It Makes a Difference Just Knowing You Have Control Over the Situation
Remember the learned helplessness dog experiments we discussed in the previous post? Well, a similar experiment was conduced on people.
Individuals were presented with a highly distracting noise while performing a mental task.
Researchers found that participants who had access to a switch to turn off the noise had improved performance (as one would expect); however, here is the unexpected part: those participants rarely bothered to use the switch. The mere fact that they were presented with the option to control their situation was enough to significantly counteract the distracting effects. Thus, we must remember that when faced with rejection, knowing that we can act (even if we don’t even choose to act) is enough to help prevent the onset of depression from rejection.