Learned Helplessness

Seligman, M. (1972). Learned helplessness. Annual Review of Medicine. Vol. 23:407-412 (Volume publication date February 1972) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.me.23.020172.002203
 * “Not only do we face events that we can control by our actions, but we also face many events about which we can do nothing at all. Such uncontrollable events can significantly debilitate organisms: they produce passivity in the face of trauma, inability to learn that responding is effective, and emotional stress in animals, and possibly depression in man. This review is concerned with the behavioral and psychological impact of uncontrollable traumatic events.”
 * “In summary, experience with uncontrollable trauma typically has three basic effects: (a) animals become passive in the face of trauma, i.e., they are slower to initiate responses to alleviate trauma and may not respond at all; (b) animals are retarded at learning that their responses control trauma, i.e., if the animal makes a response which produces relief, he may have trouble "catching-on" to the response-relief contingency; and (c) animals show more stress when faced with trauma they cannot control than with equivalent controllable trauma. This maladaptive behavior appears in a variety of species including man, and over a range of tasks which require voluntary responding.”
 * “When "directive therapy" is used and helpless dogs are dragged with long leashes from side to side in the shuttle box, so that changing compartments terminates shock, all dogs eventually begin to respond on their own. The recovery from helplessness is complete and lasting, and this finding has been replicated with over two dozen helpless dogs.”
 * “Other findings support the idea that experience in controlling trauma may protect organisms from the helplessness caused by inescapable trauma.”
 * “Since most of the investigations of uncontrollable trauma have used infra-humans, we can only speculate on the relationship of learned helplessness in animals to maladaptive behaviors in man. The phenomenon of human depression, particularly reactive depression, has a number of parallels to the phenomenon of learned helplessness.”

Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E., & Teasdale, J. D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87(1), 49-74. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.87.1.49
 * “The old hypothesis, when applied to learned helplessness in humans, has two major problems: (a) It does not distinguish between cases in which outcomes are uncontrollable for all people and cases in which they are uncontrollable only - for some people (universal vs. personal helplessness), and (b) it does not explain when helplessness is general and when specific, or when chronic and when acute.”
 * “According to the reformulation, once people perceive noncontingency, they attribute their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or external. The attribution chosen influences whether expectation of future helplessness will be chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and whether helplessness will lower self-esteem or not.”
 * “The cornerstone of the hypothesis is that learning that outcomes are uncontrollable results in three deficits: motivational, cognitive and emotional. The hypothesis is "cognitive" in that it postulates that mere exposure to uncontrollability is not sufficient to render an organism helpless; rather, the organism must come to expect that outcomes are uncontrollable in order to exhibit helplessness. In brief, the motivational deficit consists of retarded initiation of voluntary responses and is seen as a consequence of the expectation that outcomes are uncontrollable. If the organism expects that its responses will not affect some outcome, then the likelihood of emitting such responses decreases. Second, the learned helplessness hypothesis argues that learning that an outcome is uncontrollable results in a cognitive deficit since such learning makes it difficult to later learn that responses produce that outcome. Finally, the learned helplessness hypothesis claims that depressed affect is a consequence of learning that outcomes are uncontrollable.”
 * “… we argue that when a person finds that he is helpless, he asks why he is helpless. The causal attribution he makes then determines the generality and chronicity of his helplessness deficits as well as his later self-esteem.”
 * “When people believe that outcomes are more likely or less likely to happen to themselves than to relevant others, they attribute these outcomes to internal factors. Alternatively, persons make external attribution for outcomes that they believe are as likely to happen to themselves as to relevant others.”
 * “Situations in which subjects believe they cannot solve solvable problems are instances of personal helplessness according to the reformulated hypothesis. Alternatively, situations in which subjects believe that neither they nor relevant others can solve the problem are instances of universal helplessness.”
 * “Our analysis suggests that individuals who believe that desired outcomes are not contingent on acts in their repertoires but are contingent on acts in the repertoires of relevant others, will show lower self-esteem than individuals who believe that desired outcomes are neither contingent on acts in their repertoires nor contingent on acts in the repertoires of relevant others.”
 * “Some attributions have global, others only specific, implications. Some attributions have chronic, others transient, implications.”
 * “When a bad outcome occurs, an individual can attribute it to (a) lack of ability (an internal-stable factor), (b) lack of effort (an internal-unstable factor), (c) the task's being too difficult (an external-stable factor), or (d) lack of luck (an external-unstable factor).”
 * “… we suggest that there is a third dimension—"global-specific"—orthogonal to internality and stability, that characterizes the attributions of people. Global factors affect a wide variety of outcomes, but specific factors do not.3 A global attribution implies that helplessness will occur across situations, whereas a specific attribution implies helplessness only in the original situation. This dimension (like those of stability and internality) is a continuum, not a dichotomy; for the sake of simplicity, however, we treat it here as a dichotomy.”
 * “In general, the properties of the attribution predict in what new situations and across what span of time the expectation of helplessness will be likely to recur. An attribution to global factors predicts that the expectation will recur even when the situation changes, whereas an attribution to specific factors predicts that the expectation need not recur when the situation changes. An attribution to stable factors predicts that the expectation will recur even after a lapse of time, whereas an attribution to unstable factors predicts that the expectation need not recur after a lapse of time. Whether or not the expectation recurs across situations and with elapsed time determines whether or not the helplessness deficits recur in the new situation or with elapsed time. Notice that the attribution merely predicts the recurrence of the expectations but the expectation determines the occurrence of the helplessness deficits.”
 * “… four therapeutic strategies. 1. Change the estimated probability of the outcome. Change the environment by reducing the likelihood of aversive outcomes and increasing the likelihood of desired outcomes. 2. Make the highly preferred outcomes less preferred by reducing the aversiveness of unrelievable outcomes or the desirability of unobtainable outcomes. 3. Change the expectation from uncontrollability to controllability when the outcomes are attainable. When the responses are not yet in the individual's repertoire but can be, train the appropriate skills. When the responses are already in the individual's repertoire but cannot be made because of distorted expectation of response-outcome independence, modify the distorted expectation. When the outcomes are unattainable, Strategy 3 does not apply. 4. Change unrealistic attributions for failure toward external, unstable, specific factors, and change unrealistic attributions for success toward internal, stable, global factors.”