Learned Helplessness in University Students that Major in Humanities in Russia and the USA: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The article presents the results of a pilot study conducted as part of the Fulbright Visiting Scholars academic exchange program in 2021–2022. The research objective was to describe the development of learned helplessness in students that majored in humanities in Russia and the USA. The Russian sample was represented by students that followed the Clinical Psychology program at the Krasnoyarsk State Medical University while the American students studied Student Affairs at the University of South Florida. The students fulfilled an open-type Questionnaire on Subjective Assessment of Learned Helplessness, which was designed, translated, and adapted by the author. The research methodology relied on the learned helplessness theory introduced by M. Seligman (USA), the concept of the cultural and historical development of the human psyche by L. Vygotsky (USSR), and the transspective method developed by V. E. Klochko (Russia). The pilot study revealed several socio-cultural peculiarities of learned helplessness. The American students were likely to develop learned helplessness as teenagers whereas the Russian participants manifested it later in adolescence but demonstrated its first signs as early as between senior preschool and primary school. The American students were quite optimistic about the primary and secondary school but associated their early teenage years with a severe life crisis and separation. The Russians saw school as the genesis of learned helplessness while the Americans regarded it as a psychological separation and a change in the child-parent pattern. The author believes that a school system oriented towards approval and support prevents the development of learned helplessness, which is associated with traumatic experience and attachment disorder.