AEROBIC EXERCISE AND CHOCOLATE AS MEANS FOR REDUCING LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

This study tested the effects of 10 min of aerobic exercise, a chocola te snack, or guided imagery as a means of reducing the learned helples sness effects due to the experience of an unsolvable task. It was hypo thesized that exposure to unsolvable tasks would lead to a higher leve l of anxiety, engagement in more task-irrelevant cognitions, and a poo rer performance on a solvable test task. Intervention with either choc olate, 10 min of aerobic exercises, or guided imagery would reduce anx iety, reduce task irrelevant cognitions, and prevent performance decre ment. Five groups of subjects (n = 100) were tested on a visual search task after experiencing an unsolvable task. Results indicated that th e experience of the unsolvable task led to a higher level of anxiety a rousal compared to a group that did not experience the unsolvable task . The intervention of either aerobic exercise, chocolate, or guided im agery led to a reduction in anxiety to the level of the control group that had not experienced an unsolvable task. Task-irrelevant cognition s were found to be higher in the classic nonintervention learned helpl essness group and in the guided imagery group. The only group to suffe r a performance decrement on the test task was the classic learned hel plessness group without intervention. All three interventions were fou nd to be equally effective in preventing peformance decrement. Results are discussed in terms of an irrelevant defensive cognition/anxiety m odel as well as in terms of a controllability model.