Learned Helplessness

[star.trip]

Learned helplessness was a (somewhat cruel) experiment in which dogs were exposed to a series of inescapable electric currents in which they were then unable to learn a new instrumental behavior as simple as the jumping response to escape or avoid an electric shock. What they did was to stand in a corner passively enduring the shocks.

When an individual has an uncontrollable (i.e., inescapable and unavoidable) aversive experience, a series of disturbances and deficits occur that interfere with or prevent subsequent learning of new responses.

This showed that in addition to a motivational deficit there was also a cognitive deficit in which helpless subjects made more errors during other learning with respect to those who did not have learned helplessness.

Well I think I have some learned helplessness because I went through physical experiences where I simply had to hold on or wait it out to continue doing other things. I don't know if this is really true but I think it affects something. I took refuge in studying (at school, high school, university and conservatory) and I am pretty good at it but it is true that I make mistakes (or at least I give importance to mistakes).

That's life, it gives me tests to survive or to suffer.

This is the source: https://www.psicoactiva.com/blog/la-indefension-aprendida-experimento-overmier-seligman/

 

[Forever Sleep]

I've never really thought about it before but, do you suppose a lack of confidence is a form of learned helplessness?

I wish I could remember the source but I remember there was a scene in (maybe) a film I saw where one character asked another why that huge elephant didn't just break free from the small chain attached to its foot and a flimsy post. They replied- because they are chained like that when they are young. They are too small and weak to break the chain/post at that point and, they never try again. Seems so sad. I don't know if it's true...

 

[star.trip]

I think it can be, more from my own experience and I have also observed it in other people who have gone through other experiences.
It's like being beaten and you can't do anything, you can't defend yourself. At the beginning when you receive a blow, you are more tense and after a while you think it will be over.
I am not an expert, I have not studied psychology, but it could be that learned helplessness generates a lack of confidence. Although there will be more things that produce lack of confidence.

I am not familiar with that movie but the way you tell it reminds me of Plato's myth of the cave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

I guess the elephant considers that part of his reality because he has always been tied there. I don't know, it's like animals bred in captivity. If they were left free, they wouldn't know how to manage on their own.