Neuroplasticity by Adrian Winship

Author:Adrian Winship [Winship, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190635374
Published: 2019-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

Learned Helplessness

For most people, when they have bad experiences, they try to do whatever is needed to change their situations. However, those who suffer from trauma or PTSD may also experience learned helplessness. This occurs when people feel like they don't have any control over the things that happen in their lives. These people simply accept their “fate,” no matter how bad the situation gets. Since they believe that they have no control, they start behaving in a helpless way.

Learned helplessness was an accidental discovery by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier (Seligman & Maier, Failure to escape traumatic shock, 1967). They observed this behavior in canines that, through classical conditioning, expected an electric shock after they heard a specific tone. Through this experiment, they found that the canines stopped trying to improve their situation after being exposed to it for a significant amount of time.

Learned helplessness is also quite common in human beings, especially in those who suffer from trauma or PTSD. The longer people remain in this state of learned helplessness, the more difficult it is to take them out of this state. In addition to trauma and PTSD, learned helplessness is also associated with other psychological disorders such as loneliness, shyness, anxiety, depression and phobias.

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