The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, Personality Processes and Individuals Differences: Personality Processes and Individual Differences by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2020-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Learned Helplessness

Harriet Winterflood and Emma A. Climie

Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

Learned helplessness is a behavioral response that occurs when individuals realize that the outcomes following a response are uncontrollable. For example, a child who is struggling with mathematics and continually performs poorly on tests and assignments may quickly begin to feel as though nothing he does may improve his performance and when he subsequently encounters math‐related work, he may experience a sense of helplessness. As adults, individuals continue to encounter situations where they demonstrate learned helplessness behavior. For example, those who were once engaged with the political process may become frustrated with lack of change or perceived broken promises. As a result, individuals may become discouraged and no longer exercise their right to vote, as they believe that their voice does not matter.

Learned helplessness is a result of individuals being exposed to negative consequences (e.g., failing a math test), independent of one’s behavior (e.g., trying very hard) and continues to impact the individual’s future behaviors (e.g., no longer willing to try to improve math abilities). Learned helplessness only occurs if the individual has no control over the aversive event, and does not occur if the individual does have some control over the outcome. There are three primary components of learned helplessness: motivational, emotional, and cognitive.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.