EFFECTS OF UNCONTROLLABILITY ON SUBSEQUENT DECISION-MAKING - TESTING THE COGNITIVE EXHAUSTION HYPOTHESIS

The cognitive exhaustion model of helplessness-predicting withdrawal f rom constructive effortful processing after uncontrollability-was appl ied to decision making. After unsolvable problems (or no preexposure), Ss requested information from a matrix with 5 alternatives (films) x 10 attributes and then chose the best film. Films in a set were either similar (difficult decision) or dissimilar (easy decision) in attract iveness. As predicted, Ss with an uncontrollable preexposure spent les s time on predecisional information search, disregarded their own impo rtance criteria when asking for information, and had attention highly focused on a selected option for the easy decision condition but diffu sed across options for the difficult decision condition. The implicati ons of these findings for understanding cognitive mechanisms of learne d helplessness and depression are discussed.