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Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence.

1976/03/01 by Steven F. Maier, Martin E. P. Seligman, Martin E. Seligman · 2,392 citations
Psychology · #Behavioral and Psychological Studies #Child and Animal Learning Development #Cognitive psychology #Developmental psychology #Learned helplessness #Psychoanalysis #Psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.105.1.3

published in Journal of Experimental Psychology General 105(1), 3-46 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 1976/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

SUMMARY In 1967, Overmier and Seligman found that dogs exposed to inescapable and unavoidable electric shocks in one situation later failed to learn to escape shock in a different situation where escape was possible. Shortly thereafter Seligman and Maier (1967) demonstrated that this effect was caused by the uncontrollability of the original shocks. In this article we review the effects of exposing organisms to aversive events which they cannot control, and we review the explanations which have been offered. There seem to be motivational, cognitive, and emotional effects of uncontrollability. (a) Motivation. Dogs that have been exposed to inescapable shocks do not subsequently initiate escape response in the presence of shock. We review parallel phenomena in cats, fish, rats, and man. Of particular interest is the discussion of learned helplessness in rats and man. Rats are of interest because learned helplessness has been difficult to demonstrate in rats. However, we show that inescapably shocked rats do fail to learn to escape if the escape task is reasonably difficult. With regard to man, we review a variety of studies using inescapable noise and unsolvable problems as agents which produce learned helplessness effects on both instrumental and cognitive tasks, (b) Cognition. We argue that exposure to uncontrollabl e events interferes with the organism's tendency to perceive contingent relationships between its behavior and outcomes. Here we review a variety of studies showing such a cognitive set. (c) Emotion. We review a variety of experiments which show that uncontrollable aversive events produce greater emotional disruption than do controllable aversive events. We have proposed an explanation for these effects, which we call the learned helplessness hypothesis. It argues that when events are uncontrollable the organism learns that its behavior and outcomes are independent, and that this learning produces the motivational, cognitive, and emotional effects of uncontrollabi lity. We describe the learned helplessness hypothesis and research which supports it. Finally, we describe and discuss in detail alternative hypotheses which have been offered as accounts of the learned helplessness effect. One set of hypotheses argues that organisms learn motor responses during exposure to uncontrollabl e shock that compete with the response required in the test task. Another explanation holds that uncontrollable shock is a severe stressor and depletes a neurochemical necessary for the mediation of movement. We examine the logical structure of these explanations and present a variety of evidence which bears on them directly.

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