Learned helplessness and overcoming it

Learned helplessness causes a person to remain inactive. How often do you consider yourself ineffective, unable to solve even a simple problem? Do you justify your failures by heredity or circumstances? If so, then you have learned helplessness. This is a condition that prevents you from seeing the world in bright colors. This is constant pessimism, despondency, depression. Is it possible to change the situation?

What is learned helplessness?

Learned helplessness in psychology is a state in which a person does not want to be active, sees life through the prism of pessimism, and simply goes with the flow. He does not want to change anything even when given the opportunity to do so. And if he does take on any task, he will quickly give up, considering it too difficult. According to the theory of learned helplessness, the following phrases predominate in people’s speech:

“I can’t change or prove something to others” - the individual experiences internal discomfort and considers himself a complete loser.
“I don’t want to do anything” - a person is simply afraid to see his weaknesses, incompetence, and stupidity again.
“I’m always late, I overreact to things” - with these words people usually focus on the fact that they will not change under any circumstances.
“I never ask anyone for help” - this expression betrays confidence in one’s own helplessness. If something didn’t work out before, it won’t work out now.
“Everyone in our family is exactly like this” - this is how a person tries to explain why he does not change. According to him, genetics are to blame for everything. And, as a rule, it is useless to argue with her.

Interestingly, women are more likely than men to experience the phenomenon of learned helplessness. The reason is excessive impressionability, a tendency to worry even about minor failures.

Theory

Based on the results of the study, we can safely say that helplessness can be acquired as a result of negative experience. If you give up at least once, it will most likely affect your entire life.

Definition of syndrome in psychology

Learned helplessness syndrome was discovered by Martin Selingman in 1966. It was an accident. The scientist planned to repeat the experiment related to conditioned reflexes in dogs. Unlike Pavlov, he used electric shocks rather than food. He replaced light with sound. The goal of the study is to induce fear every time the alarm sounds. Two groups of dogs took part in the experiments:

Animals in the first group could avoid electric shocks when pressing the lever.
The second group had to endure punishment.

According to Selingman, the dogs should have run away from the free enclosure at the first signal. But to his surprise, everything happened differently:

The animals that were in the first group did not stop until they found the lever.
The dogs of the second group experienced extreme stress, became depressed, and resigned themselves to their situation. Even in ordinary enclosures, they did not try to get free, despite the fact that the exit always remained open.

The scientist decided that many people also exhibit this behavior. If they fail in one thing, they stop working in other areas of life. Selingman believed that learned helplessness, like behaviorism and psychoanalysis, deprives a person of his own will. Because his life largely depends on circumstances.

A similar experiment was conducted by Julius Kuhl. Only this time the test subjects were not animals, but people. In class, he gave students a problem that had no answer. Naturally, the subjects were unable to solve it. They were nervous, anxious and desperate. And even when at the end Kuhl gave the task with the answer, they failed to complete the task.

What conclusion can be drawn? Constant stress, troubles, circumstances that cannot be changed in any way depress a person so much that he shows passivity even in more favorable conditions. According to Selingman's theory, he develops a strong belief in his own inferiority and helplessness.

It turns out that learned helplessness is characterized by the fact that an individual with the resources he needs does not believe in himself and his worth, relying on the negative experience of the past.

The inhumane experiments that started it all

Before we begin to describe learned helplessness itself, let's talk about how scientists came to understand this phenomenon and proved it in a number of experiments. Descriptions are provided under spoilers.

Experiments on dogs

In the 1960s, positive psychology founding father Martin Seligman and Stephen Myers became interested in a University of Pennsylvania experiment based on Ivan Pavlov's theory.

The purpose of the experiment was to provoke a fear reaction in dogs to high-frequency sounds. To do this, the animals were placed in a closed space and shocked immediately after the sound signal. The dogs had no way to escape and were forced to endure the pain. After a series of experiments, laboratory assistants opened the cells.

It was expected that when the test subjects had the opportunity to avoid the electric shock, they would take advantage of it and run away as soon as they heard the familiar sound that foreshadowed an imminent painful reaction. However, the animals made no attempts to leave the cage and whined pitifully. The dogs accepted the inevitable and demonstrated learned helplessness.

Then Seligman and Myers decided to conduct their own experiment - controversial from a moral point of view, but visual. They divided the experimental dogs into three categories. No current was administered to the cages where the third group of involuntary subjects sat. Teams No. 1 and No. 2 were less fortunate: they were subjected to electrical discharge, but under different conditions. In the cages for the first group there was a lever that, when pressed, stopped the flow of current. In the cells for the second group there was no lever - here the current stopped only when the subjects from team No. 1 used their lever.

Then the test subjects were combined and placed in a common cage with a low partition over which they could jump and avoid shock. According to the results of the experiment, dogs from groups No. 1 and No. 3 took advantage of the chance to escape. Animals from the second group, which did not have the opportunity to influence the situation at the previous stage, did not even try to get out

: Instead, they endured the blows by lying on the floor and whimpering.

The dogs' suffering did not end there. Behavioral theorists questioned the results of the experiment and argued that the subjects in the second team remained in their cages because their immobility was randomly positively reinforced (in other words, the animals might think that the pain would stop if they did nothing). Then Myers suggested doing positive reinforcement in case of passive behavior of dogs and observing their behavior.

For this purpose, another experiment was carried out. The dogs were again divided into three groups. The lucky ones from the third team traditionally did not suffer painful blows. The animals from group No. 2 were again not given the opportunity to independently avoid pain, and the dogs of the first group were stopped receiving the current if they froze in a motionless state.

After a series of experiments, the dogs were again transferred to cages with low partitions. According to the theory of behaviorism, animals that were sitting motionless had to remain in the box to avoid being shocked. But everything turned out differently: the subjects from group No. 2, who could not influence the situation in the previous part of the experiment, did not try to leave the box. And the dogs from team No. 1 froze for several moments and jumped out of the box when they realized that the painful effect of the current did not stop.

This led to a conclusion that changed psychology. Animals that had experience of successfully relieving pain were able to adapt to the new situation

What do the experimental results say?

The main reason for the appearance of learned helplessness is not the negative situation itself, but the inability to control it

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A person gives up when he sees that his actions have no effect on anything. And vice versa: adequate self-esteem and faith in one’s own capabilities can really help in difficult situations, while the ability to control one’s life even in everyday aspects has a positive effect on well-being and attitude
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Causes

Experiments conducted by Julius Kuhl showed that learned helplessness is characterized by something that can develop in any person, regardless of his age and life circumstances. There are several reasons for this:

prolonged illness;
partial or complete paralysis;
serving a sentence in prison;
slavery or captivity;
unemployment, refusals of potential employers without explanation;
immediate supervisor, spouse, who is guided by his mood in communication;
serious injuries that prevent activity.

If a person cannot control the situation, he becomes insecure. And this is a direct path to learned helplessness. Helplessness is often associated with a victim mentality. These conditions usually develop during childhood. In this case, its causes are considered to be:

Authoritarianism or excessive guardianship in the family, depriving the child of independence and initiative.
Heredity. It may sound ridiculous, but learned helplessness syndrome is passed on from parents to children. In the child’s mind, the example of mom and dad who endure discomfort, are afraid of change, and go with the flow is quickly and permanently absorbed.
Frequent criticism, punishment, emphasis on shortcomings and mistakes. Repeating the phrases “You can’t”, “You won’t succeed anyway.”
White lies, flattery. Many adults doubt that children understand everything. And in vain. The child immediately sees when parents praise him sincerely, and when in order to console him. In the second case, they feel stupid.
Comparison with others, be it a child or an adult.
Raising girls as representatives of the weaker sex, and boys as representatives of the stronger sex. Gender differences prevent a person from being flexible. As a result, girls grow up convinced of their weakness and helplessness. And boys often cannot solve even minor everyday problems.
Mom and dad have different views on education, the inconstancy of their demands.

Such upbringing leads to the fact that already at primary school age the child suffers from learned helplessness. He considers himself stupid, worthless. Only a specialist, for example, a psychotherapist, can help you get rid of such attitudes.

Signs

Passivity

Such a person almost never takes responsibility for any actions and does not take initiative, wanting, for example, to achieve changes.

He is passive, inert and inclined to go with the flow. Sometimes it seems that he doesn’t care not only about what is happening in the world, but also in his own life.

If you entrust him with a job, he will cope with his duties, and quite well. But he himself will never offer his services, despite the understanding that he is quite competent in a certain matter.

Naturally, with such a passive life position, people with learned helplessness syndrome do not become leaders. They are simply unable to lead and make decisions.

Patience

Despite the discomfort, it will remain in the same conditions, showing so-called resistance to frustration.

And if in some moments it helps to achieve the desired and success in principle, then in the case of representatives of this phenomenon, on the contrary, it deprives them of joy and satisfaction.

Because it is excessive and unjustified. To put it in a metaphor, it’s like holding your finger over the fire and waiting for it to go out on its own and it won’t hurt so much. Instead of withdrawing your hand, maintaining the integrity of the skin as soon as unpleasant sensations arise.

Therefore, too patient individuals never defend their rights. What can we say if they do not declare discomfort at all, deciding to withstand it as long as they have the strength. Or while they're still alive.

Conformity

That is, the tendency to listen to the opinion of the majority, abandoning one’s position, values and desires. A conformist person believes that the interests of others are more important than him, which is why he easily makes sacrifices even for the sake of unfamiliar people.

He will never allow himself to get into an argument, so he will give up before the conflict begins, even if they showed aggression towards him. Tolerate and remain silent is the only type of response that exists in his perception in such situations.

Procrastination

Procrastination is the tendency to put off important things until the very last moment. The person is anxious, worried and thinks about the details of the upcoming work, but does not take active action.

It is more characteristic of students who usually prepare for sessions and exams directly at night, the day before, instead of gradually studying the necessary material during the lecture period.

The psychology of a person with helplessness syndrome is such that he can understand exactly what steps should be taken to finally get rid of suffering and change his life for the better, but he postpones active work indefinitely.

That is, he can think about everything literally every day, suffer from insomnia amid thoughts, but remain in the same place.

Low self-esteem

Naturally, a person who ignores his own needs, believing that the opinions of other people come first, has low self-esteem.

After all, how can you feel respect for yourself if you sacrifice your interests every time for the good of who knows what or whom? Holding back irritation and disappointment amid dissatisfaction?

In this case, only thoughts arise about one’s own insignificance and weakness of will, and they form not the most pleasant feelings and sensations.

Symptoms of learned helplessness

The experience of observing helpless people has shown that their speech often contains phrases about insolvency, unwillingness to change and do anything in general. And this is not the only sign of learned helplessness:

Low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence.
Shyness.
Anxiety, aggression, fussiness.
Pessimism, passivity that prevents change.
Slow reactions, indifference to what is happening around.
Dislike of creativity.
Presence of stereotypes of behavior and thinking.
Reluctance to do this or that work when the first difficulties arise.
Excessive fatigue, fatigue, apathy.
Procrastination or putting off important things until later.

In the absence of proper treatment, learned helplessness leads to the development of various addictions and psychosomatic pathologies.

How to survive failure without harm: ways to combat learned helplessness

In the 60s of the last century, the American scientist Martin Seligman , the founder of the direction of positive psychology for business, after conducting a series of studies, established the most common reason why people feel unhappy.

As it turned out, a person is unhappy when he thinks that he cannot influence the situation. Moreover, for some, the state of helplessness becomes the norm, turning into “learned helplessness.”

Every day we have to experience situations of refusals, conflicts, minor troubles.
And it depends on how we mentally evaluate these events - WE will control them, or THEY will control us. Nadezhda Bondarenko, business coach and professional optimist

Symptoms of learned helplessness

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“I can’t change anything, I can’t do anything about it!” - the key phrase of helpless people. A person suffering from learned helplessness is passive and lacking initiative.

For example, I often hear from training participants: “Now there’s a crisis, we can’t sell anything at a high price.”

Learned helplessness can manifest itself by collecting complaints and injustices from other employees, by constant manifestations of dissatisfaction: “In this situation,” “Everyone here is against me,” and so on.

At other times, it gives rise to a feeling of guilt: a person endlessly repents, beating himself in the chest and admitting to all mistakes, real and far-fetched. A lot of energy is spent making excuses, and it is not at all invested in concrete actions.

In both cases, regardless of whether the employee complains or repents, he cannot be relied upon, since he refuses to try to change or correct something on his own, rarely agrees to take on any responsibility, and never takes risks. The business losses from such an employee are obvious. The company is not making enough profit. And a person does not realize his potential.

Photo: depositphotos.com

Moreover, since emotions are contagious, the entire team sometimes suffers from the symptom of learned helplessness. And then any new employee who proposes his own scheme for changes or active actions will certainly hear in response: “What do you need more than anyone else?..”.

Causes of learned helplessness

Learned helplessness can take over a person after experiencing a negative situation that he could not control. Severe stress, loss of loved ones, natural disaster, economic crisis - all these events can pull the rug out from under your feet. By explaining to ourselves the reasons and possible consequences of what happened, we begin to convince ourselves that nothing depends on us in this life.

Learned helplessness can be a product of mentality . For example, living under a totalitarian regime, from generation to generation people get used to the fact that they are controlled, but they themselves do not influence anything.

But more often than not, the state of learned helplessness becomes the result of a series of ordinary failures .

Photo: depositphotos.com

Everyone knows the feeling when you give up and you just don’t know where or how to move on. The only question is how long a person remains in this state and how quickly he begins to take steps to overcome and change the situation. Or does the stress experienced turn out to be stronger, driving its victim into a vicious circle of negative thoughts and passivity?

An interesting fact: scientists have found that women are more susceptible to learned helplessness than men . The main reason lies in upbringing. Girls, as a rule, are raised to be passive, like the “weaker sex,” while boys are taught from childhood that they must act. In addition, women are especially prone to “scrolling” the same negative thought in their heads for a long time. In psychology, this “apocalyptic” thought process is called the rumination effect. Rumination drains energy, drains you, and leads to a refusal to take action.

For example, management announces that, due to the economic crisis and a sharp drop in sales, employees will no longer be paid a fixed part of their salary, leaving only a bonus.

As a result, many employees are justifiably sad, lose incentive to work, and quit. Others, after some experience and reflection, come to the conclusion that now they themselves can regulate their earnings, and this is not so bad.

The first position is humanly understandable, but ineffective either for the company or for the employees themselves. The second will sooner or later lead to a positive result.

A control group of students in Martin Seligman's study had to press a button to get rid of an unpleasant sound. According to the design of the experiment, these simplest actions were not always crowned with success. As a result, some participants, after two or three unsuccessful attempts to stop the unbearable sound, refused to do anything at all, while others continued to stubbornly press the button until they achieved the desired result.

So why, after experiencing a loss or failure, do some people recover in a few minutes or days and move on, no matter what, while others spend years in a state of learned helplessness that risks developing into clinical depression?

It turned out that the whole point is in the internal explanation that each person gives to himself in response to failure, in the type of thinking - optimistic or pessimistic.

Photo: depositphotos.com

Faced with a sharp refusal, rudeness, or other negative factor, an optimist will say to himself: “Not my day! I'll come back to this tomorrow." He smoothes out any failure with an external explanation.

A pessimist will begin to look for reasons for denial in himself and will eventually put an end to the possibility of success - today, tomorrow or any other day: “I’m still not capable of this,” “I still won’t achieve this.”

“I’m a fool, it’s my own fault” – this is not an axiom, not a rule or a law. It's just a cockroach that needs to be thrown out.

Positive management: it’s never too late to cultivate optimists in yourself and your team

The antipodes of self-motivation - self-sabotage, self-examination, self-criticism and self-flagellation - have long become the norm for many.

At the same time, as participants in the thinking development program say: “I love everything around me. I love my family, I love my daughter, I love my job and my clients, as well as my partners. But all this love doesn’t help me carry around a bunch of cockroaches in my head, doesn’t stop me from stumbling on a flat road and falling into a ravine with a backpack of bricks.”

Every day we have to experience situations of refusals, conflicts, minor troubles. And it depends on how we mentally evaluate these events - WE will control them, or THEY will control us.

Drawing by Nadezhda Bondarenko

Three Treatments for Learned Helplessness

If you notice symptoms of learned helplessness, take control of your thoughts and energy immediately.

1. Try to identify areas of work or personal life that you can definitely influence - things that are within your control. And take the first small steps towards change. Consciously fix your “zone” of influence . You can write it down or draw it: What can I do? What hangs like a “low-growing fruit” that you can reach with your hand and pick?

For example, one call to a client is within your control. And even five calls.

Write down five zones of low-growing fruits, five zones of control every day and start doing it. And after that, record the results in the Success Diary, regardless of the outcome of the call.

2. To combat learned helplessness, you can periodically practice an exercise called “The Price of Failure .

For example, you consider it necessary to bargain with a client. Offer the manager a way to solve a problem, a business plan. Express dissatisfaction with a colleague who is wrong. Words are constantly on the tip of your tongue, but you are afraid of the consequences if you speak out loud.

Think about what real consequences this could lead to for you, weigh the pros and cons. Perhaps, with reasonable reflection, you will come to the conclusion that no one will fire you for these words and not burst into abuse in response. The worst option would be if the client does not make concessions, the manager does not accept your offer, and the colleague does not change his attitude. And then you will simply return to the same point from which you started. The cost of failure will be zero.

On the other hand, once an attempt is made, there is a chance that it will be successful. If you remain silent, there will be no such chance.

Drawing by Nadezhda Bondarenko

3. Adjust your thinking style. Don't blame yourself , look for balanced internal explanations for failures.

A small example: I forgot my things on a shelf in a train carriage. Having returned home, according to the stereotype, I began to beat myself up. I caught myself in time and stopped the “catastrophe.” Having calmed down, I called Russian Railways and... realized that the failure was temporary. It turned out that the problem was easily solved. Soon I received a call from Russian Railways and was informed that the things were on their way home from Tallinn.

Try to rebuild the internal monologue-rumination (when the same negative thought is spinning in your head) into a constructive dialogue with yourself.

Learn to ask yourself the right questions in difficult situations .

For example: why am I so sure that I will be fired, what makes me think this way, what benefit do I have from thinking this way?

Learn to distinguish real objective facts from your beliefs. After all, we are often captive of our thinking habits simply because we once “attached” a special belief to an event, endowing it with meaning. This belief either helps us in life or slows us down.

Drawing by Nadezhda Bondarenko

Learned helplessness syndrome - how to get rid of it

Learned helplessness and overcoming it are up to you. First you need to recognize that there is a problem. Then seek help from a specialist. Therapy includes:

change of thinking (negative to positive);
development of adequate self-esteem and self-confidence;
awareness of your good and bad sides, inner “I”;
exploring one’s capabilities, establishing control over one’s own life, using available personal potential.

How else can you overcome learned helplessness?

Make connections between actions and consequences

If you suffer from learned helplessness syndrome, learn to calculate the consequences in any situation. Compare the goal with the achieved result. This will help you get what you really want.

The ability to understand why things turned out this way and not otherwise will allow you to correct mistakes in time. You will be able to immediately change your plan of action rather than abandon the movement.

Accept failure

Remember: the one who does nothing makes no mistakes. Every person can make mistakes. It is a fact. And you are no exception. Don't be upset if you didn't get it the way you wanted the first time. Analyze what happened, draw conclusions and move on.

Become an optimist

Optimism is the main cure for learned helplessness syndrome. A correct attitude towards the events happening around will help to develop it. Learn to explain them correctly, to connect your mistakes with the conditions in which you are at the moment.

Use the ABCDE method

Its authors are M. Selingman and A. Ellis. The method helps to quickly and effectively get rid of the tendency to look at the world with a pessimistic mood. So, describe what happened to you according to this scheme:

A is a simple statement of facts. Without emotions, epithets. If you couldn’t arrive on time, just say: “I’m late for the meeting.”
B- express everything you think about this. Here you can mention that you were traveling by public transport and got stuck in a traffic jam.
C - Describe your feelings and emotions. Did you feel guilty for what happened? Were you embarrassed in front of management and colleagues for being late?
D - Perform a cognitive analysis. Think about why this situation happened. Most likely, you did not take into account possible traffic jams. You left on time. The driver you were traveling with also made no mistakes. If he had driven too fast or gotten into oncoming traffic, an accident could have occurred.
E - Describe how you feel after reviewing the situation. Did you understand where you were wrong? Have you learned your lesson?

If you look at every problem in this way, you can learn to think positively. Thanks to this, you can easily get rid of learned helplessness.

Get rid of PTSD

It was said above that a common cause of the development of learned helplessness is injury, due to which a person is deprived of activity for some time. What to do in such a situation? There are 2 tips:

Don't try to do more than circumstances allow. Allow yourself to have some control over your life, to make choices, no matter how small. Go for a walk, play sports, cook a new dish, rearrange the furniture in your apartment. Do something.
Remember the good things more often. The human brain focuses on negative memories. But there are events in your life when you were definitely a winner? Remember them. Feel, experience them again.

Also try to prove to yourself that you are able to control your life. Keep a diary, make a schedule or action plan, set goals. Celebrate even small achievements and reward yourself for them. This will help you realize your importance, increase your self-esteem, and gain confidence in yourself and your abilities.

6 More Ways to Overcome Learned Helplessness

To overcome learned helplessness, you first need to recognize it.
Pay attention to daily situations in which you or people around you behave helplessly, refusing to act due to a hypothetical failure.
It is also useful to tell each other that you notice signs of childishness in someone’s behavior.
In a team, you can play a kind of game in which one of the employees loses the position of a parent, while the others behave like children. That is, one makes a plan, makes calculations and looks for a solution suitable for a given situation, while others express concerns, argue with each other and bring chaos to the discussion.
Using this example, specialists learn to quickly recognize and point out children’s behavior. In the future, when one of them begins to complain that the numbers in his report do not add up and he will not be able to submit it on time, he may hear from a colleague: “Are you seven years old now, or are you already 10?” This feedback helps people regulate their behavior.
Another way to combat the learned helplessness of subordinates is to make initiative and active behavior a criterion for work effectiveness.
To do this, it is necessary to develop some kind of indicator system that reflects how mature employees behave in various situations. Naturally, one cannot do without training activities related to the development of an adult position.
For example, at the Sberbank corporate university, one of the main directions is the development of emotional intelligence. And this is very important, since an integral criterion for high emotional intelligence is such adult qualities as responsibility for one’s emotions and their expression.
The principles of active behavior must not only be declared, but also implemented in practice.
The managers themselves must set an example for other employees, putting forward certain corporate values and demanding compliance with them. It is equally important that subordinates understand how, in practice, the assessment of their behavior affects wages. It is necessary to indicate for which ideas and projects a certain bonus was received.
In an effort to make the team more “adult”, the leader must be prepared for resistance.
People, in principle, are reluctant to change anything in their lives, and it is a rare person who voluntarily does something that he may not do. Therefore, measures to increase employee initiative will inevitably meet resistance.
Effective management is impossible without tracking results.
It is important to receive feedback from employees, evaluate the effectiveness of activities and make the necessary adjustments to the future action plan. Without this, it will not be possible to achieve significant changes.

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Factors preventing the formation of learned helplessness

Experience of actively overcoming difficulties.

In difficult situations that a person copes with on his own, he acquires greater stress resistance. Moreover, we are not talking about those circumstances that themselves contribute to success.

For example, when teachers turn a blind eye to all the mistakes of students going for a medal. Schoolchildren do not encounter any difficulties in the learning process: they simply do everything to the best of their desire and ability, and that is enough.

It is not surprising that in the future they develop learned helplessness, and they give up very easily when faced with the need to meet high demands.

Psychological attitudes with the help of which a person explains to himself his own victories and defeats.

Learned helplessness is more often suffered by those who believe that their success is just an accident and the result of someone’s help, and failures, on the contrary, are a natural consequence of negative character traits. People with opposite attitudes tend to behave more proactively.

A high self-evaluation.

Learned helplessness is practically not characteristic of individuals who are aware of their own worth and have self-respect. The feeling of one's own inferiority, on the contrary, contributes to infantile behavior.

Optimism.

Optimists tend to believe in any situation that everything will end well. Therefore, they rarely express reluctance to do something associated with poor prognosis.

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