Learned helplessness and depression Learned helplessness is defined as the idea that clinical depression and similar mental illnesses could result from the real or perceived lack of control (Hock, 2013). This concept has been studied immensely throughout the years. One of the first psychologists to pursue this phenomenon was Martin E. P. Seligman, who in 1972 used dogs to examine the effect of a controllable versus uncontrollable situation and the effect that had on learning (Hock, 2013). Several years later, two psychologists, Carol Diener and Carol Dweck, used the information that Seligman discovered and attempted to see the effects of failure on helpless and non-helpless children (Diener & Dweck, 1980). In the following two years, Lauren …show more content…
The Seligman experiment focused on the instinct and learned helplessness of dogs, this study attempts to rationalize how children are affected by failure. The purpose was to observe the nature of the differences between helpless children’s view of failure and mastery oriented children’s view of failure. The subjects were 56 male and 56 female 4th through 6th graders. Helplessness was measured by the Intellectual Responsibility Scale. The children were asked to answer a series of problems, 8 success and 4 failure problems. Then asked how they thought they performed. The results showed that only the children’s perception of their successes differed. The helpless children showed a decrease in the use of effective strategies and an increase in ineffectual strategies when presented with failure. The mastery-oriented children were not deterred. There was also a significant different in the children’s opinions of future successes. Helpless children thought that every other child performed better and were more critical of their work. It was concluded that “if there is a way to devalue one’s present performance or to be pessimistic about one’s future performance, the helpless children are likely to make use of it” (Diener & Dweck, 1980). The second major finding was that the helpless children do not view their current successes as a prediction of future successes. This article opened my eyes to how children can be affected by failure. Unlike the first experiment, this one showed how humans can be influenced by failure. I thought it was most interesting that it was so consistent that helpless children who faced failure blamed themselves even though they are so
“There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs,” was said by motivational speaker and American author Zig Ziglar. This relates to Carol S. Dweck’s article “Brainology” and Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me.” Ziglar, Dweck, and Alexie all feel that it isn’t easy for someone to become successful. It takes hard work, perseverance, and the want to learn and grow. In Dweck’s article, she stated that someone with a growth mindset would become more successful and knowledgeable than someone with a fixed mindset, which was demonstrated by Alexie in his essay, and by a personal experience of my own.
We were not born with the ability to do everything and we must allow ourselves to take our lessons as we go and learn from them. In my life there are many things that I have learned, whether it be from the trial and error of working on vehicles to me submitting an uncited English paper. We are taught from the moment we are born what failure is, we are asked to do things as simple as to say a word and we are told that is not correct. Even though that example is in the context of teaching, we still are being taught what it feels like to be told we are doing something wrong. Failure is something that we become so familiar with it becomes a natural view, seeing someone attempt to throw paper in the trash and they miss; fail or a failure as big as Chernobyl and everything in between, we are immediately taught to look down on what falls into the category of
...fs in the earlier theory of ‘learned helplessness’. The reformulated model states: ‘…investigators of human helplessness have become increasingly disenchanted with the adequacy of theoretical constructs…so have we. …We do not know whether these considerations apply to infra-humans’ Seligman’s group admit that their decade in of research in the animal model failed to address the fundamental aspect of human depression. Their second model was primarily based on the “attribution theory” which expounds the human connection between ‘causality’ and ‘events’. The reformulated theory concludes that humans suffering melancholy make internal attributions for lamentable events and are pessimistic towards the future. This model now being a ‘hypothetical construct’ can only be used as an introduction into human depression treatment with deeper research needing to be validated.
Failure is often attributed to an overwhelming challenge. Individuals often blame their circumstances for their inability to achieve their goals. But contrary to popular belief, challenges and adversity are the necessary soil for the growth of success. By presenting both adversity and successes, the texts Breaking Night by Liz Murray, and Balotelli by Luca Caioli present the notion that great adversity can be the breeding ground for successful individuals.
In a situation where an individual lingers over how a consequence would have been different if they did things contrarily, is also known as upward counterfactual. It is where there is a higher intent to prepare, higher determination and overall enhanced performance. More so, this is a result of dissatisfaction with current performance and a motivation to improve outcome (Markman & McMullen, 2003), by coming up with new ways. It is often linked with an increment in self-efficacy through individual experiences that are usually tied with emotions of regret or disappointment. Contrariwise, downward counterfactual recognizes how a consequence may possibly be unpleasant and adverse than the actual outcome. It is where individuals identifies and are satisfied with what they have, knowing that it could have been otherwise (McCrea, 2008). This gives rise to emotions shifting from happiness to being at ease (Galinsky & Moskowitz,
Developmental psychology is a branch of psychology associated with characterizing how humans acquire knowledge, mature, and acclimate themselves throughout the course of their lives (American Psychological Association, 2015). Over the years, countless theories have been proposed to differentiate these deviations and to investigate the causes and mechanisms of human motivation and behavior, such as Erik Erikson’s psychosocial development, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygtosky’s varying takes on cognitive development, and Lawrence Kohlberg and James Marcia’s interpretations of an individual’s moral development (Snowman and McCown, 2012: Kohlberg, 1971; Marcia, 1980). Psychologist Albert Bandura (1989), however, offers a different perspective through
“Learned helplessness is a phenomenon containing three components: contingency, cognition, and behavior. Contingency addresses the uncontrollability of the situation. Cognition refers to the attributions that people make regarding their situation or surroundings of which they are a part. Behavior allows individuals to decide whether they will give up or proceed with the obstacle set before them” (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993; Firmin, Hwang, Copella, & Clark, 2004). When a student thinks about college he must take either the ACT or the SAT test to be admitted into the college. Students have a lot of decisions to make that can be stressful. Failure is an aspect that students fear and can determine whether they will succeed in life.
... growth where a child is forced to start looking for solutions for everything that is wrong instead of simply being a child. This analysis prove that children have their own way of seeing things and interpreting them. Their defense mechanisms allow them to live through hard and difficult times by creating jokes and games out of the real situation. This enables then to escape the difficulties of the real world.
Dweck studied for years on failure, and failure is not a popular activity. Of course, Many people whom she studied did not like tasks, did not do well, and some people she had studied done great under a challenge. The data let her to the conclusion that the group of people who did not like tasks had a “fixed mindset”, and the group of people that thrived under challenge had a “ growth mindset”. If you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset determines whether or not you react to anything that of course tests your intellectual abilities. Being a writer is a job for people with a growth mindset. that does not mean that people with a growth mindset are
"Learned helplessness" is when people experience long term constant stress. The people that go through this feel helpless in their situation and don’t exactly know how to get out of it. The person feels that he/she has no control over their situation whatsoever causing him/her to emotionally break. People that suffer through this think negatively about their abilities, because events that did not succeed in the past brought their self-confidence down. Traumatic Events are other important causes of depression (All about Depression: Environmental Causes). Examples would be the death of a loved one, divorce, a medical illness, or losing property because of a natural occurrence. These situations cause a person to feel like they have no control over their like and gives them even more grief because of that fact. Everyone reacts to harsh events differently, so one person may take it more lightly or greatly than another individual. For instance, when a man’s wife passes away, he is more likely to suffer from depression than if a woman’s husband passes away. This is due to the fact that the loss of a wife for a husband also means additional losses, like household care, family support, and other responsibilities
Beck’s theory of depression focuses on negative thoughts being the cause of depression. Beck believed that negative thoughts generated by dysfunctional beliefs were usually the primary cause of depressive symptoms. His theory of depression showed how early experiences could lead to the formation of dysfunctional beliefs, which could later on turn into negative thoughts. He focused on the fact that these negative automatic thoughts were what lead an individual to become depressed. His main argument was that depression started with a negative view of oneself, instead of having a negative view of oneself due to depression. He believed there was a direct relationship between the amount and severity of someone’s negative thoughts and the severity of their depression symptoms, so basically the more negative thoughts a person had the more depressed they would become. Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness looked at the depression from a different point of view. Seligman believed that depression was caused by a series of setbacks, such as a death in the family that led a person to feel a ...
There are several possible theories of where depression comes from, such as bullying, learned patterns of negative thinking, victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or mental abuse, and early child...
Kaplan, P. S., Bachorowski, J., Smoski, M. J., & Hudenko, W. J. (2002). Infants of depressed mothers, although competent learners, fail to learn in response to their own mothers' infant-directed speech. Psychological Science, 13(3), 268-271.
Hiroto, D. S. (1974). Locus of control and learned helplessness. Journal of experimental psychology, 102(2), 187.
Failure is not merely the reciprocal of success; moreover, it is the shadow of success waiting for the correct path of light to grow and unveil itself. Instead of being melancholy about failing, we should take our failure as an advantage to do the correct thing and succeed. After all, as said by Ellen Degeneres, “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” I, along with the billions of other people on this planet, have failed many times in life. However, there are certain failures that can teach us a value so powerful that it can outpower the most preached teachings or morals.