Learned helplessness

If a dog has been repeatedly punished for his reactions, or using flooding, forced to face his fear for prolonged periods with no escape he may just give up trying. His fight has gone and whilst yes this may look, to most people, like a calm dog. He isn’t calm, he is beyond terrified but has just accepted his fate. Learned helplessness can have huge long term psychological implications like c-ptsd. 

When bad things happen, we like to believe that we would do whatever is necessary to change the situation to stop it happening, make the scary thing go away, escape or fight back. But if an animal (that includes us humans), is repeatedly subjected to an aversive stimulus that he can’t escape eventually the animal will stop trying to avoid it and behave as if it he is utterly helpless. To the point where even when there are opportunities to escape, they don’t even try.

Learned helplessness is like being in a psychological prison, you are still scared, terrified even, but you’ve learned that no matter what you do, however you react to try and save yourself, it won’t stop.

Take elephants. How do the owners of huge Indian elephants manage to get them to. stand still so quietly when those huge, beautiful creatures are only held by a length of thin rope tied to a small stick stuck into the ground. They could easily pull the stick out of the ground with just one gentle tug. So why do they just stand there? 

The traditional practice amongst elephant trainers in Asia is to chain a baby elephant to a tree. No matter how hard she fights to escape she can’t break free from the chain. Eventually, after several days the baby elephant learns that the struggle is pointless, she gives up and accepts her fate and that there is no escape. Then the chain is replaced by a heavy rope and the elephant again tries her best to escape, quickly giving up. The heavy rope is then replaced by a thin rope or a ribbon tied to a small stick in the ground and the elephant will just stand there patiently waiting for her owner to untie her without even attempting to move. Even though she could easily break free and get away she stands passively making no attempt to escape.

She has developed what is called learned helplessness. She has learned that to struggle is useless as a result of repeated failure experiences earlier in life, and she gives up trying. 

Although there was first mention of it by B.F. Skinner, the concept of learned helplessness was discovered accidentally by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Mayer during some pretty cruel animal experiments. The American psychologists experiments and theory of learned helplessness began atThe University of Pennsylvania in 1967 as an extension of his interest in depression and that clinical depression and related mental health illnesses resulted from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness was used to design a training program to help captured military personnel resist the effects of torture. Later it served as a cornerstone of the design of the methods of torture used in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention camp. For this purpose the theory of learned helplessness was “reverse-engineered” to assist the interrogation of detainees

“I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression, may have been used for such dubious purposes,” said Seligman. “Most importantly, I have never and would never provide assistance in torture. I strongly disapprove of it.”

Following on from observations of helpless behaviour in dogs that had been classically conditioned to expect an electric shock after hearing a sound, the dogs were placed in a shuttle box that contained 2 chambers. The floor was electrified on one side but not on the other side with a low barrier they could easily jump over. When the floor was electrified the dogs, who had previously been subjected to the electric shocks in the other experiment made no attempts to escape even though to avoid the shock all they had to do was hop over the barrier. Instead they laid down and made no attempt to escape it.

To further investigate this, they devised another awful experiment.

 There were three groups of dogs: The dogs in Group one were strapped into a harnesses for a period of time and then released. The dogs in Group two were placed in the same harness but were subjected to electric shocks that the the dogs could avoid by pressing a panel with their noses to turn it off.  The dogs in Group 3 received the same electric shocks as those in Group 2 except these dogs were unable to control the shock, they couldn’t turn it off and the shocks were completely random and totally outside their control.

The dogs were then placed in the shuttle box the box where they again had the option to escape over the barrier. The dogs from groups one and two learned that jumping the barrier meant they could escape from the shock, so they did. However, the dogs from the third group made no attempt to get away from the shocks even though they too could jump over the barrier to get away from it. Because of that previous experience they had developed an expectation that nothing they could do would prevent the shocks or stop them happening. and that is learned helplessness they gave up because of previous experience they thought they couldn’t escape it, so they just gave up and what gave in to it.

Learned helplessness can come in different forms, for example children who try really hard at school and put lots of effort in every day with their schoolwork, but their grades do not get any better and they continue to fail. They may just give up trying, not go to school not do the homework, not even attempting to do it because the from previous experience think that it’s never going to get any better, they will never succeed no matter how much hard work they put in.

 In humans we know that learned helplessness can also result in anxiety or depression and when somebody experiences chronic anxiety they may give up and feel like how they fail is untreatable and it becomes a vicious cycle people might feel that there’s nothing can be done to ease their feelings and then they just give up trying to find help which then contributes to even bigger feelings of helplessness and anxiety but humans we have things like CBT and counselling and therapy but our dogs don’t have any of those things 

They just have you.

They only have you and you have to prevent this happening you have to keep them safe you’re the Guardian their rock and their protector.

Ddogs need to learn that they can have choices they won’t be forced into situations that make them feel like they can’t do anything to save themselves and that’s your job.    

I know what learned helplessness feels like, that awful gut-wrenching feeling that there’s nothing you can do, nothing you can do will stop this happening to you, nothing you can do will make it better. 

In 1989 Psychologists Lenore Walker used this learned helplessness theory to explain why women find it difficult to escape an abusive relationship because of their feelings of helplessness. She said that battered women use various defence mechanisms such as minimizing, denial and dissociation and it becomes a highly developed set of coping skills. 

Nothing teaches you about learned helplessness more than being repeatedly beaten especially when you are. 4’ 11 and weigh about 7 1/2 stone and the person doing it weighs nearly double your body weight and is just short of 6 foot. You realise that there’s nothing you can do and from prior experience you begin to learn that the more you try and fight back the more hurt you get. When you learn that trying to stop it happening and trying to fight them off actually makes it worse you give up, give in, and just wait for it to stop.