Learned
helplessness...learned optimism
Have you ever been faced with a hard
situation and felt there is nothing you can do to get out of it?
Have you ever felt powerless to the
point that you pretty much give up even trying to gain control because you seem
to fail no matter what? Have you felt
helpless then? If your answer is a “Yes”, then keep reading.
Feeling helpless is not an innate emotion in humans;
it is a learned one that we- just like the baby elephant we will talk about
later- learn. Here is the whole story in a nutshell: you are not helpless as
you might sometimes deem yourself to be; you have been socially conditioned to
believe you are helpless. God has
created you powerful and strong; you are the wonder of the universe. We, humans, have managed to conquer and control all forces of nature... How come we can
still feel helpless in the face of a challenge?
Learned
Helplessness
The concept of “learned helplessness”
is a cornerstone of many important theories and ideas in psychology. It is a
mental state in which an organism forced to bear painful or unpleasant stimuli,
becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli,
even if they are “escapable,” presumably because it has learned that they
cannot be escaped.
Experimenting
with Animals
Scientists have documented the
causes and effects of learned helplessness by experimenting with dogs and
elephants. The study may seem shockingly cruel to man’s best friend, but the
results are just as shocking, especially that they apply to humans.
In a famous experiment in 1965, Dr.
Martin Seligman conditioned dogs so that every time they heard the ringing of a
bell they would receive (and in time expect) a mild electric shock. After they
were conditioned, Seligman put the dogs in a large crate with a low fence
dividing it into two sides. One side was wired with the slight shocks while the
other was not. He guessed that with the sound of the bell the dogs would jump
over the fence to escape the shock and go to the safe side. But the dogs stayed
put. They just waited and took the shock.
You see, the dogs were conditioned
to learn from the previous experience that there was nothing they could do to
avoid the shocks. Seligman attributed this helpless behavior as something that
was learned after repeated failure, because when he had done the same test to other
dogs which had NOT been shocked before, the dogs easily jumped over the
barrier.
This phenomenon can also be seen in
elephants as well. When an elephant trainer starts working with a baby
elephant, he or she will use a shackle to tie one of the elephant’s legs to a
post. The elephant will struggle for hours, even days, trying to escape the
chain. The more it tries, the more painful it is until it eventually quiets
down and accepts its range of motion to avoid the pain. When the elephant grows up, it is strong
enough to break the chain, but it will not even try; it has been taught that
any kind of struggle is useless. It has learned to be helpless.
Negative
Conditioned Learning
And as it turns out, we are not so
different from dogs or elephants. What happens to us humans is exactly what
happens to the baby elephant in a zoo or a circus. We repeatedly experience pain or failure or
frustration in a particular area of our life- be it education, relationships,
domestic violence, business, etc. - and we label ourselves “helpless” in this
area for the rest of our lives. In other words, we train our brains to believe
that we have no control over the situation, and so we do not even try to
overcome it.
Filling our minds with limiting
beliefs of what we are not able to achieve is dangerous; it generates a vicious
cycle of self-defeatist thoughts that undermines our motivation and overall
productivity and it can eventually lead to depression.
Unlearning learned
helplessness
The question that pops up to the
mind here is: if helplessness is learned, can it be unlearned? The good news is: it can.
Seligman— who helped discover the phenomenon—later found his attention
drawn to what is perhaps the complete opposite of learned helplessness:
optimism.
Although his name was synonymous
with learned helplessness for many years, Seligman knew he had a lot more to offer
the world. His work on the subject led him to wonder what other mindsets and
perspectives can be learned and whether people could develop positive traits
instead of developing feelings of helplessness.
Seligman’s research led him to
create the model of learned optimism. He found that, through resilience
training, people can learn to develop a more optimistic perspective. This
ability has been observed in children, teachers, members of the military, and more.
As it is always said, undoing is
more difficult than doing. Learning optimism might not be as easy as learning helplessness,
but it can be done. If you are interested in learning more about optimism and
how it can be learned, check out Seligman’s book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind
and Your Life. In addition to getting a brief overview of the research on
this subject, you will also read about several simple techniques you can apply
to develop a more positive and self-compassionate lifestyle. Wish you an “optimistic” reading.
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