Kinesiology 1070A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Learned Helplessness
11 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Learned helplessness
Martin Seligman Experiment
- In 1965, a scientist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs.
- He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov – the guy who could make dogs salivate when
they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell
instead of providing food he zapped them with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained
them in a harness during the experiment.
- After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two
halves. They figured if they rang the bell, the dog would hop over the fence to escape, but it
did’t. It just sat thee ad aed itself.
- They decided to try shocking them after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When
they put a dog in the box which had never been shocked before and tried to zap it – it jumped
the fence.
Adaptive versus Maladaptive Achievement Patterns Associated with Learned Helplessness
- Cognitive
- Motivational
- Emotional
Cognitive
• Adaptive- Maintenance of effective strategies or development of new strategies under
difficult/adverse situations
• Maladaptive- Deterioration of effective strategies or a failure to develop new strategies
under difficult/adverse situations
Motivational
• Adaptive- Challenge seeking and high persistence in the face of obstacles/failure
• Maladaptive -Challenge avoidance and low persistence in the face of obstacles/failure
Emotional
• Adaptive- Pride and satisfaction in terms of degree of effort exerted in both successful
and unsuccessful situations
- Maladaptive- Pride and satisfaction only from ability exhibited in successful conditions;
failure conditions signify low ability and yield little pride and satisfaction
• Very distinct emotional issues at both levels
Dweck and Nichol’s (1984)
Entity theory- ou ailit is a god’s gift
- Performance driven individual
- If your confidence is high → Mastery
- If the confidence is shaky or being challenged → helplessness
Incremental theory- that ability is malleable, it can change depending on a number of factors.
- Does’t atte if ou ofidee is high o lo → you always achieve mastery
- Goal is to learn
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Attribution and Learned helplessness
What does that have to do with humans?
- At first, Seligman wasn't completely sure. But further research has shown that the way people
view the negative events that happen to them can have an impact on whether they feel helpless
or not.
*Example- imagine that you just failed a math test. There are several things that you could say were
the reason for that: 'I'm stupid.' 'I didn't study hard enough.' 'The test was too hard.'
- Each of those reasons can be seen as a different type of attribution.
- An attribution is the factor that a person blames for the outcome of a situation.
- Attributions can be made for both positive and negative events.
- Psychologists have discovered that there are specific types of attributions that cause learned
helplessness. The attributions most likely to cause learned helplessness are internal, stable, and
global.
- It’s all aout the itepetatio of the attiutio
Internal
- An internal attribution is any attribution that gives the cause of an event as something to do
with the person, as opposed to something in the outside world. For example, if you believe you
failed the test because you're stupid, that's an internal attribution.
- Compare that to believing that the test was hard - that's an external attribution; you're blaming
the test, which is outside of your control.
- Example- External reason- I did’t do good o test eause it as had
Internal reason- I did’t do good o the test eause I a stupid
Stable
- A stable attribution is one that doesn't change over time or across situations. For example,
believing that you failed because you're stupid is a stable attribution; the fact that you're stupid
won't change depending on the situation.
- Compare that to believing that you failed because you didn't study enough. That's not a stable
attribution because next time you can change that and study more.
- Example- Stable- No matter what I wont do good on the test
Unstable- I might do better next time
Global
- Finally, a global attribution is the belief that the factors affecting the outcome applies to a large
number of situations, not just one of them. For example, believing you failed the test because
ou’e stupid is a gloal attiutio eause it is tue i that lass ad i a othes.
- However, if you believe you failed the test because you are bad at that particular subject, it is
specific; just because you failed the ath test, does’t ea that ou’d fail a Eglish test
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
In 1965, a scientist named martin seligman started shocking dogs. He was trying to expand on the research of pavlov the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell instead of providing food he zapped them with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment. After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves. They figured if they rang the bell, the dog would hop over the fence to escape, but it did(cid:374)"t. They decided to try shocking them after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When they put a dog in the box which had never been shocked before and tried to zap it it jumped the fence. Adaptive versus maladaptive achievement patterns associated with learned helplessness.
