Learned helplessness syndrome. Learned helplessness: psychological studies of the phenomenon
I discovered how the “scoop” phenomenon is explained by modern Western science. There is practically no treatment for it. Even leaving for permanent place residence abroad, many of former USSR remain “vatniks”. We are talking about “LEARNED HELPLESSNESS”. First, I will say very briefly and in my own words: scientists’ experiments were carried out on animals. If they were subjected to not even a lot of stress, but for quite a long time, and the animal could not get rid of the trouble, then soon it practically degenerated.
The history of research into learned helplessness begins with a completely harmless experiment conducted in 1921 by Ivan Pavlov’s student, Natalia Shenger-Krestovnikova. She trained the dog to distinguish between a circle and an ellipse; the correct answer was rewarded with food, the wrong answer was not punished in any way. At the beginning of the experiment, the figures were very different from each other, but gradually the ellipse became more and more rounded. When the ratio of the ellipse axes reached 8:9, the dog could no longer accept correct solution. After three weeks of fruitless attempts, the animal was unrecognizable: serious disturbances arose in the emotional sphere (“constantly squealed”), motor (“constantly worried”), and cognitive (“all previously developed conditioned reflexes disappeared”). But then they did not pay attention to this research, and the American psychologist Martin Seligman began to study learned helplessness in detail in the late 1960s - he proposed this term.
In general, the state of learned helplessness is characterized by three signs. Firstly, it is lack of initiative, lack of attempts to deal with troubles. Secondly, inhibition of cognitive functions, primarily the ability to learn new things: any interest in searching for cause-and-effect relationships has been lost, the victim, in principle, does not believe that they can be found. Thirdly, of course, all this is accompanied by emotional disorders: any trouble seems absolutely monstrous, because it is obviously insurmountable.
Imagine that you are a dog. You are standing behind a fence, but it hurts to stand because the floor is electrifying. Naturally, you are looking for a way to end this suffering,
sooner or later you realize that you need to jump over the barrier, and you do it. If you are again placed in the same experimental conditions, you will jump over much faster. But this only works if you are a normal, uninjured dog: if you were not previously immobilized in a Pavlovian experimental setup, and if you were, then you were not shocked there, and if you were shocked there, then you They could turn it off by pressing the button with their nose. But if you have experience of receiving electric shocks, albeit weak ones, but ones with which you cannot do anything at all, because you are fixed in a hammock, then if you get behind the fence, where the floor is also receiving electric shock, you will not even try stop your suffering. You will lie on the floor, whine and hope that this torment will end someday, although deliverance is here, very close, just one small jump away. Of course, not all dogs in Seligman's experiments responded the same way, but the statistical difference was huge. In the group of animals that had no experience of uncontrolled electric shocks, 94% of the animals guessed to jump over the fence. In the group traumatized by previous experience, two thirds of the animals failed to cope with this task.
Now it is clear how the complete destruction of independence in decision-making in the USSR created this type of people - zombies. They almost immediately understand that nothing depends on them. In some ways, such people resemble Buridan’s donkey.
The most monstrous thing in the description of the Ministry of Love in Orwell’s book “1984” is the absolute biological literacy of the methods used there. In order not just to break and destroy a personality, but to rewrite it anew, to make it absolutely submissive and impeccably loyal, pain, fear and humiliation are not enough. First of all, it is necessary to completely destroy cause-and-effect relationships and logical chains in the surrounding world, and due to this, in the victim’s own head. If the party says the Earth is flat and ice is heavier than water, then it is true, no matter what anyone tells you direct experience. The Party is incomprehensible and unpredictable, it can shoot you in ten minutes or ten years, beat you every minute, or feed you hearty meals in a cozy cell, or set you free. Your only chance to maintain a semblance of mental well-being is, first of all, to give up any attempts to understand the logic of what is happening, and then to love the party and learn to accept any of its actions with sincere gratitude, and any of its statements with true faith. There is no problem that the party's statements contradict one another. Against. That's the whole point.
In conclusion, a bit of optimism: Seligman notes that It is very difficult to cure the state of learned helplessness, but it is possible. To do this, you need to show the animal for a long time and patiently that there is still a way out: literally take him in your arms (well, actually pull him by the leash) and transfer him from one compartment, where it hurts, to another, where there is no current. In this case, sooner or later the dog will still believe that deliverance is possible and will begin to jump over the fence itself.
But learned helplessness is much easier to prevent than to treat. If an inexperienced dog is first taught to avoid shock and only then subjected to uncontrolled shocks, then in a new collision with a shock that can be avoided, the animal will still try to do it: it already has the experience of victory, and even the subsequent experience of defeat could not completely destroy the will to resist. Apparently, it is for this reason that in Seligman’s experiments, learned helplessness developed more easily in dogs raised in greenhouse conditions in the laboratory than mongrels raised on the street: the former had no experience of overcoming unpleasant situations, while the latter had it. This, in my opinion, is the most important conclusion in the whole story about learned helplessness. Experimental psychology tells us: the experience of victory is very important, for the sake of it it is even worth going under the electric current.
The development of learned helplessness is possible not only in dogs. Similar experiments have been carried out on many other animals, from cockroaches to humans. Representatives of our species do not even need to be given an electric shock—it is enough to give them a obviously unsolvable puzzle so that the likelihood of successfully completing any subsequent tasks is sharply reduced. Generally main principle to develop learned helplessness is the creation of a situation in which the subject cannot understand the logic of current events, predict them or influence them. It is not even necessary that these are bad events, the only important thing is the lack of connection between actions and results.
This is exactly what the Kremlin has adopted today...
Tiffany, you know, I have 3 sons, two of them went to kindergarten. It has never happened that the authority of the teacher was stronger than the authority of the mother, or even just relatives (family members)
Respecting and fearing his opinion of you as “bad”/“good” are simply different things, and you put an equal sign between them. I'm 38, I'm in this state now. Just a year ago I was ready to crush rocks. There was a goal, a plan to achieve. There was an interest in women. The head was thinking. Body and mind were subject to will. Now I remind plant form life. In a month or two there will be nothing to pay rent, there will literally be nothing to eat, but this does not motivate me. Don't care about everything. It’s as if I don’t live, but only support shell functions. In the morning I wake up surprised that I woke up. Thoughts are usually like this: why do I need this world? What should I do in it? Find food again? Enrich the employer, landlord, retailer? I don’t want to work, I don’t want to have fun, take care of myself, dress beautifully, eat delicious food, love, family. I don't want any of this. I want only one thing - no external irritants.
I never thought that one day I would turn into a vegetable. How to treat this in general? I saw a psychologist and was disappointed. I went to church and didn’t feel anything. I did yoga, which seemed successful to me. But one day it was cut off. A persistent rejection and disgust appeared. Maybe go to war or commit some act of self-sacrifice. I don’t agree to just end myself out of powerlessness.
Exactly. And here you see that the criteria for being a good teacher are unacceptable to you. So it's one of 2 things. Either change the teacher to one who has better criteria (as an option, convince him), or make sure that the importance of these criteria for the child decreases, i.e. Explain to the child that you and the teacher do not agree on this issue.
No one is suggesting that you instill in your child the worthlessness of educators. It is quite enough to say that on this issue your opinions do not coincide. Opinions can differ even among very respected people and there is nothing terrible about that.
You are right about the importance of authorities, but to list any adult as an indisputable authority due to his age and position is simply dangerous.
By the way, N.V. - a professional psychologist, and about all the subtleties developmental psychology She's probably well aware))
I don’t know how much this mother retained in her daughter that same naturally given feeling of goodness. The fact that the girl cried most likely indicates that she is sensitive to value judgments, and if so, it means they are in use in the family.
In order for such an adult opinion to be formed, a person must learn to be very selective about those people who say something about him. And one must also learn to be critical of what they say, without immediately taking everything to heart. Alas, if adults do not give the child guidelines (who, when and what to listen to), and even more so if they load the child with dogmas like “the teacher/educator is always right”, “you must listen to your elders”, etc., then even when such a child will grow up to be vulnerable to the assessments of others, sometimes contrary to all obvious logic, as in the case of the money on the bench.
I agree, replacing teachers, and even a suitable manager, is fantastic. But finding educators (somewhere else) with a different approach to the issue is a solvable task. I didn’t even have to try at the time. It was just luck. The teachers moderated conflicts, but fully allowed the children to sort things out; aggression was not prohibited. One of the teachers once explained to me that children usually go through this period at 4-5 years old, this necessary stage socialization. They learn to defend their interests, defend themselves, and find acceptable measures of influence in a conflict.
If a child knows from early childhood that an adult may be wrong, this will not prevent the formation of authorities. But this will prevent the absolutization of these same authorities and protect against all kinds of abuse. Alas, on the part of educators, teachers and coaches, abuse of authority (or pedagogical illiteracy, or psychological imbalance) occurs too often to be ignored.
Honestly, it's sad.
Well, yes, this is the “solution” to the problem. Clear out these same fighters from the group, “wild creatures from the wild forest,” and it will not be life, but a fairy tale. Sorry, but I can't help you with this decision.
When the majority of children in a group are not aggressive themselves, but do not allow their boundaries to be violated, and at the same time are quite decisive and convincing, then the fighters quickly deflate. N.V.
It seems to me that in your judgments you are confusing the psychology of a preschooler and junior school student, mixing in adult judgments
A child is NOT = a small adult.
I'll show you on simple example. Everyone knows that children react very sharply to the name-calling of their peers. I remember walking on the playground with my daughter, and 3 girls were returning from school. 2 girls called the third one and she cried, said that they themselves are like that, but she is not, but she cried. It would seem that, according to your logic, this should not have happened, because the girl herself knows that she is good, and her mother immediately met her (a normal woman) and the name-calling clearly has nothing to do with real life. But she cried because someone thought she was not good.
What will you do as an adult if the grandmothers on the bench shout at you “is this aunt a total p...”? you will laugh because you know that this is not so. Or you will ignore it. In any case, you definitely won’t cry. Your self-esteem does not depend on WHAT grandmas say. You can form an opinion about yourself. But preschoolers do not. The teacher’s opinion about themselves is important to them.
Here is a clear example of the differences between children's and adult thinking/psychology.
Now let's get down to business. Searching for and demanding other educators is a fantasy. These are quite normal, except for a couple of points. And even then these moments are not good only from my point of view. The manager will not support. She also feels good when children don’t give change.
Secondly, if you instill in a child from childhood that the teacher should not be respected, then such a child will not respect the teacher either. And it is very important to have authority among elders for the development of a child. For his integrity, academic performance, faith in the world. You can speculate a lot on this topic, but this is off-topic.
Thirdly, you somehow describe the situation for children as a concentration camp. Teachers do not humiliate anyone on purpose. Everyone is prohibited from fighting. For both boys and girls. Also, regardless of gender, people are put in chairs for fighting. None of the adequate children likes to be punished. If they don't cry, they sit with sad faces. It's not just my child who doesn't fight back. Almost all children who regularly attend kindergarten do the same. And what? Are we all bad parents who are not authorities for our children or who forbid them to give change and bully them for their misdeeds together with the teacher? No! The problem is systemic, not specifically in my child only.....
Only fighters are punished with this punishment. They just don’t have an authority-educator and good contacts with peers. They don’t even have a speech, they can’t put two words together. If we follow your advice about neglecting the teacher’s instructions, then adequate children will descend into the same brawlers and the group will get stuck in chaos...
It is necessary to somehow influence the educators, somehow clearly convince them and show that they also need this. But how? I tried to explain that a child needs to be able to stand up for himself and endure insults - this is not a solution and is not beneficial for him. future personality. But they didn’t understand me. We need another way that I don't see yet.....
You have set this limit for yourself. For some reasons of your own, you placed the authority of the teacher above your own (once again - the child establishes the authority of the teacher not himself, not automatically to every adult, but very selectively through parents who “calibrate” the child’s perception, for example, encouraging the child to be good in front of the teacher and giving high value negative reactions of the teacher to the child, confirming them and joining them). You don't want to give up this choice of yours. This means that you will have to find teachers who will really protect your child from more aggressive (or even just more active and more persistent) peers. Otherwise, you are essentially betraying your child. A girl should not stand up for her own rights, much less “exceed the limits of necessary self-defense,” that is, sometimes fight. A girl should not contradict her teachers, who have been given full power. The girl can only “disappear,” which she does.
Nope, not anyone. A small child considers himself good until adults prove him otherwise. First of all, parents. If it is painful for a child to be punished to the point of tears, or it is unbearable to screw up in public, then he has already been well treated with a file in order to give the desired image. An “untreated” child will not see any horror in sitting on a high chair, although he will experience some inconvenience - sitting is boring, especially if others are playing with all their might. By the way, another reason to think about how educators behave if a child is terrified of universal condemnation. Maybe the teachers like to take the child to the center and publicly graphically shame the child? Then certainly nafik such educators.
The child will consider himself “not good” only if the objects of his affection confirm this to him. Although you may get sick. Not because he believed someone else’s aunt that he was not good, but because with unpleasant contact (that is, stress), immunity decreases, and the disease allows you to avoid these most unpleasant contacts.
This is not just my personal opinion. This is the opinion of respected psychologists, whose theories are taught at the university and on whose theories child psychology is based. It is as it is. The teacher is truly an authority for children. And for parents to devalue a teacher in the eyes of a child is a disservice.
She gave permission and said that her “I” was sufficiently established in the family. It’s clear to you, an adult, that sitting on a chair is not scary. The child has a completely different psyche. I will repeat. A child at this age considers himself to be as “good” as others (teachers and children) consider him good. Any child at this age is very painful to the point of tears from public punishment, such as simply sitting on a chair. Because this symbolic punishment means that the child is NOT “good”. And if a child considers himself “bad”, then he may even get really sick..... Not with just one punishment, of course, but still.....
Any other opinions?
Just not for kindergarten age. Of course, if you think that for your child the teacher is an unquestioned authority, then so it will be.
The child will not be able to immediately find the right amount counteracting and protecting oneself. We'll have to fight. Collect a bouquet of consequences and draw conclusions.
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Allow your daughter to defend herself. Show your protection towards her. Say that you will not scold along with the teachers. Reassure that sitting on a chair is not the worst thing that happens in life. And also accept her “no”, expressed to you on various occasions. First, the “I” is established in the family, and only then can it be established in society.
You are mistaken, the educator or teacher is a very important authority for the child. In some matters, they are equal (or even more) than the parent (depending on age and amount of time spent).
Children in preschool age perceive their “goodness” through the prism of others (those educators). And other children perceive the child in relation to the teacher. That is, if the teacher praises and encourages “not to stand up for yourself,” then the child, following this, considers himself “good.” And other children think he is good. This is very important for the child. It is at preschool age that a child has special meaning approval of elders. Some children are ready to do anything to earn praise (in preschool age).
All statements above are true for normal children. Our fighters have diagnoses. It is, of course, convenient for the teacher to teach adequate children not to fight back if they cannot cope with the “special” ones. And, it seems, there are fewer fights in the group, everything is fine. But I, as a parent, am not happy with this situation!
This doesn't mean that I want mine to fight. I want her not to be afraid in most cases to defend her interests (toy, game, etc.). Now it turns out that if a toy is taken away from her, then it is easier for her to immediately give it back and silently suffer from “lack of play” than to say “no” to the fighter. After all, if he says “no!”, he will get a punch, but you can’t give change; it’s useless to complain to the teacher. But the fighter does not understand the words and feels his impunity....
Many questions arise at once. Why is the child so correct? Why is he so afraid of punishment from his teacher? After all, a kindergarten teacher is far from the main figure for a child. What’s more important is how parents feel about the fact of punishment, how much they want the child to always be correct, how often they themselves appeal to the child’s feelings of shame and fear... I’ll raise the topic because opinions are needed.
The child goes to kindergarten. There, naturally, teachers forbid fighting and fighting back. My child is very “correct”. She was forbidden to fight, and she does not fight. But there are children in the group who didn’t give a damn about the teachers’ prohibitions. As a result, my child is “learned” to receive blows and not be pushed aside. I don't like this arrangement. But I cannot objectively influence the situation (especially on other children) when the child spends so much time outside the home and there is another “educator” authority. And it is necessary. But how?
The child is afraid to give change, because for this they may be punished - “put on a chair.” Conversations with teachers have no effect. They are not interested in raising a specific (my) child in a way that would stand up for themselves. It's easier for them if she doesn't do this. But teachers cannot particularly influence the brawlers who offend other children. They both offended and continue to offend. And all the other children in the group are afraid of these brawling children and teachers (punishment in case of surrender). Children are afraid to tell their teachers that they are being bullied (or know that it is useless). Fighters feel their own impunity. It turns out just some kind of “learned helplessness” to endure insults from peers.....
If I were there in kindergarten, then I would have figured out what to do. But from the outside I can’t even imagine how to structure a conversation with teachers correctly (I’ve already tried, there was no effect), or how to reconfigure my daughter, how to overcome the authority of the teacher in this matter and whether it is necessary to do this (after all, in the event of a fight, the teacher will punish me and I won’t will be there to protect you from punishment).... I'll raise the topic, the article is interesting. It seems to me that there is a rather thin line between independence and abandonment. It is important for a child to be able to do a lot on his own, but he should not do absolutely everything himself and always be alone... that's what I thought about. It’s just that a friend’s child in 1st grade does his homework himself, heats his own food, comes home on his own, sits there until the evening or night. And here it’s not a matter of independence... Many parents suffer from the fact that they do everything for their child, delaying the development of independence until the last moment, when it is already too late. Or redoing it right there, in front of the child, thus undermining his confidence in his own abilities.
We decide for the child what to wear, we are overprotective of him, we are afraid that he will fall, get hurt, make a mistake, break...
At the same time, the child’s room is full of toys, he gets everything he wants. Why should he show independence? At some point this becomes unprofitable.
Teach your child to be independent, stop indulging him in everything and doing everything for him. In this way, from a young age you will be able to raise an independent and self-confident person who will be difficult to break. I recognized myself. I thought about it. I am now fighting my learned helplessness with sheer persistence; I don’t know any other way. What are some recommendations for an adult? Because persistence alone is not enough. Enthusiasm weakens and ends. Then a little time passes, and strength and perseverance appear again. I just wish I could be more effective Learned helplessness... something to think about
Recently I came across an interesting article about “learned helplessness”. And since the topic of helplessness, impotence, and the inability to change one’s situation regularly occurs in work with clients (both in psychotherapy and in the context of coaching, about work and professional), I decided to write about it in more detail.
I first read about this phenomenon in Martin Seligman’s book “How to Learn to Be Optimistic.” It was discovered back in the 1960s, more than fifty years ago, during experiments on dogs that were given electric shocks to see how they would cope with situations of uncontrollable stress. Here's how it was set up:
This has not been done to animals for a long time, but in life with people it occurs with the same frequency - in close relationships, at work, in relations with the government.
This condition is called "learned helplessness" = learned (acquired) helplessness. The key factor causing this condition: the inability to influence the situation, the lack of connection between actions and results. The experience when “no matter what I do, I can’t change anything.” Moreover, this situation is repeated many times, so that there is a feeling that not only is it bad now, but in the future it will be no better or even worse.
The psychological mechanism looks like this:
- Uncontrollable, repeated stressful events;
- Perceived lack of control;
- Learned skill of helplessness.
And then this conclusion leads us to the point that we stop trying, stop hoping and looking for opportunities to jump out.
It often happens that one problem supports another, and in this case: helplessness leads to hopelessness.
In such situations, both dogs and people often “fold their paws”, directly and figuratively, fall into depression and apathy.
The key question is: what can help here?
Firstly, it is important to know that helplessness can be unlearned. More precisely, you can learn the skill of not being helpless, and regain the feeling that I can influence the situation.At a minimum, the same dogs in Seligman’s experiments were able to be retrained - by showing them that if they jumped out, they would still be safe.
Secondly, you can know that in some situations there is a greater likelihood of being in a state of helplessness, and then knowledge of this becomes an antidote. This can help create distance between the overgeneralized “I = helpless” (incapable, worthless, etc. generalized, blaming descriptions of oneself) and the more specific description of what is happening: “[the situation in this project/relationship] is causing me to feel feeling helpless" - and then I can remember other projects (situations, relationships, contexts) where I feel okay, active, able to influence my own life.
This article provides some ideas for dealing with helplessness:
"Remedy 1:Do something.
Way to cope: Do something because you can. Choose what to do with your free hour before bed, what to cook for dinner and how to spend the weekend. Rearrange the furniture in the room to make it more comfortable for you. Find as many points of control as possible where you can make your own decision and implement it.
What can this do? Remember about Seligman's dogs? The problem isn't that they couldn't jump over the barrier. It’s the same with people: sometimes the problem is not the situation, but the loss of will and faith in the significance of one’s actions. The “I do it because I chose to do it” approach allows me to maintain or regain a subjective sense of control. This means that the will does not move towards the cemetery, covered with a sheet, but the person continues to move towards a way out of a difficult situation.
Remedy 2:Away from helplessness - in small steps.
Ideas about yourself: “I can’t do anything,” “I’m worthless,” “my attempts won’t change anything” are made up of special cases. We, as in the children's game “connect the dots,” select some stories and connect them with one line. It turns out to be a belief about yourself. Over time, a person pays more and more attention to experiences that confirm this belief. And stops seeing exceptions. Good news is that beliefs about oneself can be changed in the same way. This is what, for example, narrative therapy does: together with a helping practitioner, a person learns to see alternative stories, which over time he combines into a new idea. Where there used to be a story about helplessness, you can find another: a story about your value and importance, about the significance of your actions, about the ability to influence what is happening.
It is important to find special cases in the past: when did I succeed? When was I able to influence something? when did you change the situation with your actions? It is also important to pay attention to the present - this is where small achievable goals will help. For example, cleaning out the kitchen cabinet or making an important call that you have been putting off for a long time. No goal is too small – all are important. Did you manage? Happened? Wonderful! We need to celebrate the victory! It is known that where there is attention, there is energy. The more attention to achievements, the more fuel for a new preferred story. The higher the chance of not giving up.
Way to cope: Set small, realistic goals and celebrate when you achieve them. Keep a list and re-read it at least twice a month. Over time, you will notice that your goals and achievements become larger. Find an opportunity to reward yourself with some joy for each completed item.
What can this do? Small achievements help you gain resources for larger-scale actions. Increase confidence in your abilities. String new experience like beads on a fishing line. Over time, the individual parts will form a necklace - new story about yourself: “I am important,” “My actions matter,” “I can influence my life.”
Remedy 3:Another look.
Seligman found that animals can learn to resist helplessness if they have previous experience of successful actions. Dogs that were initially able to turn off the current by pressing their head against a panel in the enclosure continued to look for a way out even when they were restrained.
In collaboration with famous psychotherapists, Seligman began to study people's behavior and their reactions to external circumstances. Twenty years of research led him to the conclusion that our tendency to explain things one way or another influences whether we seek opportunities to act or give up. People with the belief, “Bad things happen because of me,” are more likely to develop depression and helplessness. And those who believe, “Bad things can happen, but it’s not always my fault and someday it will stop,” cope faster and come to their senses under unfavorable circumstances.”
We can work with these beliefs to replace them with more adaptive and supportive ones. The article describes one of the basic techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy ABCDE, which helps to understand one’s attitudes. You can do it yourself, in in writing. .
If you try to formulate very briefly what can help cope with helplessness and its sister hopelessness, then I think it is strength and hope. And then the task is to find contact with such a self who can be strong and continue to hope, take steps, jump out of the “cage” (like the hamster from one story).
And it’s worth knowing: yes, there are times when it may seem like you have no strength. Knowing this, you can prepare in advance: what could help me in such a situation?
P.S. Sometimes, to jump out of helplessness, you need to be able to lose.
It is very important to have permission to leave a traumatic situation. Yes, in most cases it is important not to give up. Keep trying. But sometimes it’s worth being able to admit: I lost this battle. Or I can't win. For example, because the situation depends not only on me. For example, in a relationship you need the desire of both partners; for a successful result at work, many systemic factors must come together (at the level of the organization, business processes). You can continue to “bang your head” against the wall, but in some cases this will only lead to a broken head, and the wall (corporate or relational) will not go away. And then it is better to be able to lose the battle - but win yourself.
The ability to lose is a very important life skill.
Book fragment Ilyin E.P. Work and personality. Workaholism, perfectionism, laziness. M.: Peter. 2011
The book covers a wide range current issues, among which the ratio modern people to work, psychological consequences of job loss, personality traits and choice of activity, professional personality deformation, psychology of professional addictions, workaholism, laziness and a tendency to laziness, as well as many others.
The phenomenon of learned helplessness is associated with passive, maladaptive human behavior. Learned helplessness is a violation of motivation as a result of the uncontrollability of the situation experienced by the subject, i.e. independence of the result from the efforts made (“no matter how hard you try, it’s still to no avail”). Learned helplessness syndrome was first described by American psychologists Martin Seligman and Stephen Maier (Seligman, Maier, 1967) based on experiments on dogs when they were irritated with electric current.
The dogs, which were first exposed to weak shocks (which they could not avoid), were then placed in other cages, where their activity could help them avoid unpleasant effects. However, contrary to the predictions of behaviorist learning theory, dogs did not want to learn in such seemingly simple things and were passive. The essence of the discovery was that this passivity, or helplessness, has its source in the animal's perceived independence results (outcomes) from his actions (efforts). Experience convinced them that their actions did not influence the course of events in any way and did not lead to the desired results, which gave rise to the expectation that the results of their own actions were uncontrollable, a feeling of inability to control events (the situation) and, accordingly, the pointlessness of efforts.
Gordeeva T. O. 2006. P. 81.
Then numerous studies revealed the existence of this phenomenon in humans. Learned helplessness has attracted much attention from researchers abroad (Hanusa, Shulz, 1977; Hiroto, 1974; Human helplessness..., 1980), etc.
Hiroto (1974) repeated the experiment by exposing subjects to an unpleasant loud sound that could be interrupted by selecting a key combination on a remote control. According to Hiroto, two extreme groups of people emerged: one group (which included every third) did not fall into a state of learned helplessness at all; the other group (which included every tenth subject) did not try to do anything to counteract the growing noise; the subjects sat motionless near the remote control, despite the fact that they were trained in how to stop the effect of the sound.
There are situational and personal helplessness.
Situational helplessness- this is a temporary reaction to certain events beyond a person’s control.
Personal helplessness is a stable motivational characteristic of a person, formed in the process of development under the influence of relationships with others (Tsiring D. A., 2005). Personal helplessness is manifested in isolation, emotional instability, excitability, timidity, pessimistic worldview, a tendency to feel guilty, lower self-esteem and a low level of aspirations, indifference, passivity, and lack of creativity.
Everyone probably remembers being little, when they wanted to do something themselves. Looking at our clumsy attempts, adults, instead of helping and showing us how to do it, grumbled displeasedly and stopped our independent actions. By giving us a hand, they took away from us the opportunity to receive pleasure from the consciousness of something of our own. They helpfully cleaned up our toys, our bed, put on our clothes and shoes, and did any kind of work, as long as we didn’t take up their precious time. And gradually we realized: we shouldn’t strain ourselves to hear once again that we are doing everything wrong.
Lukyanova A. I. 2010. P. 171.
Seligman notes that learned helplessness is formed by the age of eight and reflects a person’s belief in the degree of effectiveness of his actions. He points to three sources of helplessness:
- Experience of experiencing adverse events, i.e. lack of ability to control the events of one’s own life; at the same time, the negative experience acquired in one situation begins to be transferred to other situations when the possibility of control actually exists. Seligman considered uncontrollable events to include insults inflicted by parents (and, one might add, by teachers and child care providers), the death of a loved one and animal, serious illness, parental divorce or scandals, loss of a job;
- Experience of observing helpless people (for example, television stories about helpless victims);
- Lack of independence in childhood, the willingness of parents to do everything instead of the child.
The relative stability of learned helplessness has been confirmed by F. Fincham et al. (Fincham et al., 1989) and M. Burns and M. Seligman (Burns, Seligman, 1989), and the latter of these authors believe that helplessness remains for life.
Learned helplessness is characterized by deficits in three areas - motivational, cognitive and emotional. Motivational deficit manifests itself in the inability to act, actively interfering in the situation, cognitive - in the inability to subsequently learn that in similar situations the action can be quite effective, and emotional - in a depressed or even depressive state arising from the futility of one’s own actions.
Gordeeva T. O. 2006. P. 93.
Subsequently, Seligman reformulated his behavioral approach to learned helplessness into a cognitive-behavioral one. At the same time, he proceeded from the views of B. Weiner (Weiner et al., 1971), who showed that a subject’s persistence in the face of failure depends on how he interprets this experienced failure - simply as a result of a lack of his efforts or as a result of circumstances over which he has no power or control. Seligman and his colleagues (Abramson, Seligman, Teasdale, 1978) extended these views to explain why some people experience helplessness and others do not. It depends on what style of explanation a person has for failure - optimistic or pessimistic.
The family plays the most important role in the formation of learned helplessness in the early stages of ontogenesis (Tsiring D. A., Savelyeva S. A., 2007; Tsiring D. A., 2009).
Significant differences in parenting styles were found among parents of children with personal helplessness and among parents of independent children.
Parents of helpless children are more likely to exhibit an unstable parenting style. In addition, it is obvious that the influence of maternal and paternal parenting styles on the formation of personal helplessness and independence differs significantly. Mothers of helpless children are more inclined to indulgence than mothers of independent ones; they more often strive for the maximum and uncritical satisfaction of any needs of the child, turning his desire into law, and the need for this style of education is argued by the exclusivity of the child, the desire to give what they themselves were deprived of, the lack of father's family. In children with helplessness, fathers, on the contrary, are less inclined to uncritically satisfy any needs of the child than fathers of independent children. It can be assumed that paternal indulgence is perceived by the child as encouraging independence, while maternal indulgence is perceived as suppressing it. Compared to mothers of independent children, mothers of helpless children are more overprotective, devote too much time, effort and attention to the child, and his upbringing often becomes the most important matter in their lives, they are also prone to excessive demands-prohibitions (dominance), and the fathers of these children, on the one hand, do not establish clear boundaries and requirements for the child’s behavior, assign too few responsibilities to him, do not involve him in household chores, and on the other hand, are prone to excessive sanctions (rigid parenting style), i.e. they more often overreact even to minor behavioral violations, are more committed to strict punishments for failure to comply with family requirements, are convinced of the benefits of maximum severity for children<…>
Both mothers and fathers of helpless children tend to project their own undesirable qualities onto the child. In this case, the parent is inclined to see in the child those traits that he does not want to admit in himself. The parent fights against these qualities of the child, both real and imaginary, extracting emotional benefit from this for himself. All sorts of negative roles are imposed on the child, and this allows the father or mother to believe that they themselves do not have these qualities. Parents demonstrate a latent confidence that the child is “incorrigible”, that he is “by nature” like this.<…>The child, in turn, can make efforts to “correct,” but since the father and mother are sure (and demonstrate this to him) that he cannot change, the parents’ reaction to any variant of his behavior remains the same. Thus, the child cannot feel control over what is happening, which is the most important prerequisite for the formation of helplessness.
In addition, fathers of helpless children are more likely to prefer childish qualities in their child. Children become helpless with fathers who are more inclined to create a role " small child" Such fathers more encourage their children to preserve childish qualities (spontaneity, naivety, playfulness), they experience fear or reluctance in their children growing up, and perceive growing up rather as a misfortune. Treating a child as “small” reduces the level of demands placed on him. The child does not receive sufficiently experience in overcoming difficulties, responsibility, active influence on the situation.<…>
Helplessness develops in children whose fathers have less developed paternal feelings. This category of fathers of helpless children is characterized by a superficial interest in the affairs of their children and a reluctance to communicate with them.
Tsiring D. A. 2009. pp. 25–26.
According to I. O. Devyatovskaya (2005), the formation of learned helplessness among managers was facilitated by high level motivation to avoid failures (this coincides with N. Borovskaya’s data regarding the lazy) and control over action according to the type of state orientation (according to Yu. Kuhl). Promotes the formation of learned helplessness among employees authoritarian style chief's guidance.
© E.P. Ilyin. Work and personality. Workaholism, perfectionism, laziness. M.: Peter. 2011
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