Abstract
Effect of dyadic dominance on learned helplessness. The effect of the social dominance on learned helplessness has been studied, using forty rats that were exposed to a dyadic competition test. Twenty animals were distributed to Controllable and Control groups. The dominance-submissiveness rank was established in the rest, assigning one subject to the Uncontrollable-Dominant-Yoked (UDY) group and the other one to the Uncontrollable-Submissive-Yoked (USY) group on the basis of water access. First, animals of Controllable group were exposed to escapable shocks, those of Control group did not received any treatment, and those of UDY and USY groups were exposed to inescapable shocks. Subsequently, the groups were trained in a discriminative escape-avoidance task. The latency of response of USY group was higher than the latency of the rest. Total number of responses and number of escape-avoidance responses were lower in the USY group than Controlable and Control groups. Social dominance appears to be a modulator factor of helplessness.
