Learned Helplessness

 How accidentally one of the learning phenomenon called learned helplessness (LH) was discovered. Both Seligman and Maier as two psychologists designed a simple experiment on dogs to examine impaired performance of dogs in confronting the failure experience (unpleasant electric shock) in 1967.

 According to the experiment, dogs were arranged in groups of three in a chamber or box. The floor of the box had the function to become electrified. The first dog could escape by pushing a panel with its nose. However, the second dog could not stop the shock unless the first dog pushed the panel. The third dog was the control group and got no shocks. After this initial trial, the dogs were transferred to the shuttle box– a box with a barrier in the middle that divides the box in half as you can see in figure 1.

The result showed that the first and third dogs quickly learned to jump over the barrier when the floor became electrified. But the second dog discontinued its escape and passively accepted the shock despite the changed condition. So, Seligman and Maier mentioned that dogs had learned that the shock was independent of their behavior and they transferred this expectation to a new situation. Therefore, dogs learned to be helpless in confronting the failure experience.                             

On the other hand, LH applied in humans and the result showed that the performance of persons impairs when they perceive that their response to events is useless or affectless on the environment because of having former failure experiences. “…particularly when those events are threatening, harmful, or noxious, the psychological consequences [helplessness] can be profound” (“Psychology,” 2014, p. 518). Also, some studies investigated LH and passive organizational behavior in organizations. According to scientific studies, the most frequent feelings associated with LH are depression, anxiety, hostility, frustration, shame, stress and conflict in the workplace as well. In line with this, one of the performance deficits is known as organizationally induced helplessness (OIH) in organizations.

As an alternative view to the causes of LH, studies showed that internal factors play an important role in LH in organizations. For instance, LH might evolve when supervisors and leaders attribute a low level of ability or effort to employees for their poor performance. Also, people without autonomy, independence, and motivation to goal achievement are susceptible to LH. However, previous scientists such as Seligman concentrated on external dimensions of existence and environment as cues for LH.

More importantly, minimizing LH or immunizing persons can be essential for individuals in their personal and professional life to produce desirably products, raise standards of life and save resources. For example, it happens when LH employees or individuals learn and internalize that their failure is owing to the difficulty of task or chance (an external factor) and their success is due to their ability or effort. Also, LH can be reduced by increasing self-esteem and rewarding the successes of the person.

As a result, learned helplessness is the notion that people in confronting failure or uncontrollable objects learn that their behavior is not useful and discontinue it and become passive. So, pretreatment, diagnostic, and reducing of LH is an important issue in psychology and business.

Reference

Ashforth, B. E. (1990). The organizationally induced helplessness syndrome: A preliminary

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de l'Administration, 7(3), 30-36.

Hockenbury, D. H., & Hockenbury, S. E. (2007). Discovering psychology. Worth Publishers,

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Levine, M., Rotkin, L., Jankovic, I. N., & Pitchford, L. (1977). Impaired performance by adult humans: Learned helplessness or wrong hypotheses? Cognitive Therapy and

Research, 1(4), 275-285.

Martinko, M. J., & Gardner, W. L. (1982). Learned helplessness: An alternative explanation for performance deficits. Academy of Management Review, 7(2), 195-204.

OpenStax College. (2014, December 8). Psychology. OpenStax College. Retrieved from        https://openstax.org/details/books/psychology

Roth, S. (1980). A revised model of learned helplessness in humans 1. Journal of Personality, 48(1), 103-133.