learned helplessness

Meaning: Learned helplessness is a learned expectation that one's actions do not affect outcomes. After repeated aversive events that cannot be controlled, the individual stops responding, even when a response would now work. It is linked to learning theory and to the attributional account of depression, in which people explain bad events as internal, stable and global.

In Seligman's classic experiments, dogs received shocks they could not escape. Later, placed in a shuttle box where they could easily avoid the shock by jumping a barrier, many did not try. Dogs that had earlier been able to escape, or that had never been shocked, usually learned to jump.

On the MCAT: Expect a passage describing a control group and a group exposed to uncontrollable stress, followed by a test where escape is possible. Predict that the uncontrollable-stress group shows fewer escape attempts and slower learning. Questions may also ask you to apply it to people, such as a student who stops studying after repeated failures despite effort, or to link it to depression, low self-efficacy and an external locus of control.

Common confusion: Students think it comes from punishment or pain alone. The key variable is lack of control. Animals given the same shocks but able to end them do not become helpless. It is also not simple extinction: the behavior is not unreinforced, it is never attempted at all.