Learned Helplessness (#PSY101Notes)

   💥 1^st Phase:  (dog was harnessed)

                                Tone__Shock => Escaping Behavior

                                            (but it cannot escape)

💥  2^nd Phase:  (dog was not harnessed)

Tone => No Escaping Behavior

Shock => No Escaping Behavior

 

 

 

*  In Seligman's experiment, instead of pairing the tone with food, he paired it with a harmless shock, restraining the dog in a hammock during the learning phase.

*  Next, they put the conditioned dog into a shuttle box, which consists of a low fence dividing the box into two compartments. The dog can easily see over the fence, and jump over if it wishes.

*  So they rang the bell. Surprisingly, nothing happened! (They were expecting the dog to jump over the fence.)

*  Then, they decided to shock the conditioned dog, and again nothing happened! The dog just pathetically laid there! 

* Apparently, what the conditioned dog learned in the hammock, was that trying to escape from the shocks is futile. This dog learned to be helpless! 

 

-  The failure to avoid or escape from an unpleasant or aversive stimulus that occurs as a result of previous exposure to unavoidable painful stimuli is referred to as learned helplessness

-  Learned helplessness works like this:  If people and animals are exposed to repeated aversive/negative events that they cannot escape or avoid, they may learn to do nothing –simply sit or stand by helplessly and suffer the punishment. 

 

l  Possible model for depression in humans - in both animals and humans, it is associated with many of the symptoms characteristic of depression - a state characterized by a lack of affect and feeling.

l  Depressed people became that way because they learned to be helpless. Depressed people learned that whatever they did, is futile. During the course of their lives, depressed people apparently learned that they have no control.

 

 

📖: Understanding Psychology, Ninth Edition (Charles G. Morris, Albert A. Maisto)