learned helplessness
in the late 1960s, martin seligman developed the theory of learned helplessness. as the name implies, the theory dictates that it is possible to learn to be helpless. in the initial experiment, classical conditional experiments were done on dogs; think pavlov. instead of ringing a bell and giving the dog food, the bell was run and the dog was given a harmless shock. in the initial experiment, however, the dog was restrained. the idea was that once the dog was “trained”, the experimenter could ring the bell and the dog would run away instead of receiving the shock. in the next phase of the experiment, after the dog was trained, the restraints were removed and a platform was added to which the dog could jump when the bell was rung. to the surprise of mr. seligman, they rang the bell and nothing happened. they then shocked the dog and, again, nothing happened. dogs that had not been trained previously did as the experimenter expected; the dog would jump on the platform to avoid the shock. it turns out that the “trained” dogs had learned that trying to escape the shock was futile and did not move. they had learned to be helpless.
the theory was then extended to humans as a model for explaining depression. depressed people became depressed because they learned to be helpless. depressed people learned that whatever they did was futile. somehow, depressed people learned that they had no control.
the research explained a lot of things, but there are obvious exceptions. not all people become depressed as a result of being in a situation where they appear not to have control; in what seligman called “explanatory style,” people in a state of learned helplessness view problems as personal, pervasive, or permanent. that is:
personal: the person sees themselves as the problem; they have internalized it
pervasive: the person sees the problem affecting all aspects of their life
permanent: the person sees the problem as unchangeable
what does this all mean to me…
i stumbled across the concept today on the internet. oddly enough, it was not on a psychological website…it was on a programming website discussing traits desirable in hiring a computer programmer. no, this was not one of those desirable traits. but it got me thinking.
to me, learned helplessness is the feeling that when things are going crappy in your life, you don’t feel that you can change any of it and just give in and accept that this is the way your life is. you give in. you give up. now me, i’ve never considered myself a quitter. ok, sure, i quit cigarettes, but i didn’t quit quitting cigarettes. i’m smoke free and have been for more than two years. as difficult as it was, i stuck with it.
i think that some people that go back to smoking feel as if they don’t have any control over whether or not they smoke. they smoke, or do drugs, or give in to any other vice because they feel as if they don’t have a choice…they don’t have control over it…nothing they do will change the fact that they have this addiction. using the explanatory style described above, they consider themselves as weak (personal), nothing they do ever works out (pervasive), and there is no point in even trying because nothing will ever change (permanent).
the concept intrigues me. i look at my life today and feel that things may not be necessarily where i thought they would be. as my close friends will attest, i have been known to be pessimistic and fatalistic which usually only presents itself when i talk about my own life.
as i sit on my couch (very comfortable) in my house (that i own) after work (at a good paying job with great benefits), i look around and know that my life really isn’t that bad. there are people starving in the world. people are dying on this planet due to famine, disease, and war. really, in the grand scheme of things, there are billions of people that would trade anything to have my life.
still, there are days when i am depressed. why? why when there are people going through so much more and so much worse than i am, why am i depressed?
i have a very good friend of mine that i talk to about some of the problems in my life. i was thinking about the last few things he and i have talked about. the first one is my job. i am at a crossroad with my career. i won’t get in to much detail about the specifics, mostly because writing details about employment has been known to cost jobs. but things aren’t going well. another topic is my personal life. my last few romantic interests have gone equally as well as the career path.
i think about the way i describe these two topics when i talk to my friend. basically, it’s the end of the world. i’m going to be a developer forever and have no chance to advance to anything greater. i’m going to die alone because i’ll never find anyone. i should just give up and accept these things as inevitable.
if i think about it, i know that type of thinking is total bullshit. there are plenty of jobs out there, and plenty of places for me to advance. there are probably at least two women out there that could potentially be long term romantic interests. but even if neither statement is true, so what? i have a really good life. i have a great family, amazing friends, my health, and all of those materialistic things that i swear don’t really matter but i like having anyway. i’ve traveled the world. i’ve met some amazing people and have done some amazing things. and yet, these two topics affect me to the point where i feel depressed and that no matter what i do, nothing will matter so i might as well give up. learned helplessness. (see, i got back to it…eventually).
when i first read about learned helplessness, i thought instantly that it applied to me. just like the dog that didn’t do anything to avoid the shock because it thought that no matter what it did it would still get shocked, i feel as though i’m not doing anything in these two areas in my life because i’m still going to get shocked.
but have i really learned to be helpless? am i really so impotent in my own life that i gave up? do i accept things as inevitable? i hope not. what kind of life is that?
the weird thing is that i don’t think it applies to all of my life. but my career and my personal life are two aspects of my life that aren’t going according to plan, so i think they receive the bulk of my negative attention. if it wasn’t work and love, i would probably find something else to be helpless about.
maybe i just need something to feel helpless about.