Learned helplessness, in psychology, a mental state in which an organism forced to bear aversive stimuli, or stimuli that are painful or otherwise unpleasant, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are “escapable,” presumably because it has learned that it cannot control the situation.

Seligman, Martin E.P. Martin E.P. Seligman, the psychologist who conceptualized and developed the theory of learned helplessness. Dutch Height—Klaas Fopma/Redux

The theory of learned helplessness was conceptualized and developed by American psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s and ’70s. While conducting experimental research on classical conditioning, Seligman inadvertently discovered that dogs that had received unavoidable electric shocks failed to take action in subsequent situations—even those in which escape or avoidance was in fact possible—whereas dogs that had not received the unavoidable shocks immediately took action in subsequent situations. The experiment was replicated with human subjects (using loud noise as opposed to electric shocks), yielding similar results. Seligman coined the term learned helplessness to describe the expectation that outcomes are uncontrollable.

Learned helplessness has since become a basic principle of behavioral theory, demonstrating that prior learning can result in a drastic change in behaviour and seeking to explain why individuals may accept and remain passive in negative situations despite their clear ability to change them. In his book Helplessness (1975), Seligman argued that, as a result of these negative expectations, other consequences may accompany the inability or unwillingness to act, including low self-esteem, chronic failure, sadness, and physical illness. The theory of learned helplessness also has been applied to many conditions and behaviours, including clinical depression, aging, domestic violence, poverty, discrimination, parenting, academic achievement, drug abuse, and alcoholism. Critics, however, have argued that a variety of different conclusions can be drawn from Seligman’s experiments and therefore broad generalizations, most frequently found in the areas of clinical depression and academic achievement, are unwarranted. For example, the application of the theory to clinical depression is viewed as an oversimplification of the illness that fails to account for the complex cognitive processes involved in its etiology, severity, and manifestation.