Learned helplessness.
One of the key objectives the human being is to get power.
We have two kinds of power. On the one hand, in its conventional meaning, the power that a person achieves in the political, economic, or other people.
On the other hand, the power meaning a lot more sophisticated, the power in the sense of having control over one's life, of owning yourself.
In this post I refer exclusively to this second type of power: that an individual has about himself, because: "He who overcomes others has force, who conquers himself is stronger still," says Lao Tse.
fundamental requirement for achieving this kind of power is the feeling that we have control over our circumstances, the belief that our will is effective against adversity.
is here where the greatest threat to the fragile human being: the learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness is a psychological trait which an individual believes that it has no control over their own lives.
In the normal course of life, the individual deemed to exercise at least some control over their lives.
However, sometimes, hope sinks. This is learned based on deception, given that "hope has as many lives as a cat, but no more" (Henry Longfellow ). Unrewarded effort leads to learned helplessness, the feeling of helplessness, the belief that whatever we do nothing will change. And when we are not architects of our own destiny, we are no north, shedding the meaning of life as a sugar. Is this the origin of many depressions.
The experiment that gave rise to the term "learned helplessness."
The experiment described below is well known. I extract from the book "The Power of Optimism" by Luis Rojas Marcos .
scientist Martin Seligman conducted an experiment in which he submitted to stressful situations in dogs divided two groups. The first group of dogs is locked in a cage. In this cage, every few seconds they received an electric shock, without any chance of avoiding it. The second group of dogs is locked in another cage. It suffered the same shock dogs confined to the first group. But there was one difference: this second group of dogs could escape from the cage and avoid the shock by pushing a lever with his nose.
Subsequently, all dogs, the first group and second, they were locked in a cage also electrified, but that could easily escape by jumping a small wall. Here's the key moment of the experiment: dogs in the first part of the experiment had control over the situation and were able to escape the cage, jumped the wall and easily escaped. By contrast, dogs in the first part of the experiment were unable to escape, remained inert. They learn
Dido to feel helpless, and thus, in post of adversity, not considering the possibility of controlling their fate. They remembered what happened in the first test, assuming that their answers would not work at all, so, why try?
scientist Martin Seligman conducted an experiment in which he submitted to stressful situations in dogs divided two groups. The first group of dogs is locked in a cage. In this cage, every few seconds they received an electric shock, without any chance of avoiding it. The second group of dogs is locked in another cage. It suffered the same shock dogs confined to the first group. But there was one difference: this second group of dogs could escape from the cage and avoid the shock by pushing a lever with his nose.
Subsequently, all dogs, the first group and second, they were locked in a cage also electrified, but that could easily escape by jumping a small wall. Here's the key moment of the experiment: dogs in the first part of the experiment had control over the situation and were able to escape the cage, jumped the wall and easily escaped. By contrast, dogs in the first part of the experiment were unable to escape, remained inert. They learn
Dido to feel helpless, and thus, in post of adversity, not considering the possibility of controlling their fate. They remembered what happened in the first test, assuming that their answers would not work at all, so, why try? Conclusion.
This experiment is perfectly transferable to the behavior of humans. Ie, that reason makes no difference. On the contrary, man learned helplessness even more havoc on our ability to predict the future, double-edged sword.
This experiment is perfectly transferable to the behavior of humans. Ie, that reason makes no difference. On the contrary, man learned helplessness even more havoc on our ability to predict the future, double-edged sword.