Download Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness
Learned helplessness is a perceived absence of control over the outcome due to
previous experiences which have felt inescapable.
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Learned Helplessness: A perceived loss of control can lead to despair and hopelessness.
In a now famous study, Martin Seligman and his colleagues discovered that when dogs were put in cages
and shocked randomly without being able to escape the shocks, these dogs soon learned to be helpless and
exhibited symptoms similar to chronic clinical depression.
However, not all of the dogs in Seligman's experiments became helpless. About one-third seemed to cope
positively despite their past experience with inescapable shock. The corresponding characteristic in humans
has been found to correlate highly with optimism.
With regard to psychological disorder, learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and
related mental illnesses may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.
The condition of a human or animal that has learned to behave helplessly, failing to respond even though
there are opportunities for it to help itself by avoiding unpleasant circumstances or by gaining positive
rewards.
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Learned helplessness is a condition in which an individual has learned to behave helplessly when circumstances
become limiting to the individual's goals. This behavior persisits even when the opportunity is restored for them to
help themselves by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which he has been subjected. With regard to
psychological disorder, learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses
may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.
In a classic animal experiment by Martin Seligman and his colleagues, the reseachers put three groups of dogs in
harnesses. Group one dogs were simply put in the harnesses for a period of time and later released. Groups two and
three consisted of "yoked pairs." A dog in group two would be intentionally subjected to pain by being given electric
shocks, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. A group three dog was wired in parallel with a group two dog,
receiving shocks of identical intensity and duration, but his lever didn't stop the electric shocks.
To a dog in group three, it seemed that the shock ended at random, because it was his paired dog in group two that
was causing it to stop. For group three dogs, the shock was apparently "inescapable." Group one and group two dogs
quickly recovered from the experience, but group three dogs learned to be helpless, and exhibited symptoms similar
to chronic clinical depression.
In the second part of the Seligman and Maier experiment, these three groups of dogs were tested in a shuttle-box
apparatus, in which the dogs could escape electric shocks by jumping over a low partition. For the most part, the
group three dogs, who had previously learned that nothing they did had any effect on the shocks, simply lay down
passively and whined. Even though they could have easily escaped the shocks, the dogs didn't try.
However, not all of the dogs in Seligman's experiments became helpless. Of the roughly 150 dogs in experiments in
the latter half of the 1960s, about one-third did not become helpless, but instead managed to find a way out of the
unpleasant situation despite their past experience with it. The corresponding characteristic in humans has been found
to correlate highly with optimism: an explanatory style that views the situation as other than personal, pervasive, or
permanent. This distinction between people who adapt and those who break down under long-term psychological
pressure was also studied in the 1950s in the context of brainwashing.