Langerian mindfulness on learned helplessness among undergraduated in Malaysia

• Main Authors: Ang, Ching Ting, Wong, Wen Pin, Yong, Xin Yi
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: BF Psychology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4354/1/FYP_PY_AC_2021.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4354/

Learned helplessness is an emerging issue in higher education with adverse psychological and academic consequences such as absenteeism, course withdrawal, depression, academicprocrastination, and psychoactive drug abuse. Researchers have suggested Langerian mindfulness as a new and practical alternative to reduce learned helplessness. However, thecausal effect of Langerian mindfulness remains open to date. Hence, an online experiment using a between-subject design was conducted in the present study to examine the effectiveness of Langerian mindfulness in reducing learned helplessness among undergraduates in Malaysia. A total of 165 Malaysian full-time undergraduates were recruited and randomly assigned to either the Treatment group or the Control group. Participants first completed the unsolvable concept formation tasks and answered the LearnedHelplessness Scale. Next, the Treatment group underwent a Langerian mindfulness practicewhile the Control group summarized BBC news article. Finally, all participants answeredthePositive State Mindfulness Scale and twenty anagrams. The independent-samples t-test results indicated that the Treatment group scored significantly higher in anagrams (i.e., lowlearned helplessness) than the Control group. The findings not only provide empirical support to the beneficial effect of Langerian mindfulness on decreasing learned helplessness but alsodemonstrate the usability of Langerian mindfulness in the Malaysian context. Local educatorsand practitioners are encouraged to employ Langerian mindfulness practice to help studentsto alleviate their learned helplessness.