LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AND THE OCCURRENCE OF DEPRESSIVE-LIKE AND PARANOID-LIKE RESPONSES - THE ROLE OF ATTENTIONAL FOCUS

Five experiments were performed tit examine different manifestations o f depressive- and paranoid-like responses alter failure in unsolvable problems. Participants were exposed to no feedback, ''universal'' fail ures, or ''personal'' failures while their attention was focused on ei ther themselves or the experimenter. Then, depressive and paranoid-rel ated states of mind, interfering thoughts, self-schemata, others-schem ata, and autobiographical memories were measured. Findings indicated t hat when attention was focused on the self, personal failure was effec tive in producing depressive-like reactions. When attention was focuse d on the threatening agent (experimenter), participants reacted to the exposure to personal failure with paranoid-like responses. Universal failure failed ro product either depressive-or paranoid-lice reactions . The discussion focuses on the association between personal learned h elplessness and psychopathology and on the role of attentional focus.