Three groups of rats (n = 6) were given prior experience in a Skinner box before being trained in a two-way shuttlebox-avoidance task. Subjects experiencing controllable shock (avoidable or escapable) performed significantly better than a yoked control group which had no control over shocks in the Skinner box and better than a control group which experienced no shock in the Skinner box. Results can be interpreted adequately in terms of the learned helplessness hypothesis proposed by Maier, Seligman, and Solomon.
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