Epistemic needs and learned helplessness

This study assesses the impact of non‐specific epistemic needs—the need for structure and the fear of invalidity—on expectancy of control and performance following unsolvable problems. Subjects answered a questionnaire tapping their non‐specific epistemic needs and were exposed to either no feedback or failure in unsolvable problems. Then their expectancies of control and performance were assessed. The results showed that a high need for structure was associated with a transfer of the expectancy of uncontrollability and worse performance following failure. The results are discussed in terms of Kruglanski's lay epistemic theory.