Alloy L B, Abramson L Y
J Exp Psychol Gen. 1979 Dec;108(4):441-85. doi: 10.1037//0096-3445.108.4.441.
How are humans' subjective judgments of contingencies related to objective contingencies? Work in social psychology and human contingency learning predicts that the greater the frequency of desired outcomes, the greater people's judgments of contingency will be. Second, the learned helplessness theory of depression provides both a strong and a weak prediction concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies. According to the strong prediction, depressed individuals should underestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. According to the weak prediction, depressed individuals merely should judge that there is a smaller degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes than nondepressed individuals should. In addition, the present investigation deduced a new strong prediction from the helplessness theory: Nondepressed individuals should overestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. In the experiments, depressed and nondepressed students were present with one of a series of problems varying in the actual degree of contingency. In each problem, subjects estimated the degree of contingency between their responses (pressing or not pressing a button) and an environmental outcome (onset of a green light). Performance on a behavioral task and estimates of the conditional probability of green light onset associated with the two response alternatives provided additional measures for assessing beliefs about contingencies. Depressed students' judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments. Nondepressed students, on the other hand, overestimated the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes when noncontingent outcomes were frequent and/or desired and underestimated the degree of contingency when contingent outcomes were undesired. Thus, predictions derived from social psychology concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies were confirmed for nondepressed students but not for depressed students. Further, the predictions of helplessness theory received, at best, minimal support. The learned helplessness and self-serving motivational bias hypotheses are evaluated as explanations of the results. In addition, parallels are drawn between the present results and phenomena in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and animal learning. Finally, implications for cognitive illusions in normal people, appetitive helplessness, judgment of contingency between stimuli, and learning theory are discussed.
人类对偶然性的主观判断与客观偶然性是如何相关的？社会心理学和人类偶然性学习方面的研究预测，期望结果出现的频率越高，人们对偶然性的判断就会越高。其次，抑郁的习得性无助理论对主观和客观偶然性之间的联系给出了一个强预测和一个弱预测。根据强预测，相对于客观的偶然性程度，抑郁个体应该低估他们的反应与结果之间的偶然性程度。根据弱预测，抑郁个体仅仅应该判断他们的反应与结果之间的偶然性程度比非抑郁个体所认为的要小。此外，本研究从无助理论中推导出一个新的强预测：相对于客观的偶然性程度，非抑郁个体应该高估他们的反应与结果之间的偶然性程度。在实验中，抑郁和非抑郁的学生面对一系列实际偶然性程度不同的问题中的一个。在每个问题中，被试估计他们的反应（按下或不按下按钮）与一个环境结果（绿灯亮起）之间的偶然性程度。一项行为任务的表现以及与两种反应选项相关的绿灯亮起的条件概率估计为评估关于偶然性的信念提供了额外的指标。在所有四个实验中，抑郁学生对偶然性的判断都惊人地准确。另一方面，当非偶然性结果频繁出现和/或令人期望时，非抑郁学生高估了他们的反应与结果之间的偶然性程度；而当偶然性结果不令人期望时，他们低估了偶然性程度。因此，从社会心理学得出的关于主观和客观偶然性之间联系的预测在非抑郁学生中得到了证实，但在抑郁学生中没有得到证实。此外，无助理论的预测充其量只得到了极少的支持。习得性无助和自利动机偏差假设被作为对结果的解释进行了评估。此外，本研究结果与认知心理学、社会心理学和动物学习中的现象进行了比较。最后，讨论了对正常人认知错觉、欲望性无助、刺激之间偶然性的判断以及学习理论的影响。
