The Learned Helplessness Model of Depression
The second cognitive model of depression is the learned helplessness model.
It is cognitive because it holds that the basic cause of depression is an expectation:
the individual expects that bad events will occur to him and that
there is nothing he can do to prevent their occurrence. We will discuss the
phenomenon and theory of learned helplessness, and then we will discuss
the relationship between learned helplessness and depression.
EXPERIMENTAL DISCOVERY OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Learned helplessness was discovered quite by accident. In the course of
experiments on the effects of prior Pavlovian conditioning on later
instrumental learning, Steven Maier, Bruce Overmier, and Martin Seligman found that dogs
first given Pavlovian conditioning with inescapable shock became profoundly
passive later on when they were given escapable shock. In the latter
condition, although they had the opportunity to flee the shock, they did not
even attempt to escape.
Here is the basic phenomenon: a dog is strapped into a hammock and
given between sixty and eighty five-second inescapable shocks. The shocks
are moderately painful, but not physically damaging. The shock is uncontrollable:
no response the dog makes during this session will affect the shock,
since the shock is programmed to go on and off at a particular moment,
independently of all responses. Twenty-four hours later, this dog is placed in a
two-compartment shuttle box from which it is possible to escape shock.
When shock is turned on, the dog engages in about thirty seconds of frantic
activity, but then it lies down during the shock and does not move, not even
attempting to escape shock. This passivity continues trial after trial. This is
the basic motivational deficit in learned helplessness: a failure to initiate voluntary
responses to escape following a previous experience with uncontrollable
events. This behavior is in marked contrast to the behavior of two
other groups of dogs who first received escapable shock or who received no
shock when strapped into the hammock. These dogs respond readily later
on in the shuttle box, jumping back and forth across the barrier, and learning
to escape and avoid shock. This use of these three groups (the triadic design)
tells us it is not shock per se, but the uncontrollability of the shock that produces
the motivational deficits (see Figure 13-3).
There is another basic deficit of learned helplessness found in dogs, rats,
and people. This is the failure to learn that responding can be successful,
even once a response is made and it succeeds in controlling the outcome.
Dogs and rats, who first had inescapable shock, when later placed in the
Shuttle box, often sit for three or four trials and fail to escape shock. On the
fifth trial, the animal may stand up, cross the barrier, and successfully terminate
shock. Such an animal, surprisingly, often does not catch on: during
later trials it will revert to sitting and taking the shock, even though it has
made a successful response. This is, again, in marked contrast to other animals
that have had prior escapable shock or no shock. Once these other animals
make a response that works, they catch on (Overmier and Seligman,
1967; Maier and Seligman, 1976).
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN HUMANS
Following the exploration of learned helplessness in animals, it became important for investigators to find out whether or not learned helplessness occurred in normal human beings. It does. In the basic procedure that produces learned helplessness in humans, the triadic design is used with non-depressed volunteers who receive loud noise delivered through earphones. For the first group, the noise is inescapable; it is preprogrammed to go on and off independently of what they do. The second group can escape noise by pressing a series of buttons in front of them. The third group receives no noise. Then all three groups are taken to a human shuttle-box, and noise goes on. If they move their hand from one side of the shuttle-box to the other, the noise goes off. The results parallel those in animals. Individuals who have received inescapable noise sit there passively and fail to escape. Those other groups who first learned to escape noise by button pressing or had no noise at all, escape noise readily in the shuttle-box (Hiroto, l974).
The deficits produced by learned helplessness in humans are quite general.
Experience with inescapable noise produces deficits at later noise
escape, deficits in cognitive tasks such as the solution of anagrams, deficits in
seeing patterns in anagrams, and lowered expectancy change following success
and failure in skilled tasks. The inducing events for helplessness in man
need not be aversive. Not only do inescapable noise and shock produce the
phenomenon, but also unsolvable cognitive problems produce it.
Learned helplessness theory argues that the basic cause of all the deficits
observed in helpless animals and humans after uncontrollable events occur
is the expectation of future non-contingency between responding and outcomes.
This expectation that future responding will be futile causes the two
helplessness deficits: (1) it produces deficits in responding by undermining
the motivation to respond, and (2) it produces later difficulty in seeing that
outcomes are contingent upon responding when they are. The three-group
design is the basic evidence for this hypothesis. Recall that just the experience
of shock, noise, or problems in themselves does not produce the motivational
and cognitive deficits, only uncontrollable shock, noise, and
problems produce these deficits. This strongly suggests that both animals
and humans learn during uncontrollable events that their responding is futile
and come to expect this in future situations.
If an individual believes that her
failure is stable and will persist
into the future, long-lasting
feelings of helplessness and
depression may result.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ATTRIBUTIONS IN HUMAN HELPLESSNESS
When a human being experiences inescapable noise or unsolvable problems and perceives that his responding is ineffective, he goes on to ask an important question: What causes my present helplessness? The causal attribution that a person makes is a crucial determinant of when and where expectancies for future failure will recur. There are three attributional dimensions that govern when and where future helplessness deficits will be displayed.
(Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978)
The first dimension is the internal-external dimension. Consider an individual
who has received unsolvable problems in an experiment. When he
discovers that responding is ineffective, he can either decide that he is stupid
but the problem is solvable, or that the problems are rigged to be unsolvable
and he is not stupid. The first attribution for his failure is internal (stupidity)
and the second is external (unsolvable problem). Evidence suggests that
when individuals fail at important tasks and make internal attributions for
their failure, passivity appears and self-esteem drops markedly. When individuals
make external attributions for failure, passivity ensues but self-esteem
stays high (Abramson, 1978).
In addition to deciding whether or not the cause of failure is internal or
external, an individual who has failed also scans the dimension of stability:
"Is the cause of my failure something permanent or transient?" An individual
who has failed may decide that the cause of the failure is stable and that it
will persist into the future. Examples of such stable factors are stupidity
(which is internal as well as stable), or the difficulty of the task (which is
stable but external). In contrast, an individual may decide that the cause of
his failure is unstable. An individual who has failed an exam can believe that
the cause was his bad night's sleep the night before, an unstable cause that is internal.
Alternatively, he might decide that he failed because it was an unlucky
day, an unstable cause that is external. The attributional theory of
helplessness postulates that when the cause of failure is attributed to a stable
factor, the helplessness deficits will persist in time. Conversely, if the individual
believes that the cause of his failure is unstable, he will not necessarily
fail again when he encounters the task months hence. According to the attributional model of
learned helplessness, stable attributions lead to permanent
deficits, and unstable attributions to transient deficits.
The third and final dimension is global-specific. When an individual
finds that he has failed, he must ask himself whether or not the cause of his
failure is global-a factor that will produce failure in a wide variety of circumstances- or specific-a
factor that will produce failure only in similar
circumstances. For example, an individual who has failed to solve a laboratory
problem may decide that he is unskilled at solving laboratory problems
and probably unskilled at other tasks as well. In this instance, being unskilled
is global and the expectation of futility will recur in a wide variety of
other situations. It is also a stable and internal factor. Alternatively, he
might decide that these particular laboratory problems are too hard. The
difficulty of laboratory problems is a specific factor, since it will only produce
the expectation that future responding will be ineffective in other laboratory
problems and not in real life. This factor, aside from being specific, is
stable and external. The attributional model of helplessness holds that when
individuals make global attributions for their failure, helplessness deficits
will occur in a wide variety of situations. When individuals believe that specific
factors cause their failures, the expectation of response ineffectiveness
will be narrow, and only a narrow band of situations will produce helplessness
deficits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Treating:
Depression and Suicide
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Social Anxiety
Generalized Anxiety
Panic Disorder
Major Depression Disorder
Agoraphobia
For the Therapy I recommend click here:
The Liberator Method
It is cognitive because it holds that the basic cause of depression is an expectation:
the individual expects that bad events will occur to him and that
there is nothing he can do to prevent their occurrence. We will discuss the
phenomenon and theory of learned helplessness, and then we will discuss
the relationship between learned helplessness and depression.
EXPERIMENTAL DISCOVERY OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Learned helplessness was discovered quite by accident. In the course of
experiments on the effects of prior Pavlovian conditioning on later
instrumental learning, Steven Maier, Bruce Overmier, and Martin Seligman found that dogs
first given Pavlovian conditioning with inescapable shock became profoundly
passive later on when they were given escapable shock. In the latter
condition, although they had the opportunity to flee the shock, they did not
even attempt to escape.
Here is the basic phenomenon: a dog is strapped into a hammock and
given between sixty and eighty five-second inescapable shocks. The shocks
are moderately painful, but not physically damaging. The shock is uncontrollable:
no response the dog makes during this session will affect the shock,
since the shock is programmed to go on and off at a particular moment,
independently of all responses. Twenty-four hours later, this dog is placed in a
two-compartment shuttle box from which it is possible to escape shock.
When shock is turned on, the dog engages in about thirty seconds of frantic
activity, but then it lies down during the shock and does not move, not even
attempting to escape shock. This passivity continues trial after trial. This is
the basic motivational deficit in learned helplessness: a failure to initiate voluntary
responses to escape following a previous experience with uncontrollable
events. This behavior is in marked contrast to the behavior of two
other groups of dogs who first received escapable shock or who received no
shock when strapped into the hammock. These dogs respond readily later
on in the shuttle box, jumping back and forth across the barrier, and learning
to escape and avoid shock. This use of these three groups (the triadic design)
tells us it is not shock per se, but the uncontrollability of the shock that produces
the motivational deficits (see Figure 13-3).
There is another basic deficit of learned helplessness found in dogs, rats,
and people. This is the failure to learn that responding can be successful,
even once a response is made and it succeeds in controlling the outcome.
Dogs and rats, who first had inescapable shock, when later placed in the
Shuttle box, often sit for three or four trials and fail to escape shock. On the
fifth trial, the animal may stand up, cross the barrier, and successfully terminate
shock. Such an animal, surprisingly, often does not catch on: during
later trials it will revert to sitting and taking the shock, even though it has
made a successful response. This is, again, in marked contrast to other animals
that have had prior escapable shock or no shock. Once these other animals
make a response that works, they catch on (Overmier and Seligman,
1967; Maier and Seligman, 1976).
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN HUMANS
Following the exploration of learned helplessness in animals, it became important for investigators to find out whether or not learned helplessness occurred in normal human beings. It does. In the basic procedure that produces learned helplessness in humans, the triadic design is used with non-depressed volunteers who receive loud noise delivered through earphones. For the first group, the noise is inescapable; it is preprogrammed to go on and off independently of what they do. The second group can escape noise by pressing a series of buttons in front of them. The third group receives no noise. Then all three groups are taken to a human shuttle-box, and noise goes on. If they move their hand from one side of the shuttle-box to the other, the noise goes off. The results parallel those in animals. Individuals who have received inescapable noise sit there passively and fail to escape. Those other groups who first learned to escape noise by button pressing or had no noise at all, escape noise readily in the shuttle-box (Hiroto, l974).
The deficits produced by learned helplessness in humans are quite general.
Experience with inescapable noise produces deficits at later noise
escape, deficits in cognitive tasks such as the solution of anagrams, deficits in
seeing patterns in anagrams, and lowered expectancy change following success
and failure in skilled tasks. The inducing events for helplessness in man
need not be aversive. Not only do inescapable noise and shock produce the
phenomenon, but also unsolvable cognitive problems produce it.
Learned helplessness theory argues that the basic cause of all the deficits
observed in helpless animals and humans after uncontrollable events occur
is the expectation of future non-contingency between responding and outcomes.
This expectation that future responding will be futile causes the two
helplessness deficits: (1) it produces deficits in responding by undermining
the motivation to respond, and (2) it produces later difficulty in seeing that
outcomes are contingent upon responding when they are. The three-group
design is the basic evidence for this hypothesis. Recall that just the experience
of shock, noise, or problems in themselves does not produce the motivational
and cognitive deficits, only uncontrollable shock, noise, and
problems produce these deficits. This strongly suggests that both animals
and humans learn during uncontrollable events that their responding is futile
and come to expect this in future situations.
If an individual believes that her
failure is stable and will persist
into the future, long-lasting
feelings of helplessness and
depression may result.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ATTRIBUTIONS IN HUMAN HELPLESSNESS
When a human being experiences inescapable noise or unsolvable problems and perceives that his responding is ineffective, he goes on to ask an important question: What causes my present helplessness? The causal attribution that a person makes is a crucial determinant of when and where expectancies for future failure will recur. There are three attributional dimensions that govern when and where future helplessness deficits will be displayed.
(Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978)
The first dimension is the internal-external dimension. Consider an individual
who has received unsolvable problems in an experiment. When he
discovers that responding is ineffective, he can either decide that he is stupid
but the problem is solvable, or that the problems are rigged to be unsolvable
and he is not stupid. The first attribution for his failure is internal (stupidity)
and the second is external (unsolvable problem). Evidence suggests that
when individuals fail at important tasks and make internal attributions for
their failure, passivity appears and self-esteem drops markedly. When individuals
make external attributions for failure, passivity ensues but self-esteem
stays high (Abramson, 1978).
In addition to deciding whether or not the cause of failure is internal or
external, an individual who has failed also scans the dimension of stability:
"Is the cause of my failure something permanent or transient?" An individual
who has failed may decide that the cause of the failure is stable and that it
will persist into the future. Examples of such stable factors are stupidity
(which is internal as well as stable), or the difficulty of the task (which is
stable but external). In contrast, an individual may decide that the cause of
his failure is unstable. An individual who has failed an exam can believe that
the cause was his bad night's sleep the night before, an unstable cause that is internal.
Alternatively, he might decide that he failed because it was an unlucky
day, an unstable cause that is external. The attributional theory of
helplessness postulates that when the cause of failure is attributed to a stable
factor, the helplessness deficits will persist in time. Conversely, if the individual
believes that the cause of his failure is unstable, he will not necessarily
fail again when he encounters the task months hence. According to the attributional model of
learned helplessness, stable attributions lead to permanent
deficits, and unstable attributions to transient deficits.
The third and final dimension is global-specific. When an individual
finds that he has failed, he must ask himself whether or not the cause of his
failure is global-a factor that will produce failure in a wide variety of circumstances- or specific-a
factor that will produce failure only in similar
circumstances. For example, an individual who has failed to solve a laboratory
problem may decide that he is unskilled at solving laboratory problems
and probably unskilled at other tasks as well. In this instance, being unskilled
is global and the expectation of futility will recur in a wide variety of
other situations. It is also a stable and internal factor. Alternatively, he
might decide that these particular laboratory problems are too hard. The
difficulty of laboratory problems is a specific factor, since it will only produce
the expectation that future responding will be ineffective in other laboratory
problems and not in real life. This factor, aside from being specific, is
stable and external. The attributional model of helplessness holds that when
individuals make global attributions for their failure, helplessness deficits
will occur in a wide variety of situations. When individuals believe that specific
factors cause their failures, the expectation of response ineffectiveness
will be narrow, and only a narrow band of situations will produce helplessness
deficits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Treating:
Depression and Suicide
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Social Anxiety
Generalized Anxiety
Panic Disorder
Major Depression Disorder
Agoraphobia
For the Therapy I recommend click here:
The Liberator Method