masculinity and femininity) to unsolvable problems. The present hypothesis assumes that persons with given sex roles are more susceptible to helplessness than are those with other sex roles, regardless of the person's sex; therefore this pattern of results was expected for both females and males. Method Subjects Three hundred male and female undergraduates completed Baucom's (1976) masculinity (MSC)
929
and femininity (FMN) scales. Using Baucom's original cutoff points for college students, these students were categorized as high or low on MSC and on FMN; the various combinations of high and low scores resulted in the placement of students into one of four sex role types. Next, within each sex, 20 persons from each sex role type were randomly selected to take part in the current study: 20 androgynous (high MSC/high FMN), 20 masculine-sex-typed (high MSC/low FMN), 20 feminine-sex-typed (low MSC/high FMN), and 20 undifferentiated (low MSC/low FMN) students. This procedure resulted in a total of 80 male and 80 female subjects. Within each sex and each sex role group, half (10) of the students were randomly assigned to the experimental (helpless) condition and half were assigned to the control (nonhelpless) condition. Since the variables of sex roles and sex were being studied, we felt that it was important to determine whether the obtained results were a function of the sex of the experimenter. Therefore, the sex of the experimenter was counterbalanced across experimental conditions. Although the students were aware that they were selected on the basis of their responses to a "personality test," they were not informed about the nature of the test (i.e., that it measured sex roles).
Materials Task 1. The first task for all groups was a concept formation task developed by Lester and Baucom (Note 2), which is similar to the task used by Hiroto and Seligman (1975) to induce helplessness. The task is composed of a series of 10 cards. On each card there are two figures, each figure incorporating four relevant dimensions. Each of the four dimensions has two values: (a) either the letter A or the letter T, (b) either a circle or a square, (c) either a black letter or a white letter, and (d) either a large letter or a small letter. For example, the figure on the left on Card 1 is a small black T surrounded by a square; the figure on the right is a large white A surrounded by a circle. The student's task was to discover which of the eight stimulus values—for example, a circle—was the one preselected by the experimenter. The cards were presented to the student one at a time, each for a period of 10 sec. At the end of that time period, the student was required to guess which of the two stimulus figures on the card contained the stimulus value that was correct, for example, the figure on the left. The student was then told whether his or her guess was right or wrong and was allowed to look at the next card. Using the feedback provided by the experimenter, the student could determine the correct stimulus value through a process of elimination. For example, if the student guessed the figure on the left for Card 1 and was told correct by the experimenter, the student knew the correct stimulus value was either small, black, T, or square. Similar informa-
930
DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
tion provided on succeeding cards allowed the student to determine the single correct stimulus value. Depression Adjective Check List. All students were asked to complete a 34-item Depression Adjective Check List (DACL), Form E (Lubin, 1965) after completion of Task 1 in order to measure dysphoric mood. Task 2. The test task (to measure the extent of cognitive and motivational helplessness induced by the concept formation problems) for all groups was a series of 20 five-letter anagrams. These were the same anagrams used by Hiroto and Seligman (1975). The letter order for each anagram was 3, 4, 2, 1, 5. The anagrams were presented on cards, one at a time, and the student was given a maximum of 100 sec to solve each anagram. The student was told that there might be a pattern or principle by which to solve the anagrams and that he or she could give up and go on to the next anagram by asking the experimenter to proceed to the next card. The two dependent measures based on anagram performance were the number of anagrams not solved correctly (failures), and the total amount of time that the student could have used, but did not use, to solve the anagrams (wasted). Wasted, which is viewed as a measure of motivation, equaled the sum of time remaining for each presentation when the student gave up on an anagram and asked to go on to the next one. For example, if a student gave up on 2 anagrams, 1 after 40 sec and 1 after 70 sec, he or she wasted 90 seconds of time that could have been applied to solving the anagrams : (100 - 40) + (100 - 70) = 90.
Procedure The procedure can be divided into three phases: training, mood measurement, and testing. Students were tested individually. Training phase. To enhance the importance of successfully solving the problems (Roth & Kubal, 1975), the concept formation task (Task 1) was introduced as a test that had previously been employed to predict success in college. Each student was given five concept formation problems of 10 trials (cards) each. On the 10th trial, the student was asked to name the correct stimulus value, for example, circle. Students in the control group, who were given accurate feedback, correctly solved all five problems. To induce helplessness in experimental subjects, the experimenter gave them predetermined random feedback and always said, "That is the wrong answer," when they tried to name the correct stimulus value after Trial 10.2 Mood measurement phase. When Task 1 was completed, the student was given a copy of the DACL and was told that all persons participating in research in the psychology department were being asked to complete it for the purpose of some research unrelated to the present study. This rationale was given to minimize the likelihood that the student would recognize that the experiment
was concerned with performance and mood. The experimenter left the room while the student completed the checklist, and the student was provided with an envelope in which to put the anonymous DACL before returning it to the experimenter. Test phase. After completing the DACL, the student was presented with the 20 solvable anagrams (Task 2). Following the completion of Task 2, for each of the two tasks the student completed separate questionnaires that assessed whether he or she guessed the actual intent of the manipulations. Two experimental students were eliminated on this basis and were replaced by two additional students. After these questionnaires were completed, the student was informed of the true nature of the experiment. Results
As an overall test, a 2 (helpless, nonhelpless) X 2 (high MSC, low MSC) X 2 (high FMN, low FMN) X 2 (male subject, female subject) X 2 (male experimenter, female experimenter) multivariate analysis of variance was performed with failures, wasted, and DACL scores as the dependent variables. Although the hypothesis was stated in terms of sex role types, MSC and FMN were treated as separate factors in the analysis in order to explore whether one or both of these two factors independently affect helplessness; the hypothesis of the study predicted an in2 As Blaney (1977) and others have noted, almost all learned helplessness studies with humans have confounded control/no control with success/failure; that is, subjects who are said to have control are successful on experimental tasks, whereas those suffering from a loss of control are forced to fail. Deficits resulting from a supposed loss of control could merely be the result of failure. This criticism is also true of the current study. In fact, previous researchers (cf. Phares, 1971) have used a procedure similar to the one used in the current study to explicitly induce a perception of failure. The term learned helplessness is used in the current article in recognition of its relation to the body of learned helplessness literature that has used a similar methodology. The reader is advised, nonetheless, to keep in mind that deficits could be due to failure rather than to loss of control. What is crucial in this study is that regardless of the basis for the deficits, the procedure produces brief cognitive and motivational deficits along with dysphoric mood, which many people view as an acceptable analog to the long-term deficits observed in clinically depressed persons.
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
931
Table 1 Univariate Analysis of Variance Summary Failures
MS
Source Sex Helplessness MSC Helplessness X MSC X FMN Error
1 1 1 1 128
Wasted
MS
32.40 2.32 207.03 14.80** 8.10 .58 59.74 4.27* 13.99
390,260.03 7.40** 827,137.60 15.68*** 26,522.50 .50 276,276.07 5.24* 52,760.27
DACL
MS 270.40 8.85** 912.03 29.84*** 313.60 10.26** 108.87 3.56 30.56
Note. MSC = masculinity; FMN = femininity; DACL = Depression Adjective Check List. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
teraction effect of MSC and FMN on helplessness. As DeFronzo and Boudreau (1977) have indicated, treating MSC and FMN as two factors allows for testing hypotheses made on the basis of a sex role typology while allowing other outcomes such as effects due to a single dimension of masculinity or femininity to be clearly distinguished. The significant multivariate results were as follows: sex, .F(3, 126) = 5.03, p < .01; helplessness, F(3, 126) = 15.23, p < .0001; MSC, F(3, 126) = 3.66, p < .01; Helplessness X MSC X FMN, F(3, 126) = 2.87, p < .05. Appropriate univariate tests were performed for significant multivariate effects (Table 1). As expected, the helplessness manipulation significantly affected all three dependent variables, indicating that helplessness was induced. However, this main effect was overridden by the triple-order interaction described below, The hypothesis of this study was that some sex role types would be affected more than others by the helplessness manipulation. Statistically, this prediction would be shown by an interaction between helplessness and scores on MSC and FMN. The single significant multivariate triple-order interaction (Helplessness X MSC X FMN) confirms this hypothesis. None of the other 15 tripleorder or higher order interactions were significant. The univariate tests indicated that the MSC X FMN X Helplessness interaction was significant for both anagram-related measures and was marginally significant (p < .06) for the DACL. To explore these
univariate triple-order interaction effects further, corresponding tests of simple interaction effects and simple simple main effects were performed. Results of the tests of simple interaction following from the triple-order interaction indicate that under the nonhelpless (control) condition, the four sex role types did not reliably differ on failures, wasted, or the DACL. As expected, under the helpless condition, there was a significant MSC X FMN interaction for both anagram-related dependent variables and the DACL: failures, F(\, 76) = 4.89, p < .05; wasted, F(l, 76) = 7.68, p < .01; DACL, F(l, 76) = 8.13, p < .01. These findings make explicit that the triple-order interaction was due to some sex role types' performing more poorly and having a more dysphoric mood than other sex role types after experiencing a loss of control or failure. Tests of simple simple main effects plus additional comparisons were done to discover which sex role types were affected by helplessness (Table 2). The findings indicate that under the helpless condition, the two stereotypic sex role types, masculine sex typed and feminine sex typed, were significantly affected on all three dependent variables—failures, wasted, and DACL. Table 3 presents the means and standard deviations of the various groups (ignoring sex of the experimenter) for the dependent measures. Although Miller and Norman (1979) noted that statistically significant learned helplessness effects are often of small magnitude and therefore of questionable psychological im-
932
DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
Table 2
Analysis of Variance Comparing Helpless and Nonhelpless Sex Role Types Dependent variable and source
df
MS
F
Androgynous Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
7.23 13.99
.52
1 128
6,350.40 52,760.27
.12
1 128
144.40 30.56
4.73*
Masculine sex typed Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
115.60 13.99
8.26**
1 128
387,105.63 52,760.27
7.34**
1 128
313.60 30.56
10.26**
Feminine sex typed Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
126.03 13.99
1 128
656,896.90 52,760.27
12.45***
1 128
518.40 30.56
16.96***
9.00**
Undifferentiated Failures Helplessness Error Wasted Helplessness Error DACL Helplessness Error
1 128
16.90 13.99
1.21
1 128
93,993.03 52,760.27
1.78
1 128
62.50 30.56
2.05
Note. DACL = Depression Adjective Check List. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
portance, inspection of Table 3 indicates that the nonhelpless/helpless (control vs. experimental) differences for the two stereotypic sex role types were quite large in the cur-
rent study. For these two sex role types, most of the anagram-related scores for the helpless groups were at least twice as large as the scores for the corresponding nonhelpless group. The greatest changes occurred on wasted, in which the scores for the helpless groups ranged from 2.6 to 7.2 times as great as the corresponding scores for nonhelpless groups. The DACL results are also striking: For these two sex role types, the helpless groups averaged 13.8 on the DACL. The significance of this finding is illustrated by Lubin and Levitt's (1979) comment that in the general public "the rarity of raw scores above 13 makes their presentation [in a frequency distribution] not very meaningful" (p. 192). Comparisons of masculine-sex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons indicated that these two sex role types did not differ significantly from each other on any dependent measures under any condition. Therefore, these two sex role types performed essentially alike in the study. In contrast, in a comparison of the nonhelpless and helpless conditions, the androgynous persons showed no significant differences on either of the anagram-related variables, although they did express significantly more dysphoric mood on the DACL after the helpless condition than after the nonhelpless condition. The undifferentiated group showed no significant differences between the helpless and nonhelpless conditions on any dependent measures. The androgynous and undifferentiated groups did not differ from each other on the anagram-related measures during either condition. However, the undifferentiated group showed significantly greater dysphoric mood than did the androgynous group in the nonhelpless condition, F(l, 126) = S.23, p < .05; the two groups did not differ on the DACL under the helpless condition. The above findings are complex, and a brief summary is in order. The four sex role types were affected differently by the helpless condition. The two stereotypic sex role types—masculine sex typed and feminine sex typed—performed similarly to each other throughout the experiment and were affected
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
933
Table 3 Scores on Anagrams and Depression Adjective Check List Failures Group
M
Wasted
SD
M
SD
DACL
M
SD
Males Androgynous Helpless Nonhelpless Masculine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Feminine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Undifferentiated Helpless Nonhelpless
3.9 3.6
3.25 2.46
82.7 29.9
166.95 53.33
7.3 4.2
5.40 2.90
6.2 2.3
5.43 2.00
211.3 41.4
338.64 64.79
9.8 5.8
5.33 4.44
6.2 2,5
2.66 2.32
194.2 35.2
227.90 55.76
15.6
7.5
6.82 •3.57
5.2 3.6
3.94 3.10
166.2 58.3
273.56 114.66
9.2 7.4
4.94 5.52
5.21 3.14
Females Androgynous Helpless Nonhelpless Masculine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Feminine sex typed Helpless Nonhelpless Undifferentiated Helpless Nonhelpless
4.3 2.9
4.14 2.38
120.7 123.1
187.28 162.62
10.4
7.5 4.6
3.24 3.60
362.9 139.3
279.23 116.24
14.9
6.9 3.5
5.24 3.68
411.0 57.4
453.19 76.49
14.9
8.6
5.17 5.34
6.0 5.0
5.21 4.24
240.5 154.5
341.70 235.21
14.2 11.0
7.00 9.88
5.9 7.7
4.75 4.00
Note. DACL = Depression Adjective Check List.
on all dependent measures by the helpless condition. However, the anagram performances of the androgynous and undifferentiated groups were not affected by the helpless condition. Although the androgynous group's cognitive performance was not affected by loss of control, this group showed increased dysphoric mood in the helpless condition. The Undifferentiated group showed no affective change in response to helplessness, but this group was more dysphoric than the androgynous group under the nonhelpless condition. This pattern of results was not dependent on the sex of the student. As reported above, there was a significant main effect for sex on the DACL and wasted, with females scoring higher than males on both measures. These findings indicate that as in many previous samples, women in the current sample showed more dysphoric mood
and motivational deficits typical of depression than men did; however, in terms of changes induced by the helplessness manipulation, women were not affected more than men. Differential susceptibility to the helplessness manipulation was solely a function of sex roles, not sex per se. Thus, in this study, once sex roles were taken into account, females were not more susceptible than males to learned helplessness, the analog of depression. The final multivariate effect, MSC, is attributable to DACL scores. The dysphoric mood in the current study is consistent with Berzins et al.'s (1978) finding that depressed persons are low on masculinity. In the present study, high-MSC persons obtained a mean DACL score of 8.25, whereas the mean score for low-MSC persons was 11.05.
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DONALD H. BAUCOM AND PAMELA DANKER-BROWN
Discussion The results indicate that masculine-sextyped and feminine-sex-typed persons are particularly susceptible to the development of helplessness. To the extent that the procedure used in the current study is a meaningful analog of depression, the findings implicate sex roles as an important factor in the etiology of depression. However, the effect of sex roles was not entirely as predicted. The major focus of the study was based on the assumption that in the past males have more typically than females been masculine sex typed and females have more typically than males been feminine sex typed. The frequently observed sex difference in incidence of depression was hypothesized to be due to the increased susceptibility of feminine-sex-typed persons to depression. Since in this study masculine-sex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons were equally susceptible to the helplessness analog of depression, the results do not explain the commonly cited sex difference in incidence of depression. Although the susceptibility of femininesex-typed persons to helplessness was hypothesized, the effect of helplessness on the masculine-sex-typed students was not expected. However, some prior research provides possible explanations for this finding. Bern and her associates (Bern, 1975; Bern & Lenney, 1976; Bern, Martyna, & Watson, 1976) found that androgynous persons are more flexible and have a wider range of strategies for dealing with diverse situations than do masculine-sex-typed and femininesex-typed persons, who rely principally on one set of strategies for obtaining reinforcement. Therefore, one parsimonious explanation of the data is that following a loss of control or failure on initial tasks, masculinesex-typed and feminine-sex-typed persons are likely to be less resilient and perform more poorly on subsequent tasks than androgynous persons. The above explanation is consistent with previous sex role research on the flexibility of androgynous persons; however, the explanation above does not explain the commonly cited sex differences in incidence of
depression. The above explanation and the view that sex roles help to account for sex differences in incidence of depression could both be correct if an additional feature of the experiment is considered. In the present study, masculine-sex-typed persons as well as persons with other sex roles were forced to lose control and fail. The results of this study should be interpreted as the response of various sex role types to situations in which they lose control and fail; however, there is no assurance that persons with different sex role types will encounter such situations with equal frequency in their natural environments. Previous research (Baucom, in press) suggested that masculine-sex-typed persons are leaders with effective social skills; they also appear to be achievers who make good use of their intellectual abilities. Masculine-sex-typed persons, like all people, exert an influence over their environment and attempt to structure it in a way that makes them comfortable. With the importance they place on control and success, coupled with their abilities, masculine-sex-typed persons may avoid helplessness situations in the real world to a large extent. It is possible that in the past through the socialization process, males have more often than females become masculine sex typed. Because of this sex typing, males may then have avoided uncontrollable situations more often than females. This avoidance of uncontrollable situations may account for the lower incidence of depression in males than in females. To understand the contribution of sex roles to the development of depression most fully, then, it may be necessary to consider two factors. The first factor, the focus of the current study, is the response of persons with different sex roles to potentially depression-producing or analog depression situations. Second, the ability of persons with different sex roles to structure their environment to avoid such situations needs to be considered. (Wachtel, 1973, provided a more detailed explanation of the effects of not taking into account an experimental subject's tendency to structure his or her own natural environment.) Thus, although masculine-sex-typed persons may handle
SEX ROLES AND HELPLESSNESS
failure or loss of control poorly, they may still have a low incidence of depression if they are able to avoid such situations in their environments. Research that took both factors into account would help to resolve the impact of sex roles on the incidence of depression. The response of the undifferentiated persons to failure or loss of control is also worth noting. The helplessness manipulation did not affect the mood of the undifferentiated group. At least two reasons for this absence of an emotional response among the undifferentiated group are possible. First, undifferentiated persons may expect to fail and be accustomed to losing control; consequently, they are not upset when this happens. This interpretation is consistent with Baucom's (in press) finding that compared with the other three sex role types, members of the undifferentiated group have the poorest sense of well-being and are least likely to achieve in academic settings. Second, since undifferentiated persons present themselves as aloof, distant, and uninvolved (Baucom, in press), the undifferentiated group in the present study may actually have been less involved in the tasks. Consequently, losing control and failing in that situation were not as important to them as to the other groups, thereby producing less affective disturbance. Regardless of the cause of their behavior, the undifferentiated group did not let the helpless condition affect their mood or anagram performance, and they achieved on the anagram task at the same level as did the androgynous group. This is one of the few positive findings about undifferentiated persons that has appeared in the recent sex role literature. The above interpretations are based in part on the integration of current and prior findings, but overall they are speculative. They are offered not as definitive explanations for the findings but as new hypotheses to be investigated in future research. In spite of the positive finding that persons with different sex roles are differentially susceptible to a loss of control or failure experience, the generalizability of the results must be viewed cautiously. The current investigation
935
is an analog study, and as with any analog study, its relationship to real-life phenomena must be interpreted conservatively. Furthermore, as Seligman (1975) pointed out, learned helplessness is not intended as a model for all depressions; therefore, the relation of sex roles to different types of depression is open to question. Unsettled issues remain, and the encouraging findings from this study suggest that continued exploration in this area is likely to prove fruitful. Reference Notes 1. Ray, E. P., & Bristow, A. R. Sex-role identities in depressed •women. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, New Orleans, La., April 1978. 2. Lester, G., & Baucom, D. H. The effects of experimentally induced locus of control on learned helplessness. Unpublished manuscript, Texas Tech University, 1978.
References Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, J. D. Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1978, 87, 49-74. Baucom, D. H. Independent masculinity and femininity scales on the California Psychological Inventory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1976, 44, 876. Baucom, D. H. Independent CPI masculinity and femininity scales: Psychological correlates and a sex-role typology. Journal of Personality Assessment, in press. Bern, S. L. The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 155-162. Bern, S. L. Sex role adaptability: One consequence of psychological androgyny. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 31, 634-643. Bern, S. L., & Lenney, E. Sex typing and the avoidance of cross-sex behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976, 33, 48-54. Bern, S. L., Martyna, W., & Watson, C. Sex typing and androgyny: Further explorations of the expressive domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976, 34, 1016-1023. Berzins, J. I., Welling, M. A., & Wetter, R. E. A new measure of psychological androgyny based on the Personality Research Form. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1978, 46, 126-138. Blaney, P. H. Contemporary theories of depression: Critique and comparison. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1977, 86, 203-223.
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