Sex Differences in Learned Helplessness: II. The Contingencies of Evaluative Feedback in the Classroom and III. An Experimental Analysis

Girls show greater evidence than boys of learned helplessness in achievement situations with adult (but not peer) evaluators: They attribute their failures to lack of ability rather than motivation and thus show impaired performance under failure. Two studies are reported linking sex differences in attributions to adults' use of evaluative feedback. Study 1 revealed that both the contingencies of feedback in classrooms and the attributions made by teachers were ones that would render negative evaluation more indicative of ability for girls than boys. For example, negative evaluation of girls' performance referred almost exclusively to intellectual inadequacies, whereas 45% of boys' work-related criticism referred to nonintellectual aspects. Moreover, teachers attributed the boys' failures to lack of motivation significantly more than they did the girls' failures. In Study 2, teacher-boy and teacher-girl contingencies of work-related criticism observed in classrooms were programmed in an experimental situation. Both boys and girls receiving the teacher-girl contingency were more likely to view subsequent failure feedback from that evaluator as indicative of their ability. Implications for developmental theories and for development are addressed.

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