Most of the time people have a feeling that they do not have control over situations that happen in their life and they tend to give up and accept the eventualities that come with the situation. This condition is known as learned helplessness. The idea was first proposed by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier during late 1960s and early 1970s when they experimented with dogs by conditioning them through electrical shock (Seligman & Maier, 2016). This paper will try to explain the concept of learned helplessness, how it develops, and how people who have learned to be helpless differ from those who have not learned this. Learned helplessness has been demonstrated in humans as well as animals including rats, elephants, dogs, and mice. Learning helplessness is associated with many psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, shyness, fear, and loneliness.
The learned helplessness was accidentally discovered by Seligman and Maier when they learned some conditions of helplessness in dogs that were conditioned to some electrical shock (Cherry, 2014). Later, Seligman and Maier placed the dogs in two-chambered shutter boxes separated by a membrane whereby one side was subjected to electrical shock while the other chamber was not subjected to electrical shock. The dogs that were initially subjected to electrical shock without any option of escaping did not attempt to escape while those dogs that had not been subjected to electrical shock moved to the chamber that was not electrified. Based on their previous experience, the dogs that were submitted to electrical shock and could not escape had developed a cognitive behavior that nothing would protect them from the shock regardless of what they did. Seligman and Maier, therefore, concluded coming up with the term learned helplessness.
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Learned helplessness is not only found in dogs but also human beings and other animals. For instance, in an elephant, a baby elephant is trained by being tied by a rope to a tree. The elephant tries to escape, but doesn't manage. Eventually, the baby elephant accepts its situation and quiets down by accepting its range of motion. As time goes by and the elephant grows up when trained, it still does not break off from the rope because it learned that no matter what it made its efforts were worthless when it came to free itself. Consequently, the elephant has enough power and strength to free itself, but it does not.
In human beings, the situation is no unique, although these extreme experiments have not been performed on them; but there are human responses in such circumstances that prove humans also suffer learned helplessness. An experiment carried out in human beings in 1974 where they were categorized into three groups. The first group was subjected to loud noise and was capable of stopping the noise by pressing a button that was availed to them. The next group was also subjected to the unpleasant noise, but the button provided to them was nonfunctional. The third set of people was not exposed to any noise. Eventually, all the human beings were exposed to some loud noise and additionally provided with an instrument that would turn off the noise when manipulated. Consequently, those individuals who lacked control over the sound in the initial experiment failed to attempt to turn off the noise whereas the other people figured out how to turn off the noise.
Subjecting people to situations that they cannot escape results in motivational, emotional, and cognitive deficits. In an emotional deficit, subjects are in a depressed situation where they are in a negative, and they believe the situation is not under their control. Whereas in cognitive deficiency, the subjects think their situations are uncontrollable. Finally, in the motivational deficit, the subjects do not respond to potential methods of escaping an adverse circumstance. Consequently, there is a correlation between depression and learned helplessness. Individuals suffering from learned helplessness usually depict symptoms and effects of depression than individuals without or with mild learned helplessness.
People with learned helplessness have characteristics that alienate them from people who do not have learned helplessness: it impacts self-esteem of individuals, stress, anxiety, and negative response to the anticipated agony (Cherry, 2016). Additionally, learned helplessness contributes to turnover intentions, negative health symptoms, burnout, maladaptive perfectionism, shyness, loneliness, and phobias. For instance, in students suffering from learned helplessness, it affects their efforts and motivation to work harder in school thereby impacting their academic performance. However, learned helplessness can also have positive effects on students in school since the impact of self-esteem can be used to assess the chances of success. For example, teachers can motivate the students by praising and encouraging them based on their efforts and working on individual goal setting with them to achieve their goals.
Learned helplessness is a severe problem causing anxiety in the victims and needs urgent help. The negative impacts of learned helplessness such as turnover intentions, negative health symptoms, burnout, maladaptive perfectionism, shyness, loneliness, and phobias can develop to serious effects when left unattended. Motivating people with learned helplessness in ways such as encouraging them can have far-reaching advantages to the individuals.
References
Cherry, K. (2014). What is learned helplessness and why does it happen? VeryWell Mind. Retrieved on 13 November 2018, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326
