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Learned Helplessness and Internal-External Locus of Control in the Elderly (open access)

Learned Helplessness and Internal-External Locus of Control in the Elderly

The present research has focused on an often-neglected segment of society—the aged. A number of phenomena which appear relevant to a study of aging have been discussed and the pertinent literature reviewed. Specifically, learned helplessness, depression, internal-external locus of control, and disengagement versus activity have been examined. The present research was divided into two studies. Study Number 1 has investigated internal-external locus of control in an elderly sample and related it to indices of activity and morale. Study Number 2 has extended Seligman's (1975) theory of learned helplessness to an elderly population and investigated the phenomenon in individuals with either an internal or an external locus of control. The locus of control construct (Rotter, 1966) and the theory of learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975) appear to have immediate relevance for the treatment of aging individuals. The present study suggests that exposure to controllable reinforcement may break-up or alleviate learned helplessness in elderly individuals.
Date: December 1976
Creator: Hamrick, Narecia D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Self-Control Approach to Weight Control (open access)

A Self-Control Approach to Weight Control

A strategy for facilitating post-treatment weight maintenance was examined. Subjects were matched for age, sex, and amount of weight that they desired to lose and were then assigned to one of two groups. Both groups were under contracts and had individually designed self-control programs for weight loss, but subjects in the experimental group lost weight in small steps and subjects in the control group lost weight continuously. The experimental group was predicted to have better weight maintenance after treatment because of a greater number of reinforcements for weight loss. Two-month follow-up data was obtained on the ten subjects who completed the study, and the experimental group was found to have regained significantly less than the control group after treatment ended. The implications of these results for obesity research are discussed.
Date: December 1976
Creator: Gardner, Jimmy N.
System: The UNT Digital Library
How Much Do Self-Disclosers Reveal to Professional Groups? (open access)

How Much Do Self-Disclosers Reveal to Professional Groups?

Previous studies of help-givers have stressed subjects' perceptions using nine generic problem areas and a list of 100 descriptive adjectives. The present study attempted to specify major personality variables entering into subjects' perceptions of adviser, high school counselor, college counselor, counseling psychologist, clinical psychologist, and psychiatrist. The personality variables of self-disclosure and risk were studied, as well as a comparison using the 100 descriptive adjectives. The results from 217 female undergraduate college students indicated that subjects revealed risky information to help-givers in the same manner that they tended to self-disclose. Findings also revealed that subjects tended to differentiate among help-givers in reference to the extent that they were willing to reveal risky information. Favorable findings with reference to validity for the Norton risk scale are discussed, as are discrepancies between descriptions of help-givers in the current study as opposed to descriptions of the same help-givers in previous studies.
Date: December 1976
Creator: Lankford, Charles P.
System: The UNT Digital Library