Interestingly, it turns out that mathematicians have long recognised the debilitating condition they call ‘mathematics anxiety’. The literature on this subject goes all the way back to the 1970s. They recognise the powerfully negative effect mathematics anxiety has on learning and performance. They recognise that this condition is affect-dependent; that affect is likely to be as important as knowledge to performance and is fundamental to the acquisition of information and understanding. Evans suggests (2000 p. 44) that this anxiety depends on four foundations: confidence (including self-concept, perceived self-efficacy and locus of control as described by Weiner’s three axes above), the perceived usefulness of the subject, the perceived difficulty of the subject and the degree to which the subject was felt to be interesting or enjoyable. All these influences interact in complex ways in different people under different circumstances and their combined effect can be malign and long-lasting. This all reads, to me, like a clear description of ‘literacy anxiety’, a syndrome which clearly exists and is obviously important but has yet to be recognised.

Learned helplessness is everywhere. Let me show you how exactly the same effect of inappropriate attribution delivering learned helplessness can operate in almost any field of performance in which you care to look. Recent work on their genes among volunteers who smoke has shown that certain patterns of enzyme production are much more typical of addictive smokers - smokers who find particular difficulty in giving up. These enzyme production patterns are genetically determined. Some smokers, in other words, are genetically predisposed to find it much harder to ‘kick the habit’. While this research into their genes was going on the subjects of it were indeed trying to stop smoking. Those with the gene likely to make this more problematic were told about their predisposition.

Some of the people with the duff gene, it was noticed, made heavier weather of giving up cigarettes than did others with exactly the same gene. On investigation it was found that what seemed to make the difference was precisely their different attributions of the cause of their difficulty. Some, despite knowing their genetic predisposition, nonetheless attributed their difficulty mainly to external and controllable factors - they were in social situations like pubs and parties a lot, for example, and felt the need to smoke there. This group, although they found it hard, tended to persist in their efforts to stop smoking and, in the event, achieved considerable success.

Others with the same genetic makeup had different attributions, however. This group took the information about their gene to heart. They made radically different attributions, considering that their particular difficulty in giving up smoking was due entirely to their genetic makeup. In other words they attributed their problem to an internal, unalterable cause - their own genes; a personal, and unalterable, failing. This group was less persistent in their efforts to stop smoking and actually achieved a lower success rate. Their circumstances were similar but their attributions were different, and these attributions were maladaptive. These people felt they could do little themselves to affect outcome. They had, simply as a result of being told about their genes, acquired learned helplessness in respect of tobacco.

I am quoting in full an anecdote from Peterson et al (1993) to demonstrate how easily learned helplessness can be induced and how powerful it is. In this instance (a nursing home) the effect is brought about through the induction of a state of perceived powerlessness; in the educational context the effect is induced mostly through maladaptive attribution. The effect, however induced, will be the same.

On its two floors the Arden House Nursing Home had about 100 patients in residence. Their average age was eighty. Two psychologists decided to introduce some additional good things to this particular nursing home: movies and decorative plants. At a meeting on the first floor the director told the patients:

I was surprised to learn that many of you don’t realise the influence you have over your lives here. It’s your life and you can make of it what you want. You made the decisions before you came here and you should be making them now. I want to take this opportunity to give each of you a present from Arden House. [Plants are passed round and each patient chooses one.] The plants are yours to keep and take care of as you like. One last thing; I wanted to tell you that we’re showing a movie two nights a week, Thursday and Friday. You should decide which night you’d like to go.