Learned helplessness: Seligman's theory

The concept of learned helplessness is the cornerstone of many important theories and ideas in psychology, as well as the basis of several fundamental concepts in positive psychology.

It provides an explanation for some people's behavior that may seem strange or counterproductive, and an understanding of learned helplessness provides ways to eliminate or reduce its negative consequences.

What is learned helplessness? Psychological definition

Learned helplessness is a phenomenon observed in both humans and animals where they have been conditioned to expect pain, suffering or discomfort without the ability to avoid it. Eventually, after sufficient training, the animal will stop trying to avoid pain altogether, even if it is possible to actually avoid it.

Important! When people or animals begin to understand (or believe) that they have no control over what happens to them, they begin to think, feel and act as if they are helpless.

This phenomenon is called learned helplessness because it is not an innate trait. No one is born believing that they have no control over what happens to them, and it is futile to even try to gain control. It is a learned behavior, conditioned by experiences in which the subject either truly has no control over his circumstances or simply feels that he has no control.

About contradictions

In 1964, the American psychologist - the future founder of the so-called positive psychology - Martin Seligman participated in experiments on dogs in the laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania. Part of the purpose of the experiments was to form a conditioned reflex in four-legged animals - the fear of high-pitched sounds. To achieve his goal, Seligman shocked the unfortunate animals (who were sitting in cages and therefore had no way to escape) immediately after the dogs heard a high-pitched sound.

After some time, the cages were opened and the hated sound was turned on again. But, contrary to the expectations of the experimenters, the unfortunate people did not run away (to avoid a subsequent electric shock), but lay down on the floor and whined. Such results were in complete contradiction with the then dominant behaviorism - the direction of psychology, according to which the behavior of humans and animals as a whole is subject to the “stimulus-response” pattern. Moreover, these reactions, according to behaviorists of that time, were quite similar and were always supposed to carry only benefits for the individual.

A simple example: an apple was taken away from a child. He tries to take it away, and even hits the offender with a spatula. A situation in which a child stands silently and makes no attempt to pick up an apple, or perhaps gives the offender another, did not fit into the simple schemes of behaviorists. But such cases are not uncommon.

It's the same with Seligman's dogs. In theory, they should have escaped as soon as the cages were opened, but this did not happen. Then the psychologist put forward a revolutionary thesis: dogs remain in cages not because they are not afraid of electric shock, but because they are accustomed to the inevitable: during the experiment, they tried to escape more than once, but they did not succeed. Therefore, the dogs resigned themselves - in other words, “learned to be helpless.”

Martin Seligman's experiments that led to the theory

The first experiments that formed the basis of this theory were conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s by psychologists Martin Seligman and Stephen Mayer.

Seligman and Mayer were working with dogs at the time and testing their reactions to electric shocks. Some of the dogs received electric shocks that they could not predict or control.

For this experiment, dogs were placed in a box with two chambers separated by a low barrier. One cell had an electrified floor, but the other did not.

When the researchers placed the dogs in the box and turned on the electrified floor, they noticed something strange: some dogs didn't even try to jump over the low barrier to the other side.

To further study this phenomenon, Seligman and Mayer collected a new batch of dogs and divided them into three groups:

The dogs in the first group were tied to a harness for some time and were not subjected to shocks.
The dogs in the second group were tied to the same harnesses, but were subjected to electric shocks that they could avoid by pressing the panel with their nose.
The dogs in the third group were placed in the same harnesses and also received electric shocks, but were not given the opportunity to escape them.

Once the three groups had completed this first experimental manipulation, all dogs were placed (one at a time) in a two-chamber box. The dogs in the first and second groups quickly realized that they only had to jump over the barrier to avoid the shocks, but most of the dogs in the third group did not even try to avoid them. Based on their previous experience, these dogs concluded that there was nothing they could do to avoid shock.

Once these results were confirmed in dogs, Seligman and Mayer conducted similar experiments in rats . Rats in the group that received avoidable shocks were able to avoid the shocks by pressing a lever in the box, while those who received unavoidable shocks were able to press the lever but still received the shocks and did not try to avoid them.

The rats were later placed in a box and given electric shocks. Inside the box was a lever that, when pressed, allowed the rats to avoid being hit.

Again, the rats that were placed in the inescapable shock group usually did not even attempt to escape , while most of these rats in the other two groups managed to escape.

Rats that did not try to avoid exhibited behavior that is classic learned helplessness: even when given the potential opportunity to escape pain, they do not try to accept it.

This phenomenon can also be seen in elephants. When an elephant trainer begins working with a baby elephant, a rope is used to tie one of the elephant's legs to the stand. The elephant will struggle for hours, even days, trying to escape the rope, but eventually it will calm down and accept the situation.

Important! When the elephant grows up, he will be more than strong enough to break the rope, but he will not even try - he has been taught that any struggle is futile.

Criticism of behaviorists and the Steve Myers experiment

Behaviorists, as might be expected, criticized the experiment mercilessly. After all, he refuted the entire harmonious system of their school! And then another young scientist, Steve Myers, decided to conduct another bold experiment. Behaviorists believed that dogs remained sitting still because their passive behavior was somehow accidentally rewarded.

Myers suggested doing this intentionally, that is, reinforcing the dogs' passive behavior and finding out what choices they ultimately make. The dogs were divided into three groups: in the first, the current was turned off if the dogs sat motionless for some time, in the second, the dogs could not influence the current being turned off in any way, and the third group was the control. At the second stage, the experiment with the partition was repeated. Thus, dogs trained to sit still in order to turn off the shock, in accordance with the theory of behaviorism, had to remain in the box and not jump over the partition.

So, the dogs from the “parallel” group, which in the first case could not influence anything, continued to lie in the box. Dogs from the control group immediately jumped over the partition. But the experimental subjects from the first group behaved in a very interesting way. At first they froze motionless for a few seconds, but, quickly realizing that this was not giving any result, they simply jumped over the partition. Thus, dogs that had experience in controlling the cessation of pain retained the ability to adapt to the situation! This was a real revolution in the history of psychology.

But what happened to the dogs that learned how to be helpless? Fortunately, they were cured. Seligman writes that the scientists “...began to drag these poor, reluctant animals back and forth across the chamber partition until they began to move on their own initiative and found that their actions were producing results. When they reached this stage, the healing was 100% reliable and permanent.” So the story ended happily for the dogs, which gives hope to many people.

Examples of learned helplessness in humans

Experiments conducted on humans yielded similar results. While a person's response to such situations may be more complex and dependent on several different factors, it is still similar to that of dogs, rats, and other animals.

One study of learned helplessness in humans was conducted in 1974. In this study, participants were divided into three groups: one group was exposed to a loud and unpleasant noise but was able to stop the noise by pressing a button four times, a second group was exposed to the same noise but the button did not work, and a third group was not exposed to any noise at all. .

Later, all participants were exposed to a loud noise and given a box containing a lever that, when manipulated, would turn off the sound. As in animal experiments, those who did not control the noise in the first part of the experiment usually did not even try to turn off the noise, while the remaining participants usually figured out how to turn off the noise very quickly.

Seligman and colleagues proposed that three disadvantages arise as a result of exposing participants to situations over which they have no control: motivational, cognitive, and emotional. Cognitive deficit refers to the subject's perception that his circumstances are beyond his control. Motivational deficit refers to a subject's lack of response to potential methods of coping with a negative situation. Finally, emotional deficit refers to a depressive state that occurs when the subject is in a negative situation that he feels is out of his control.

Important! Based on his research, Seligman discovered an important connection: the link between learned helplessness and depression .

Who is guilty?

Learned helplessness occurs due to a failure in the stimulus-response system. To some extent, it is the opposite of the “pigeon superstition” that we have already written about. But if Skinner's pigeons had the illusion of control over the situation, then the helplessness of Seligman's dogs was precisely caused by the lack of this control. It was as if their reflexes were telling them: “You won’t change anything anyway. So don’t be nervous, don’t waste your energy.”

In humans, learned helplessness usually occurs in the following situations:

A series of failures

No matter how much we would like to believe otherwise, chance plays a very significant role in our lives. This means that every person can fail again and again, no matter how hard he tries. And if some are able to grit their teeth and wait for the “white streak”, then others, after several failures, forever lose the desire to do anything.

Force majeure

There are situations in which we really have no influence on anything. These include natural disasters, unexpected grief in the family, accidents, difficult political or economic conditions in the country, and much more. When people find themselves in such situations, they feel like a chip in a stormy ocean, which is not so far from the truth. This feeling of helplessness can linger and over time develop into a habit.

Game without rules

Sometimes we have to face chaos in the form of society or individuals. And in this case, our actions do not lead to the results that we expect.

A game without rules, in turn, has several options:

- No consequences. Example: the management of an enterprise that ignores all initiatives coming from employees.

- Same consequences. Example: employees receive scolding from their superiors, regardless of the quality of work (as in our case with a tyrant boss).

- Unpredictable consequences. Example: an employee may receive a fine after quality work and a bonus after outright idleness.

People who have to regularly play games without rules eventually become passive and give up.

Learned helplessness and depression

To understand the proposed link between learned helplessness and depression, we need to understand the two types of learned helplessness as outlined by Seligman and colleagues.

General helplessness is a feeling of helplessness when the subject believes that nothing can be done about the situation in which he finds himself. He believes that no one can ease the pain.

Personal helplessness , on the other hand, is a much more localized feeling of helplessness. The subject may believe that others can find a solution or avoid pain, but the subject believes that he is personally incapable of finding a solution.

Both types of helplessness can lead to a state of depression , but the quality of this depression may differ. Those who feel completely helpless will seek to find external causes for both their problems and their inability to solve them, while those who feel helpless will seek to find internal causes.

In addition, those who feel helpless are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem because they believe that others can solve problems that they perceive as incapable of solving.

Although cognitive and motivational deficits are similar for people suffering from both personal and general helplessness, people experiencing personal helplessness tend to have larger and more intense emotional deficits.

In addition to this differentiation between types of helplessness, learned helplessness can be determined by two other factors : generality (global or specific) and stability (chronic or transient).

When a person suffers from global helplessness , they experience negative consequences in several areas of life, not just the most significant area. They are also more likely to suffer from severe depression than those who experience transient helplessness .

Additionally, those who suffer from chronic helplessness (those who have felt helpless for an extended period of time) are more likely to experience the effects of depressive symptoms than those who experience transient helplessness (a short-term and non-recurring feeling of helplessness).

However, depression will vary depending on the type of helplessness. The range of depressive symptoms will depend on the generality and stability of the helplessness, and any impact on self-esteem depends on how the person explains or attributes their experience (internally or externally).

This proposed framework identifies the cause of at least one type of depression—that which stems from helplessness—and provides a path to a cure for it. Researchers have described four strategies for treating helplessness-related depression:

Change the probability of an outcome . Change the environment, increasing the likelihood of desired events and decreasing the likelihood of negative events.
Reduce desire for preferred outcomes. This can be done either by reducing the negativity of events that are beyond the individual's control or by reducing the desirability of events that are highly unlikely.
Change a person's expectations from uncontrollability to controllability when the desired results are achievable. In other words, help the depressed person understand when the outcomes they desire are actually within their control.
Change unrealistic explanations for failure to ones that are external (not due to some inherent flaw in the depressed person themselves), transitory (not chronic) and specific (due to one specific problem, not a larger picture of problems ). Likewise, change unrealistic explanations for success to ones that are internal (due to some inherent strength of depression), stable (chronic), and global (due to general competence rather than a specific area of competence).

Part 2. Subsequent experiments.

During the experiment, it was concluded that troubles themselves do not affect the psyche. An animal, like a person, becomes helpless precisely from its inability to influence the situation. Later, Seligman conducted a similar experiment with people, but instead of current, he used noise. And most people just as quickly became helpless in front of the experimenter and did not try to do anything to change anything.

But in fact, not only troubles can deprive us of willpower and make us helpless. You don't have to use electric current or noise to do this. It is enough to simply limit a person’s choice. A very clear experiment was conducted in 1976 in a nursing home.

To conduct the study, Langer and Rodin randomly selected two floors of a nursing home, the residents of which became participants in the experiment. Thus, the experimental group included 8 men and 39 women (fourth floor), the control group included 9 men and 35 women (second floor), a total of 91 people.

The experimenters agreed with the administration of the institution on two types of experimental conditions. Briefly, they can be described as follows: residents of the fourth floor were given increased responsibility for themselves and their lifestyle, residents of the second floor were given the opportunity to lead a normal lifestyle for patients at home, surrounded by the attention and care of the staff.

Residents of the second floor were given standard instructions at the first meeting:

We want your rooms to look as comfortable as possible and we will try to do everything for this. We want you to feel happy here and we hold ourselves responsible for making sure that you can be proud of our nursing home and be happy here... We will do everything in our power to help you... I would like to take the opportunity to give everyone of you is a gift from Arden House (the employee went around everyone and handed each patient a plant) now these are your plants, they will stand in your room, the nurses will water them and take care of them, you yourself will not need to do anything
— Rodin J., Langer E. Long-term effects of a control relevant intervention with the institutionalized aged

Residents on the fourth floor were told the following:

You yourself must decide what your room will look like, whether you want to leave everything there as is or want our employees to help you rearrange the furniture... You yourself must tell us your wishes, tell us what exactly you would like to change in your life. In addition, I would like to take advantage of our meeting to present each of you with a gift from Arden House. If you decide that you want to have a plant, you can choose the one you like from this box. These plants are yours, you must maintain them and care for them as you see fit. Next week we will be screening the film on two evenings, Tuesday and Friday. You need to decide what day you will go to the cinema and whether you want to see the film at all.
— Rodin J., Langer E. Long-term effects of a control relevant intervention with the institutionalized aged

Please note that essentially everyone was given the same conditions, but with one difference. Conditions were practically imposed on some, while others were given the right to choose. However, the results were very different. Thus, the average level of happiness of a negative value of −0.12 in the “second floor group” was contrasted with an average score of +0.28 in the “fourth floor group” (according to personal reports from patients). The improvement in the condition of patients, as assessed by nurses, in the experimental group showed +3.97 versus −2.39 in the control group. There was also a significant difference in time spent communicating with other patients, talking with staff, and passively observing staff (the latter criterion showed −2.14 in the experimental group versus +4.64 in the control group).

Six months after the study, Langer and Rodin returned to Arden House to take another measurement and find out whether the experimental effect was continuing. Nurses' ratings showed that subjects in the increased responsibility group continued to perform better, with an overall mean score of 352.33 versus 262.00 for the control group. There were also slight improvements in health in the experimental group and deterioration in the control group. Finally, during the time interval since the first study, 30% of the participants in the control group died, while 15% of the participants in the experimental group died. Based on the results obtained, the administration of Arden House decided to further encourage patients’ desire to control their own lives.

What could be the cause of helplessness?

Learned helplessness is, unsurprisingly, associated with many negative characteristics, including:

Age: The older a person is, the more likely they are to change or lose their roles.
Especially the stress associated with poverty.
Anxiety and worry , especially regarding tests for students.
Greater negative response to expected pain.

Not only is learned helplessness often associated with other negative conditions, but it also causes a variety of negative consequences, including:

Negative symptoms, as well as negative emotions about the disease.
Maladaptive perfectionism.
Burnout or emotional exhaustion and cynicism.
Worsening depression, anxiety, phobias, shyness and loneliness in those already suffering.

INCENTIVES OR SANCTIONS

Helplessness occurs when too much time passes between actions and their consequences: the person already behaves differently, but the assessment remains the same. Delayed reactions are often disorienting and confusing. For example, a child consistently gets C grades and listens to parents’ dissatisfaction. He is trying his best to change the situation and feels that he is doing much better. But the grades are still the same, and the teacher still treats him the same - as an “average student.” In the end, he quits studying, and suddenly a dynamic appears: the teacher begins to praise him, his parents are happy. As a result of the reaction of adults to their actions, the child begins to perceive it as a lottery: you never know for sure what to expect - rewards or “penalties.” The child cannot build a connection between assessments of the environment and the results of his activities, and therefore the question arises: “Was it worth trying at all?”

Learned helplessness in education

The topic of learned helplessness comes up quite often in education. It is a very interesting question about how early academic failure or low academic self-esteem can affect later success, and how relationships can be influenced to increase the chances of success.

Learned helplessness in students creates a vicious cycle. Those who feel that they cannot succeed are unlikely to put much effort into academic work , which reduces their chances of success, leading to even less motivation and effort.

This vicious cycle can end with the student having little to no motivation to study the subject and no competence in the subject. Worse, it can lead to a more general feeling of helplessness, in which the student does not believe in his or her abilities and is not motivated to study any subject at school.

The reasons students give for their failures or successes are critical. If a student believes that he failed because the teacher hates him or he is simply stupid, he blames factors beyond his control and is likely to develop a feeling of helplessness. If a student believes that they failed because they did not study hard enough, they will blame factors that are under their control, which is much less likely to lead to an overall feeling of helplessness.

Fortunately, there are several strategies that can prevent students from learning to be helpless, including:

Teachers need to provide praise and encouragement based on a student's ability (e.g., "You are good at math" or "You have a knack for this subject") to help them believe that they are good at those tasks or subjects.
Teachers need to provide praise and encouragement based on student effort (e.g., “Your hours of hard work paid off on this test!”) to help them believe that their efforts will make a difference.
Work on individual goal setting with students to help them understand that goals can be achieved and that results are often within their sphere of influence.

There are several very important strategies for teachers and parents:

Curate and create learning resources to help students become comfortable with not knowing an answer and looking for the answer in the right places.
Use questions to guide learning (e.g., use questions that encourage the student to think about their own learning patterns rather than just thinking about what they know).
Don't give students the answers. Instead, help them learn it at their own pace and using their own methods - they'll be more likely to remember it that way!
Let them fail. Failure and trying again are vital - as long as you support them when they fail.

Why some people are immune to the effects of learned helplessness

Not everyone who has experienced childhood abuse, domestic violence, or other negative experiences develops learned helplessness.

It's all about Seligman ME, Peterson C. Learned Helplessness. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001, how a particular person reacts to the events that happen to him, how he explains them. Martin Seligman believes that people with a pessimistic attitude towards life are more likely to experience learned helplessness. According to the scientist, optimists more often consider troubles to be random and independent of their actions, while pessimists do the opposite. Negative thinking can give rise to the feeling that failure is natural.

To prove his theory, Seligman analyzed T. Gordeeva. Psychology of achievement motivation. — M., 2015 texts of election speeches of US presidential candidates over several decades. He concluded that those who made more optimistic statements always won. According to the researcher, this suggests that a person who believes in the best is more likely to succeed.

However, it is worth saying that the success of a pessimistic or optimistic strategy depends on the sphere of human activity. The same Seligman writes that it is better for a company if its leader is an optimist, and his deputy is a pessimist. The latter tend to assess the situation more realistically, which is very important in solving many problems.

Learned helplessness in relationships and domestic violence

In addition to education, people who focus on domestic violence often develop learned helplessness. This is often seen in relationships and among victims of domestic violence.

In fact, this phenomenon has helped us find answers to some of the questions people ask about victims who stay with their abusers, such as:

Why didn't they tell someone?
Why didn't they try to get help?
Why didn't they just leave?

Important! It is difficult to explain the impact of abuse on the victim's behavior. Ultimately, observers may think that there is no point in staying with someone who hurts them.

However, in cases of domestic violence and abuse, abusers often use a series of "electric shocks" (that is, a form of violence to which they subject their victims) to acclimatize victims of abuse and teach them that they have no control over the situation. Abusers remain in complete control, while victims understand that they are helpless in their circumstances.

In such cases, it is easy to see how abuse can lead to learned helplessness , which can subsequently lead to a lack of motivation to rescue on the part of the victim. Just as the dogs in Seligman and Mayer's experiments learned that no matter what they did, they would be shocked, victims of domestic violence and abuse learn that no matter what they do, they will always remain powerless and under the control of their abusers .

Important! These perceptions are incredibly difficult to change and often require intensive therapy and support.

Based on learned helplessness, a specific theory has been developed for victims of domestic violence called the theory of cyclical violence, a cycle that is sometimes called battered women syndrome . In this theory, relationships in which domestic violence has occurred are likely to continually involve violence that occurs in a predictable and repetitive pattern.

This pattern generally follows this structure:

Stage One: A period of increasing tension in which the abuser becomes angry, communication breaks down, and the victim feels the need to give in and submit to the abuser.
Stage two: the role-playing period in which the abuse occurs.
Stage three: the honeymoon period, during which the offender can apologize and show remorse. The abuser may also promise to never abuse the victim again or, alternatively, blame the victim for instigating the abuse.
Stage four: a calm period when the abuse stops, the abuser behaves as if it never happened, and the victim may begin to believe that the abuse has stopped and the abuser will change.

From this perspective, it is not surprising that many victims of domestic violence become scientifically helpless. When they are abused in a continuous cycle , no matter what they do, they are likely to feel completely helpless and unable to escape the abuse.

The theory of cyclical violence suggests that victims of violence not only feel helpless, but also:

Re-experience the beating.
They try to avoid the psychological impact of the beating by avoiding actions, people and emotions.
Experience hyperactivity or hypervisibility.
Breakdown of interpersonal relationships.
Experiencing somatic problems.

Important! It is clear that learned helplessness is a serious and pressing problem for victims of domestic violence and other abuses. Fortunately, there are several ways to treat learned helplessness.

How to deal with this phenomenon?

Learned helplessness can be overcome. Of course, the best solution would be to contact a psychologist or psychotherapist. This is the case when you need to work with a person’s internal attitudes.

There are several methods tested by practicing psychologists that help you cope with learned helplessness on your own:

Fix the control zone. It is necessary to identify those actions that can be taken to really influence something, at least to a small extent. For example, a company manager is not sure what can influence a client’s decision to purchase a product during a cold call. But he can make that call and have the conversation, and that's his area of influence. Or even several such calls. You can define for yourself this zone of immediate control - simple actions that will definitely lead to results, and write them down every day in your success diary.
It is important to find at least small cases in the past when something worked. This gives hope that the same will happen in the future. Praise yourself even for small successes, do not devalue your own results.
Analyze the chances of success in case of action and in case of refusal to act, and also determine for yourself the cost of failure. How scary is it if the action does not lead to success? What is the likelihood that it will still lead? In any case, this is more than in the case of refusing an action - there will definitely not be a refusal, but the chance of success is also lost.
People suffering from learned helplessness syndrome tend to repeat the same negative thought in their head over and over again. This phenomenon is called rumination or “mental chewing.” It is very helpful to write this thought down on paper and work with it, asking yourself the right questions. “Why do I think this? How do I know this? Who told me this? What is the benefit of thinking this way and refusing to act?” This kind of work helps to rebuild the endless internal monologue into a constructive dialogue with yourself.
Separate real objective facts from your beliefs. How to do it? You can try to add the phrase “I think that...” to any statement and see how it changes and whether it loses its meaning.

And most importantly: don’t be afraid to lose. One defeat does not mean complete surrender. Sometimes you need to get out of a situation where winning is impossible in principle, in order to save yourself. This applies primarily to traumatic situations and codependent relationships. A wise commander will retreat in an unequal battle in order to preserve his strength for future battles.

In life, it is very important to move forward, at least in small steps, and not give up in the face of difficulties. Even dogs managed to cope with the situation, and humans have much more capabilities. Even if it seems to him that they are not there at all.

Learned helplessness: book

Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control was written by psychologist Christopher Peterson along with pioneering helplessness researchers Mayer and Seligman.

It highlights the research that inspired the theory of learned helplessness , and provides compelling and comprehensive research. It describes the connection between learned helplessness and depression, as well as exploring other aspects such as cognitive and biological aspects.

Important! If you are looking for a deeper dive into this topic, this book will provide you with an informative overview of learned helplessness.

HOW TO PREVENT

Parents can show the child that he can control the situation and his actions will lead to both positive and negative results. When showing your emotions, you need to clarify what exactly - what mistakes or successes - caused them, and balance the lists of “punishments” and “rewards”. At the same time, it is important to react immediately, and not after some time. Otherwise, complaints become general, lose connection with the results of specific actions, and criticism (praise) is attributed to the bad (good) attitude or mood of the parents, that is, it is recognized as biased.

“Learned helplessness” results from both 100% guaranteed and easy success, when a person does everything with his left hand, and constant defeat. In both cases, the feeling of dependence of the results on one’s own efforts is lost, and search activity drops. It can be raised in a situation of uncertain prognosis and variable success. Therefore, it is important to present your child with difficult problems, and it is better if they do not have an unambiguous solution: the further they are from formal logic, the higher the search activity.

Immunity against helplessness is formed in childhood. Seligman discovered that some volunteers seemed to have been “vaccinated.” It turned out that at an early age they were taught to understand when their actions cause positive reactions and when they cause negative reactions. Over time, these people developed internal evaluation criteria, and they learned that much depends on their personal efforts. Therefore, they tried to change the situation even after others had already stopped trying. With such “immunity” people are always ready to make independent decisions and never give up. Their optimism continues unabated. They tend to attribute failures to a combination of specific circumstances, and attribute success to their own merits. They have high and stable self-esteem. And difficulties only get them going.

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Treatment for children and adults

Important! Although learned helplessness can be difficult to overcome, there are ways to combat it.

One potential treatment based on neuroscience research is the connection between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (a part of the brain that plays a role in suppressing emotional responses) and the dorsal raphe nucleus (a part of the brain stem associated with serotonin and depression) and learned helplessness.

This potential treatment could be aimed at stimulating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and inhibiting the dorsal raphe nucleus through medications, electrical stimulation, transmagnetic stimulation, or psychologically through therapy.

In particular, recent studies have shown that transmagnetic stimulation (TMS) is quite effective in treating depression . Given the link between learned helplessness and depression, it makes sense to think that treating one might be an effective treatment for the other.

Speaking of effective treatments for depression, therapy is also a good choice for people struggling with learned helplessness. Those who feel helpless may benefit from working with a mental health professional to explore the reasons for their helplessness, replace old and harmful beliefs with new and healthier beliefs, and develop a sense of self- compassion .

A study conducted by psychologist Carol Dweck (the researcher who proposed the growth versus fixed mindset ) found that there is another extremely effective way to alleviate learned helplessness: through failure.

In Dweck's 1975 study on the subject, participants (all of whom were experiencing an extreme reaction to failure) were divided into two groups: one received intensive training in which they did not perform their tasks, and they were instructed to take responsibility for their failure and attributing it to a lack of effort while the other group underwent intensive training. The results showed that the group that received training alone showed no improvement in their extreme reactions to failure, while the group that received failure showed a marked improvement.

Important! This experiment was one of several studies conducted in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s that laid the foundation for a new theory of human behavior related to failure, learned helplessness, and resilience .

About responsibility

Residents of the fourth floor, who were in control of their lives, felt happier than residents of the second, who received maximum care, but did not have the opportunity to take responsibility for their lives (the average “level of happiness” for the former was +0.28, for the latter – -0.12). The analysis of their condition showed the same thing. According to the medical staff, residents of the fourth floor showed a clear improvement in their scores (+3.97), while residents of the second floor showed a deterioration (–2.39). Even in terms of communication, the participants in the experimental group were ahead. The indicator of time spent talking with each other and with nurses was +4.64 for residents of the fourth floor, and -2.14 for residents of the second. In addition, the participants in the experimental group were also active in terms of watching a movie, as well as in a simple game, the goal of which was to guess the number of sweets in a jar (out of 47 people living on the fourth floor, 10 took part in the game, and out of 45 living on the second , only one).

After analyzing the results, Langer and Rhoden concluded that some of the things that typically contribute to aging—memory loss or decreased vitality—are likely due to people no longer having control over their lives. And to avoid this, it is enough to restore older people’s faith in their own strength, the right to choose and make decisions.

Moreover, six months later the psychologists returned to the nursing home to take measurements again and understand whether the experiment was still working. It turned out, yes! Nurses showed that former participants in the experimental group continued to feel better (their average overall score was 352.33, while in the control group it was 262.00). The residents of the fourth floor also experienced an improvement in health, while the second floor, on the contrary, worsened.

The experiment had such a decisive impact that the indicators even affected mortality! Thus, over the past period of time, 30% of people died in the control group, and only 15% in the experimental group. It was these observations that led to the nursing home’s management deciding to continue to encourage people’s desire for responsibility and control over their lives. This time - for absolutely all residents of Arden House.

Other similar experiments showed the same results. Even in conditions where older people did not have the opportunity to choose and control their own lives, in some cases they began to commit self-destructive actions (refusing food or medicine). After all, this was the only thing they could still choose.

But it's not just about the elderly. Quite young people also gave similar reactions, and in different situations. Let's say in a crowded elevator, which was perceived as more free and causing less anxiety if a person was close to the control buttons.

Seligman's model of optimism

Seligman, one of the researchers who helped discover the phenomenon of learned helplessness, later found his attention drawn to what may be the exact opposite of learned helplessness: optimism .

Although Seligman's name had been synonymous with learned helplessness for many years, he knew he had much more to offer the world. His work on this topic led him to think about what other perspectives could be learned and whether people could develop positive traits rather than developing feelings of helplessness.

Seligman's research led him to create a model of learned optimism. He found that through resilience training, people can learn to develop a more optimistic outlook. This ability has been observed in children, teachers, military personnel and many others.

It may not be as easy to learn optimism as it is to learn helplessness, but it can be done . If you want to learn more about optimism and how you can learn it, check out Seligman's book, Learned Optimism: How to Transform Your Mind and Your Life . In addition to a brief overview of the research on the subject, you'll also read about several simple techniques you can use to develop a more positive and compassionate explanatory style .

Part 3. Summary.

What conclusion should be drawn from all this? I would like to believe that the poor dogs did not suffer in vain and each of you will draw a conclusion that would probably have been obvious even without their suffering. If you have troubles in your life, it’s probably your own fault! Think about it: aren’t you the same dog in a cage who doesn’t want to solve its problems? As it turns out, even old people can perk up if their lives are given meaning, so isn’t it because we sometimes give in to despair that we just need to pull ourselves together a little? I think this is worth thinking about...

NO CONSEQUENCES

A woman once approached me whose adult daughter “doesn’t want to do anything at all.” The family is very wealthy, and the daughter is not denied anything. A chain of nail salons was registered under her name in the hope that she would manage and develop her business herself. But she let everything take its course and does anything but work: meets with friends, disappears into the fitness club. In general, she continues to lead an idle lifestyle and has no interest in the work entrusted to her. Parents are perplexed: “No responsibility! She doesn’t care about anything!” – and don’t understand why their child is so helpless. Since childhood, they have accepted absolutely everything - “ups” and “downs”, high and low results - as a given, calmly and neutrally: no matter what she does, there is no reaction. Without any reference points, the girl felt like she was in an airless space, so she learned: her parents would understand everything in any case and sort everything out, and she shouldn’t worry about anything.

Signs

You can suspect the presence of the syndrome based on a person’s speech. This will be indicated by phrases that an individual uses more often than others:

“It’s family.”
“I was born a failure, under an unlucky star.”
“I can’t...” or “I don’t want...” (the latter is an attempt to convince oneself and others that what was unattainable was not really desired).
“I never succeed.”
"I always lose."
“Something always happens to me.”
“I won’t succeed anyway,” “yes, as always, I’ll screw up.”

People with learned helplessness syndrome believe in evil fate, bad luck, a bad horoscope, a curse and other external factors that a person cannot influence. And if they succeed in something, then they see it as the merit of other people, an accident, luck. The thinking of such people is programmed for failure. They become victims of dependent relationships, scammers.

What to do

Just as Selingman taught dogs new behaviors, humans must adjust theirs. The teaching method is characteristic of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy.

If a person sees the world in black tones, waiting for the next blow and a series of sufferings, then this is what he finds. This further strengthens his belief in evil fate. But in reality, we are simply looking for confirmation of what we believe.

This should become the basis of psychotherapy. What's included:

Changing negative thinking to positive.
Correction of self-esteem, increasing self-confidence.
Getting to know yourself, self-acceptance, forming an adequate image of “I”, awareness of your own potential.
Returning control over life through the use of individual abilities, distinguishing between what is amenable to human control and what is not. Training in the practical use of personal potential.

To get rid of learned helplessness, it is necessary to resuscitate a person’s will, eliminate apathy, and in especially severe cases, PTSD. The syndrome is always preceded by psychological trauma. It is necessary to find what affects a person from the inside and eliminate it.

You can try to do this yourself, rethinking the disturbing situation and current conditions, your capabilities:

Do what you can do. Whatever, the main thing is to give yourself at least some choice, a sense of control. Take a walk, read a book, do push-ups, brush your teeth, decide what to cook for dinner, rearrange your room. This method is used in prisons: do something. But do not use this method in isolation, as it may lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Change your self-perception with positive memories. Our brain concentrates on the negative, but every person can remember at least a couple of situations in which he was a winner. Remember to create success situations in the present time and collect more such memories. Do you need to call someone or clean out your closet? It's time. This will be another reminder that much in life depends on you. Make a plan, keep a diary of goals and achievements. Look there, celebrate successes, reward yourself and form a new belief: “I build my own life,” “my actions are important.”

To reframe the situation, use the reframing method proposed by Selingman:

Choose a negative situation from the past that makes you feel helpless.
Write down your vision of the situation: what happened, how you perceived it.
Now write down your responses to that situation, your behavior and how you felt.
Next, from the point of view of current experience and perception, find facts that cast doubt on the perception of the current situation as negative and exclude your guilt in what happened.
Imagine an alternative reaction to events. What emotions and feelings are you experiencing now?

Analyze each stressful situation in a similar way. Over time, you will notice that they repeat themselves. People and circumstances change, but you have the same experiences, and the responses are similar. Change your attitude to the situation, think through new models of behavior. Over time, you will learn new coping strategies.

If, in the process of working on yourself, the feeling of helplessness has intensified, negative self-perception has strengthened, or you cannot get out of bed and start working on yourself, your hands literally give up, and you rate the traumatic experience higher than 7 points on a 10-point school, then immediately see a psychotherapist.

Psychological experiments Author of the article: Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov Ivanov I. I. —>
Contents of the article: Human behavior during the syndrome of learned (or “acquired”) helplessness seems paradoxical.
This is the name given to a condition of a person or animal in which the individual makes no attempt to solve a problem and get rid of discomfort, although he has such an opportunity .

A person continues to suffer, although one simple movement is enough to eliminate the cause of suffering.

The state of learned helplessness usually appears after several attempts to influence the source of trouble or avoid it; after attempts do not produce the expected effect, the individual completely stops any actions, becomes passive, loses a sense of control and freedom. A person in such a situation may develop a depressed mood, depression, and the onset of death may accelerate.

The phenomenon of learned helplessness was first discovered and studied by American psychologist Martin Seligman in 1967. He conducted special experiments that confirmed his assumptions.

Causes

As Kuhl's experiment shows, the syndrome can form at any age and under any circumstances. A similar effect can have:

long-term illness;
paralysis;
jail;
slavery;
captivity;
unemployment and failures in hiring, refusals without explanation;
a boss or husband who is inconsistent in his reactions and is guided by his mood;
any traumatic situation can bind a person’s hands, but stress is perceived subjectively, and therefore it is impossible to identify common factors in the occurrence of the syndrome.

The common prerequisite for the occurrence of the syndrome for all people is the lack of choice. It is important for every person to feel in control of the situation, life, and themselves. This is what choice is for. It gives self-confidence and prevents the development of helplessness.

If learned helplessness syndrome was formed in childhood and is part of the victim’s thinking, then the reasons are as follows:

Authoritarian or overprotective style of family education, suppression of independence, initiative, and individuality of the child.
Example of parents. Learned helplessness is inherited. If parents are afraid of life changes, go with the flow, are accustomed to suffering and enduring, the child will probably also internalize this scenario.
Criticism, reproach, punishment, focusing on the child’s shortcomings, frequent repetition of phrases like “you can’t”, “you won’t succeed”.
Comforting praise, white lie. Children understand when their parents sincerely praise them and when they console them. The result with consolation is the same: the attitude “I’m stupid.” Constructive criticism and help in working on mistakes is more useful than pity.
Comparing the child with other children and parents at this age. Inflated demands and expectations of parents, a fictional image of an ideal child.
Education based on gender stereotypes. Girls grow up convinced of their weakness, and boys do not know how to take care of themselves in everyday life. Gender stereotypes deprive a person of psychological flexibility. This is an additional factor in the development of helplessness syndrome.
Chaos, contradictory educational positions of parents, frequent changes in developmental conditions, inconstancy and instability of parents' demands.

With such upbringing, a child already at the age of 8 will be convinced of his own worthlessness and helplessness. This attitude will last a lifetime. Only a psychotherapist can help you get rid of it.

How learned helplessness ruins life and how to deal with it