Learned helplessness
It was initially thought to be caused by the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented.
[1][2] Over the past few decades, neuroscience has provided insight into learned helplessness and shown that the original theory had it backward—the brain's default state is to assume that control is not present.
[3] In humans, learned helplessness is related to the concept of self-efficacy, the individual's belief in their innate ability to achieve goals.
Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from a real or perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.
[4] American psychologist Martin Seligman initiated research on learned helplessness in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania as an extension of his interest in depression.
In Part 2 of the experiment, the same three groups of dogs were tested in a shuttle-box apparatus (a chamber containing two rectangular compartments divided by a barrier a few inches high).
To prevent such interfering behavior, Group 3 dogs were immobilized with a paralyzing drug (curare) and underwent a procedure similar to that in Part 1 of the Seligman and Overmier experiment.
[5][6][full citation needed] Later experiments have served to confirm the depressive effect of feeling a lack of control over an aversive stimulus.
Animals that lacked control failed to exhibit this neural effect and showed signs consistent with learned helplessness and social anxiety.
[13] For example, people with pessimistic explanatory style tend to see negative events as permanent ("it will never change"), personal ("it's my fault"), and pervasive ("I can't do anything correctly"), and are likely to suffer from learned helplessness and depression.
They proposed that people differed in how they classified negative experiences on three scales, from internal to external, stable to unstable, and from global to specific.
His attribution theory includes the dimensions of globality/specificity, stability/instability, and internality/externality:[15] Research has shown that increased 5-HT (serotonin) activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus plays a critical role in learned helplessness.
The article also discusses the neurocircuitry of learned helplessness, the role of serotonin (or 5-HT), and the exercise-associated neural adaptations that may contribute to the stress-resistant brain.
They experience stress, they often show disruption of emotions demonstrating passivity or aggressivity, and they can also have difficulty performing cognitive tasks such as problem-solving.
[25] Steven Maier, a professor from the University of Colorado, states that a model of depression could be caused by "impaired medial prefrontal cortical inhibitory control over stress-responsive limbic and brainstem structures."
"[16] (See Neurobiological perspective section above for further information on this article) Young adults and middle-aged parents with a pessimistic explanatory style often suffer from depression.
[46] Cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman used learned helplessness to explain why people blame themselves when they have a difficult time using simple objects in their environment.
[47] The U.S. sociologist Harrison White has suggested in his book Identity and Control that the notion of learned helplessness can be extended beyond psychology into the realm of social action.
