Example of Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness means a condition of a human being or an animal, in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity of avoiding unpleasant or harmful circumstance exists. A condition like this one, can cause a person to feel completely helpless to change his or her situation for the better. We can relate this to depression, in which you feel absolutely powerless, and you know you can change yourself to do better, but you simply don’t do it. Like said before, learned helplessness can cause severe depression, and an extremely low self esteem. An example of this condition could be that you have this group of friends, and they are often putting you down by saying you are ugly or even stupid. At first you just ignore them because you know it is not true, but after a while that you have been repeatedly hearing your friends say this to you, you eventually start to believe it. You no longer have that self esteem you used to have because now you think you are stupid and ugly and don’t try to change this anymore. You learn to behave helplessly to what your friends say to you, instead of ignoring them and believing in who you are.

SELIGMAN QUOTES

"I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize."

"Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think."

"Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence."

-Martin Seligman