Learned Helplessness notes PDF

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notes on learned helplessness, lecturer= Dr Carla Litchfield, Biological and Learning Psychology SP5 2018 ...

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BALP- WK2- LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AND LEARNED OPTIMISM LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN RATS Exposure of rats to an unpredictable, inescapable moderate foot shock will induce response deficits in a subsequent shock escape test. This ‘helpless’ behaviour may improve during treatment with antidepressant drugs

Learned Helplessness & Learned Optimism HISTORICAL TIMELINE OF EARLY RESEARCH

ORIGINAL DOG EXPERIMENTS: In the 1960s Bruce Overmier, Martin Seligman, Steven Maier observed that: Dogs that received electric shocks in a classical conditioning experiment were unable to learn to escape from shocks in a shuttle box (which dogs can usually do easily). WHY? - Did just being given electric shocks make dogs ‘helpless’ in the shuttle box? OR - Did being given UNCONTROLLABLE electric shocks make dogs helpless? DESIGN OF YOKED TRIADIC DOG EXPERIMENTS PHASE 1: Pavlovian Harness Group 1: Escapable shock- dog can turn off shock with nose Group 2: Inescapable shock (yoked to group 1) Group 3: No treatment (control) PHASE 2: Shuttle Box Group 1: Escapable shock- normal learning Group 2: Inescapable shock – interference, two thirds failed to learn Group 3: No treatment- Normal learning

CRITICISMS 1. Does not rule out possibility of instrumental response 2. Possible neurochemical explanation 3. Subjects may differ in sensitivity to shock— may fluctuate over time 4. Results could be due to unpredictability (NOT uncontrollability) ORIGINAL THEORY OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS exposing organisms to uncontrollable outcomes will produce 3 deficits: COGNITIVE DEFICIT: belief that outcomes are uncontrollable MOTIVATIONAL DEFICIT: lack of response initiation If the outcomes are aversive (shock) EMOTIONAL DEFICIT: fear and eventually depression The theory goes well beyond the original experimental findings 1. Applies to all organisms 2. Assumes even non-aversive uncontrollable outcomes can produce learned helplessness deficits 3. Claims to explain depression, but experimenters did not check for symptoms of depression in the dogs

CRITICISMS OF ORIGINAL THEORY OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS - Goes beyond experimental findings (effect in dogs exposed to electric shocks) - Fails to explain why a third of subjects show no effect (do not become helpless) - As a theory of depression (a) paradox of self-blame, (b) fails to explain why not everyone is depressed. Can learned helplessness be shown IN PEOPLE? HIROTO AND SELIGMAN’S EXPERIMENTS - used human participants, with a loud nose as the uncontrollable stimulus - Participants told noise would stop if they solved a puzzle correctly. Group 1: could press series of buttons to turn off noise – could control environment Group 2: given puzzles that could not be solvednot control environment -

Both induction procedures confounded various extraneous variables – validity open to question

CRITICISMS - Amount and pattern of reinforcement (not all have used yoking) - Yoking may produce ‘illusion of control’ - Instructional set: some experiments used different instructions - Perceived success/failure: most experiments have confounded uncontrollability & failure - Predictability/unpredictability: difficult to separate experimentally

BALP- WK2- LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AND LEARNED OPTIMISM - People don’t give up altogether (like most of the dogs did). DEPRESSIVE REALISM HYPOTHESIS: Taylor & Brown Alloy and Abramson showed that - Depressed college students were more accurate/realistic in making judgements about their performance in an experimental task. - Non-depressed college students tended to REVISED THEORY OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS: over-rate their performance. When organisms experience uncontrollable COGNITIVE THEORIES OF DEPRESSION BECK’S COGNITIVE THEORY OF DEPRESSION outcomes, they explain the fact in terms of 3 additional dimensions: Usually assume that depressed patients’ cognitions of reality are distorted. 1. INTERNAL – EXTERNAL dimension: Negative distortions about determines personal or universal helplessness (& accordingly self-blame) - The self (I’m unlikable) - The world (nothing ever goes right) 2. STABLE- UNSTABLE dimension: determines ‘chronicity’ (persistence) - Other people (no one cares) 3. GLOBAL-SPECIFIC dimension: determines Information is distorted in order to maintain these generalisability to new situations. negative schemas. EXAMPLE 1: You fail exam (negative outcome) Two possible explanations HOPELESSNESS THEORY OF DEPRESSION – 1. I’m stupid (internal, stable, global) Abramson, Matalsky & Alloy) 2. Exam was unfair (external, unstable, - Based on learned helplessness theory - Assumes depressed people generalise specific) inappropriately from situations in which EXAMPLE 2: You come top in exam (positive outcome) outcomes are uncontrollable to situations in which they are controllable Two possible explanations - Assumes depressed patients display an 1. I’m brilliant (internal, stable, global) unrealistic attributional style 2. I was lucky (external, unstable, specific) The revised theory also assumed some people have a depressive (pessimistic) attributional style: 1. A tendency to give internal, stable, global attributions for bad outcomes 2. A tendency to give external, unstable, specific attributions for good outcomes.

POSITIVE ILLUSIONS – Taylor - Cognitive theories of depression are incorrect in claiming that depressed patients distort reality whereas mentally healthy people are realistic. IT IS THE OPPOSITE

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Mentally healthy people distort reality (see the world through rose tinted glasses)

OTHER APPLICATIONS OF HELPLESSNESS THEORY Martin Seligman has been a strong advocate of attributional retraining: To be successful and happy- develop a healthy, optimistic attributional style.

LEARNED OPTIMISM - Develop a positive attributional style to successfully combat life’s challenges - Pioneering the positive psychology movement - Traditional psychology has overemphasised the negatives and neglected the positives

Learned Helplessness: nott r y i ng t o getoutofa negat i v es i t uat i on bec aus et he pas thas t aughty ou t haty ou ar e hel pl es s .

Learned helplessness occurs when people or animals feel helpless to avoid negative situations. Martin Seligman first observed learned helplessness when he was doing experiments on dogs. He noticed that the dogs didn't try to escape the shocks if they had been conditioned to believe that they couldn't escape. Learned helplessness is behaviour that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or

BALP- WK2- LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AND LEARNED OPTIMISM otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid....