PSYC1030 ESSAY
‘Learned Helplessness’ is the theory by Martin E. P. Seligman. It refers to three areas: an environment where an outcome is uncontrollable, the giving up response and the negative cognition that no action can control an outcome. However this paper will describe the evidence that supports this theory’s proposal that depression may be a learned reaction to stressful life events which seem inescapable. Firstly this paper will examine Seligman’s research. It will describe a study conducted on elderly nursing home patients. It will then look at research related to the Attributional Reformulation. Finally it will describe critical reviews of Seligman’s experiments and research along with the reformulated hopelessness depression theory.
The theory of Learned Helplessness arose during studies Seligman conducted on dogs. These experiments involved exploring how animals escape shocks. Researchers confined dogs to harnesses and gave the dogs random electrical shocks that were inescapable. When the dogs were later given an option to escape the shocks (out of the harness) they did not choose to escape. This was unlike the dogs who had only received controlled shocks (who consequently escaped at the opportunity). Seligman theorised that the dogs who had been randomly shocked in the harness had learned helplessness: they had learned that they were unable to control their environment. If depression in humans is explained by this theory to be a ‘learned reaction’, humans must first believe that they have no control over their environment.
One important study that explores lack of personal control contributing to ill health was conducted in a nursing home in Connecticut by Langer and Rodin (1986). This experiment involved testing elderly patients with intervention methods that gave the residents more choices and greater control over their environment. The experiment involved two groups of patients of relatively similar conditions. One group was manipulated with interventions such

as; being told they were responsible for themselves, a choice of plants that they would look after, and choices of what movies to view, when and if they would attend the viewing or not.
The second group was manipulated with an emphasis that the staff and not the patients themselves were responsible for their well-being. The patients in this group were given plants and told the staff would look after them. They were also allocated movie screenings on particular days at set times with no choice regarding what movie they wanted to watch.
The results from Langer and Rodin’s study (1986) were gained by measuring the patient’s overall mood by using questionnaires and staff records (staff were blind during the experiment). According to the staff ratings, “93% of the experimental group (all but one participant) were considered improved, whereas only 21% of the comparison group (six participants) showed this positive change” (pg. 196 via Hock, Roger, R. 2009) during the three weeks duration of the experiment.
Eighteen months later Langer and Rodin returned to conduct a follow-up study (1977). They not only found that the experimental group participants had been given a slightly improved health rating from doctors but that the other control group had deteriorated slightly in health ratings as well. During the months between studies 30% of participants in the control group had died, compared to the experimental group in which only 15% died (Langer and Rodin
1977).
These initial studies in personal control versus learned helplessness and how they relate to health, well-being and depression have led to more recent experiments in the area. A 2003 study conducted in Germany of elderly residents who resided in senior citizens homes found that lack of freedom and personal choice predicated symptoms of depression, poor physical health and lack of social support (Krampe via Hock, Roger, R. 2009).

However Seligman’s original theory of helplessness contained flaws when applied to people
(Peterson). According to Peterson, it did not take into consideration the range of reactions that people have in response to uncontrollable events. For this reason it was reformulated by
Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978) and is known as the Attributional Reformulation.
The Attributional Reformulation is a model that predicts that people who attribute negative outcomes to global reasons will develop helplessness in situations that are both similar and different to the original cause of their helplessness. Global reasons refer to explanations that involve things like fate and luck, what cannot be personally controlled. The model also predicts that people who attribute negative outcomes to internal reasons will not develop helplessness as they believe they are in control of what happens to them in life. These two categories of attributional style are referred to as ‘internals’ and ‘externals’ (Albert and
Geller, 1978).
Schill and Marcus hypothesised that incarceration results in the development of negative attributional style (1998). They also pointed out that whilst there have been many studies on depression in inmates, none had examined attributional style and its role in learned helplessness. They conducted studies on a group of 60 male inmates, comparing those who had received longer sentences, and had served at least five years already, to other inmates who had received shorter sentences and had served only under a year. They did this through questionnaires formulated to measure attributional style and depression. The results provided evidence consistent with their hypothesis. The inmates in the long-term group reported a more helpless explanatory style on both questionnaires than the short-term inmates (Schill and Marcus, 1988).
Whilst Seligman’s initial experimentation and research is referenced in most discussions requiring evidence that depression may be a learned reaction to stressful life events which seem inescapable, it has been closely scrutinised by the scientific community. Costello

critically reviewed six of Seligman’s experiments on learned helplessness and depression in humans. They were found to provide little or no support for the learned helplessness theory of depression (Costello, 1978).
Abramson, L., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, J. D. reformulated the 1978 theory of helplessness and depression to address the additional evidential problems (1989).
‘Hopelessness Theory’ according to them, represents a theory-based approach to the classification of a subset of the depressive disorders and postulates the existence in nature of hopelessness depression, an as-yet unidentified subtype of depression. They do admit however that further research is needed.
In conclusion, this paper has explained what is meant by Learned Helplessness: in that it is a theory formulated by Seligman which states that helplessness is a learned cognitive activity.
It has briefly outlined Seligman’s initial experimentation on dogs which lead to the formulation of the theory. This paper has described evidence which supports the proposal that depression may be a learned reaction to stress. Firstly, Langer and Rodin’s study on elderly patients was discussed, then it moved on to Schill and Marcus’s study on incarcerated inmates. Both examples provided evidence of loss of personal choice and power and how it correlated with an increased risk of ill-health and depression. This paper took into account the critical reviews of Seligman’s research and also the reformulated theories that have developed since. Whilst there is an abundance of research in the areas of depression, stress and learned helplessness it is hoped that there will be more studies conducted in the future which examine and challenge the theoretical connections between them.

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