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Through his time at school, the time he spends taking tests, with his peers, working on projects, doing homework, and interacting with his peers Calvin has shown a dualism of motivational patterns that both concern and confound his teachers and parents. Calvin has shown a troubling pattern of learned helplessness while at school that is characterized by a stable, uncontrollable, and internal and external attribution pattern. Still, he has managed to maintain a very high level of self-efficacy by trying very hard to modify his environment. Let’s take a look at some examples of Calvin’s behavior that explains his contradictory motivational patterns.
While in the classroom
While in the classroom
Here Calvin is showing his high sense of self-efficacy by telling himself that he is “not dumb,” but his is still showing patterns of learned helplessness by blaming his failure on his internal ability rather than the amount of effort he put into answering the question.
WHY: Calvin avoids topics that he does not feel like he has a “command” of, which could be evidence of previous experiences in which he felt embarrassed or “dumb” for answering questions incorrectly. Now, instead of risking that feeling of failure, Calvin tries to direct attention to topics that he feels confident in.
While taking tests
While taking tests
While taking a test Calvin thinks to himself that he should not be expected to know the information asked of him on the test because of his uncontrollable, internal and stable attribution of his age. There are moments that Calvin does not show a sense of high self-efficacy through his patterns of learned helplessness and this is one of them.
WHY: Through his statement of, “we both try to demoralize each other,” we see that Calvin is of the belief that his teacher is actually trying to make him feel less confident. This belief makes it easier for Calvin to attribute his failure to uncontrollable circumstances instead of taking responsibility.
While with peers
While with peers
Calvin showcases his high sense of self-efficacy while he is with his peers. In the comic above, he shows enough courage and trust in himself to stand up to his bully. Still, when this does not work, Calvin blames external attributions for his failure thus perpetuating his learned helplessness.
WHY: We know that learned helplessness often is the result of a traumatic event that teaches the subject that certain outcomes are “unavoidable”. Because of this, we can assume that there have been other instances of bullying in which Calvin might have tried other methods of avoiding the bullying. However, being hit even though he stood for himself would perpetuate Calvin’s belief that there is truly no escaping the conflict and he may give up trying.
While working on a project
While working on a project
While working on a project, Calvin shows an immense amount of interest and excitement about the topic he has chosen to research. This proves that Calvin has a very high sense of self-efficacy.
WHY: This comes from Calvin’s enthusiasm towards topics that genuinely interest him.
However...
Later in the night after Calvin has spent a majority of his time procrastinating doing his project, he blames his mother and his now shortened window of time to work on the project (both external attributes) as a reason for his failure on his project. While Calvin has shown a clear sense of self-efficacy, he has low self-motivation and his learned helplessness attributes that to influences that are outside of him and not within his control.
While talking to his dad
While talking to his dad
In this example, Calvin blames his bad grades on the fact that he doesn’t have a computer. This is learned helplessness because he is not taking responsibility for his grades, he is blaming it on an external attribute.
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