Learned Helplessness....
learned helplessness
Medical
learned helplessness
n.
A laboratory model of depression in which exposure to a series of unforeseen adverse situations gives rise to a sense of helplessness or an inability to cope with or devise ways to escape such situations, even when escape is possible.
Wikipedia
learned helplessness
Learned helplessness, a term initially used in experimental psychology, is a description of the effect of inescapable negative reinforcement (such as electrical shock) on animal (and by extension, human) behavior.
It is also evoked as an explanation for a human condition in which apathy and submission prevail, causing the individual to rely fully on others for help. This can result when life circumstances cause the individual to experience life choices as irrelevant. Chemical dependence may also foster such a condition.
Extremely predictable environments such as a total institution and extremely unpredictable environments such as war, famine and drought may tend to foster learned helplessness. An example involves concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust, when some prisoners, called Mussulmen, refused to care or fend for themselves. Present-day examples can be found in state-run mental institutions, orphanages or long-term care facitilites. People in a state of learned helplessness, view problems as personal, pervasive, or permanent. That is,
Personal - They may see themselves as the problem; that is, they have internalized the problem.
Pervasive - They may see the problem affecting all aspects of life.
Permanent - They may see the problem as unchangeable.
Questioning these so-called "3 Ps" usually helps individuals to break out of a mindset of learned helplessness.1 A tremendous crisis may, however, also rouse a person from learned helplessness, a fictional example portrayed in the novel Titus Groan, as the aristocrat Gertrude wakes from a state of childlike apathy into the role of leadership as disaster threatens her home. Once the crisis passes, she returns to her previous placid state.
Early work
The early work on learned helplessness was done by Martin Seligman2 at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. His experiment involved three dogs affixed in harnesses. The first dog was simply put in the harness for a period of time and later released. The second dog was put in the harness, and given painful electric shocks, which he could end by pressing a lever. The third dog was wired in parallel with the second dog, receiving shocks of identical intensity and duration, but his lever didn't do anything. The first and second dogs quickly recovered from the experience, but the third dog suffered chronic symptoms of clinical depression.
A slightly different experiment was conducted where 2 groups of dogs were put in hammocks. One group was given shocks and were able to make them stop, the other group was unable to stop them. Later they were put in a room that was divided in half by a low barrier. One group of dogs were given electric shocks and jumped over the barrier to escape. The other group were given shocks, but as they had "learned helplessness" from the previous experiment, they just lay down and whined, and even though they could have escaped the shocks, they didn't try. Other experiments were performed with different animals with similar results. In all cases, the strongest predictor of a depressive response was lack of control over the negative stimulus.
A similar experiment was done with people performing mental tasks in the presence of distracting noise. If the person had a switch that would turn off the noise, their performance improved, even though they rarely bothered to turn off the noise. Simply being aware of the ability to do so was enough to substantially counteract its distracting effect.
Learned Helplessness Theory
Explanations > Theories > Learned Helplessness Theory
Description | Research | Example | So What? | See also | References
Description
How we attribute the events that occur in our lives has a significant effect on our attitudes and efforts in improving our lot. In particular there are three types of belief affect us:
Stable or unstable cause: If we believe that events are caused by factors which do not change, we assume that it is not worth us trying to change them. So if I believe my success is based on an unchangeable ability, it will seem that it is not worth my trying to improve myself.
Internal or External cause: We can believe that events are caused by ourselves or something outside of ourselves. If I assume a serious car crash was my fault, I will be less likely to drive again than if I attribute it to a greasy road.
Global or Specific cause: If we believe that events are caused by a large number of factors then we feel we can do less to change things than if we see few and specific causes.
Research
Seligman rang a bell whilst shocking a restrained dog. He then allowed it to move out of the way and rang the bell again. The dog did not move! What it had learned was not that ringing a bell means pain, but that it is futile trying to get away from shocks.
Example
If a poor test result is attributed to a lack of intrinsic capability as evidenced by many past failures, then we are likely to reduce our efforts, be more depressed and view ourselves in an ever-fading light.
So what?
Using it
To build influence, make and encourage attributions about other people so they learn helplessness and become dependent on you.
To help people become less helpless, show them what is happening. Help them make attributions that lead to positive actions and 'learned confidence'.
Defending
Positively seek unstable, external and specific causes that mean you can change your world. Guard against friends and others who push you into dependence.
Learned Helplessness
and Attribution for Success and
Failure in LD Students
By Nicki G. Arnold
Their World 1996/1997
National Center for Learning Disabilities
Reprinted with permission
In the 1960 's, a group of researchers observed a phenomenon they called learned helplessness. In a controlled study, they used electric shocks when dogs tried to leave their cage. Later the dogs were provided a way out, but they made no effort to escape. Apparently, they had learned that they were helpless. The fact that learning disabled children may become learned helpless in academic settings has been supported by numerous studies. Continual exposure to academic failure has been shown to contribute to learned helplessness, withdrawal, unwillingness to approach new tasks, and a lack of persistence. Like the dogs in the study, they may apply this maladaptive behavior to new situations where they are capable of academic success, but think their efforts are useless.
Other factors have been shown to contribute to this learned academic helplessness. Grouping students with a variety of disabilities under the tutelage of one teacher with generic training, excessive use of external reinforcement, lack of early identification of learning disabilities, a belief in a fixed static intelligence and a lack of reward for individual effort versus achievement are all important issues to consider.
THE THEORY OF ATTRIBUTION
Attribution Theory contains the underlying principles by which a person decides the causes of another person's behavior These perceived causes can be dispositional and internal or situational and external. People often determine whether a behavior is dispositional or situational by using three key factors: consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. Consensus refers to how most people act in a given situation. When consensus is low, behavior is attributed to dispositional or internal factors. When consensus is high, behavior is attributed to situational factors. Consistency refers to the degree to which people act in the same way on different occasions. Highly consistent behavior is attributed to dispositional factors. Distinctiveness refers to the extent to which people respond differently in different situations. If distinctiveness is low and people act similarly in different situations, behavior is attributed to dispositional factors. In general, if a behavior is unusual, it is attributed to the situation. If it is not unusual, it is attributed to the disposition. While this may hold true in a laboratory, people in real life are subject to many variables, so assigning attribution to any one factor is impossible.
ATTRIBUTION FOR ACADEMIC SUCCESS AND FAILURE
It has been suggested that learning disabled students tend to exhibit less motivation and persistence in academic tasks. One school of thought is that academic failure is based on difficulties in the regulation of locus, stability and controllability. Self-bias also appears to play an important part in this attribution model. This model can easily be applied to children in school. The student who receives an "A" on a test may perceive himself to be bright and intelligent. The egocentric bias kicks in. He feels he was more central than may actually have been the case and is likely to be motivated to work hard for that "A" the next time. The student who receives an "F" on a test, following the same thought process of his "A" counterpart, might assume that he was central to his failure and see himself as stupid, the consequence being a decrease in motivation to study for the next test. The "F" student might, however, say things like "the teacher was biased, " "I was unlucky, " or "I didn't study," in order to avoid making a dispositional attribute of "I'm stupid." He could then view his behavior as controllable and unstable, and be motivated for the next test.
ATTRIBUTIONS OF LEARNING DISABLED STUDENTS
Research has repeatedly shown that children with learning disabilities make different attributions of success and failure than their normally achieveing peers, and that these attributions may interfere with their classroom performance. Studies have suggested the following about academic achievement and self concept attributions of learning disabled students:
1. Students with learning disabilities are more likely to make external attributions for both success and failure than their non-disabled peers. Specificallv, they are less likely to attribute success to ability or internal, controllable, and stable factors and are more likely to attribute success to luck or external, uncontrollable and unstable factors.
2. Students with learning disabilities have lower global self concepts than non-disabled peers. This lowered self-concept was reported as early as grade three, and was found to remain stable through high school. Students with learning disabilities who were neither identified nor given special placement experienced lower academic self-concepts than those who were identified and specifically placed. Severely learning disabled students who received full-time special placement experienced increased academic self-concept, especially in reading.
SPECIFIC EDUCATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
Students with learning disabilities must he placed in situations where it is possible to experience academic success. The fact that 60% of illiterate adults are learning disabled is evidence of our present failure to educate this population. Early intervention is critical. As stated by Yale University professor Dr. Sally Shaywitz at a 1994 conference sponsored by NCLD in Washington, DC, "We can identify by age five which children will have difficulty learning to read and we know which teaching methods are most successful." Reading ability was chosen as a criterion for learning disability because eighty-five to ninety percent of school aged children with learning disabilities manifest specific reading or language based disabilities. It is also assumed that an inability to read would make academic success in other academic classes difficult if not impossible. Mainstreaming students with learning disabilities does not improve self-concept, but appropriate special placement and support services increase self-concept. Most teachers are not qualified to teach learning disabled students. Therefore, these students should be grouped outside of the mainstream for academic classes where multisensory and proven teaching techniques can be used. Students should continue in these academic settings until their reading levels are commensurate with their intellectual potential, and attribution retraining should begin as soon as possible. Students with learning disabilities should be taught how to set realistic goals, develop plans to achieve these goals, monitor self-behavior, and accept responsibility for goal directed activities. After specific attribution for success and failure of learning disabled students should not differ from that of their normally achieving peers.
CONCLUSION
Learning disabled students who are unable to achieve academic success can become learned helpless in academic situations. Attribution for academic success and failure can contribute to learned helplessness. If these attributions guide behavior, the attributions must be changed if behavior is to change.