Following the cultural taxonomy of Hofstede, this research predicted that (1) the Canadian students will differ from the Indian students in their experiences of personal and universal helplessness, and ; (2) the differences on personal and situational covariates of the two samples will differentially explain their personal and universal helplessness. Data were obtained on 120 Canadian and 190 Indian students using Kanungo's helplessness scale and a personal information sheet, and subjected to correlational and regression analyses. Results showed that the two cultural samples had learned helplessness much below the theoretical mean. The two did not differ in levels of helplessness but felt relatively more helpless through the experiences of others than their own. A higher amount of variance is accounted by the personal and situational covariates in case of the Canadian sample than the Indian sample. The findings seem interesting from the cross cultural perspective to formulate programmes of organizational development and individual help.