Many gerontologists have noted the tendency of nursing homes to nurture dependency and learned helplessness in residents. To test the effectiveness of a control-relevant intervention strategy, nursing home residents (N=40) were given the opportunity to care for wild birds by tending individually placed bird feeders. Residents were assigned to one of three groups: those who received (by choice) a bird feeder to tend and a short lecture emphasizing their responsibility for themselves; those who received no bird feeder but a dependency message, i.e., a lecture emphasizing the staff's responsibility for them; and those who received neither feeder nor message. Results showed that the bird feeder/responsibility group had significantly higher scores than either of the other groups on post-intervention measures of life-satisfaction and on self-reported measures of perceived control, happiness, and activity. Significant improvement was also found in nurses' ratings of activity, happiness, alertness, sleeping time, complaints, and sociability for the responsibility group. (Author/JAC)