Learned Helplessness: A Psychological Anchor

Learned helplessness is poison to our emotional state. It triggers a series of internal reactions that can completely destroy us.

Learned helplessness is a relatively new concept in psychology. However, due to the fact that it has been related to depression, it has become quite popular. But what is learned helplessness? As the name suggests, it is actually a learned behavior.

It is the belief in not having the necessary means to defend oneself. A person with learned helplessness believes that they do not have sufficient tools or abilities to be competent in a particular area.

In the last section, I went from ‘defending’ to ‘being competent’, even though they are not the same thing. In fact, you can understand the ability to defend yourself as one of the many perceived competencies you may have. So why did I start ‘defending’? Because that is the context in which learned helplessness has been the most studied.

Let’s take a look at some of these origins. Overmier and Seligman were the first to study part of this concept. They focused their studies on the relationship between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. They realized that dogs could not learn a simple exceptional response after a particular condition. This condition was nothing more than giving the dogs a shock.

In the first phase of their experiments, the dogs learned that they had no control over the shocks. Thus, they began to focus on other elements. Why should they try to escape if they had already learned that they could not?

In one of his most famous stories, Jorge Bucay followed up on this idea: How past learning conditions our present and future behaviors.

Previous experience

One of the benefits of learned helplessness is that it is relatively easy to inoculate in humans through ethically acceptable experiments. This has given researchers the opportunity to study it in a controlled context.

Suppose we give two groups of letters to two separate groups of people, and ask them to make words. We know that they will get very different results if one of the groups has had the same task in advance, and could, due to its difficulties, not formulate any words.

In this case, there are no shocks and no aversive stimuli. Thus, a previous experience can prevent a person when the person is facing a current challenge. If the person did not have the previous experience, the person would be able to face it.

Going back to our example, people who had been trying to find a word on various lists for half an hour ended up learning that they were facing a challenge that they could not overcome. Therefore, they began to save their energy and resources to use them in other tasks.

Therefore , they can not find even the easiest words. In fact, they have given up on the task for some time, and are in a position of helplessness.

On the other hand, you can also help the group that has given up if you get them out of that position of helplessness. How? For example, by telling them that the difficulty of the task has decreased.

You can also tell them that you have seen that the other groups have also had a slow start in finding the words. Thus , people will try to take control again by leaving this position of helplessness.

Learned helplessness associated with depression

Relatively speaking, many people give up when they are depressed. For example, a person with depression might have stopped looking for a job after a few months, or may have stopped going out with friends after several negative social experiences.

The person has stopped acting because the person has seen and learned that he or she could not change his or her situation. In other words, they have learned that the results of working hard are the same as standing still and doing nothing.

This experience has ruined their self-concept. They have begun to believe that their lack of success has to do with one of their traits. They begin to believe that they are not intelligent, not attractive or not worthy enough. Besides giving up, they are also starting to feel bad about themselves. In other words, they have low self-esteem.

From that moment on, they have also started to lose natural amplifiers. They no longer feel motivated to do anything. Likewise, they feel that the burden they are carrying is too great and that the lights are going out.

Thus , the person begins to feel that there is only one way out: Simply doing nothing. The problem is that it only leads to an internal dialogue that buries them more and more in their despair.

You have to react

As you can see, learned helplessness does not affect your state of mind right away. However, it is the poison that attacks your organs and your mental pillars that ultimately causes them to collapse. And as a result, you sink like an anchor.

Precisely because of the complexity of the factors involved and each person’s particular way of acting, it is best to seek professional help if you suspect that you may be suffering from depression.