Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Robert Sapolsky, Spinal Cord, 18 Months

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

An expected relation (or contingency) between our behavior and (cid:1) (cid:1) outcomes ( an expected response outcome contingency) If you do x, you will achieve outcome y (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) Light on 10 sec later shock on feet therefore dog jumps over barrier. Learn contingency of the light producing the shock so can avoid shock. Prior exposure to uncontrollable shocks in the harness learned and shock helplessness. Additional findings: lh occurs in a wide variety of animals; cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, lh generalizes to new situations. If control in harness, dog has difficulty learning it cant control shocks in shuttle box: a helpless animal can begin therapy to eliminate helplessness (show that it has control over outcomes) Part 2: learned helplessness in people: a typical study: 1st part: prior experience with uncontrollable (or controllable) events; then. Observe their performance on new (controllable) task: helplessness: typical results: weak and inconsistent. Sometimes facilitates performance ( ppl work harder)