Learned hopelessness is perhaps one of the most widespread discoveries of experimental psychology, expanding into related fields such as social psychology or sociology, with an impact even on the construction of some political ideologies.
Of course, its initial and more specific applicability is limited to clinical psychology, particularly, it has emerged as a experimental model of depression. We briefly refer to this in this article.
The phenomenon of learned helplessness – also called helplessness or helplessness – was initially described by Bruce Overmier and Martin Seligman in the mid-1960s.
Simply put, they discovered that if an animal was exposed to a series of inescapable and uncontrollable aversive stimuli, it would then develop a syndrome characterized by a marked deficit in initiating other behaviors and/or in learning new behaviors. An extensive research program made it clear that the determining factor of such a syndrome was the animals’ perceived uncontrollability and not the stress of aversive events.
This means that if the animal receives aversive stimuli, for example, electric shocks, but can put an end to them by lowering a lever, turning a wheel or jumping from the cage to another place; That is, the animal can perform any escape behavior that gives it a sense of control over the unpleasant situation; then you will not develop hopelessness.
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Now, if the animal cannot escape, that is, it is simply exposed to the stressor, without anything it does being able to put an end to the unpleasant stimuli, then it will then become helpless. For example, you will no longer try to escape other aversive events, but will passively remain“holding on” the discomfort although with a simple movement it could go away. It will also show little interest in a sexual partner in heat and even in feeding.
Your behavior rate will be diminishedit will be seen still, torpid, without motivation to initiate almost no behavior. And very pertinent for our purposes, he will show signs of anxiety and sadness. Eureka, we have an experimental animal model of human depression!
The phenomenon of helplessness falls within the instrumental conditioning or operating described by Skinner. It constitutes a basic learning process by which organisms acquire or eliminate behaviors according to the consequences that follow them. By saying that it is a basic process, it is emphasized that it is a form of learning that is shared by all living beings with a nervous system. Of course, in the various species, this basic process takes on very dissimilar forms.
Particularly, in humans, instrumental conditioning does not only apply to behaviors motorbut also to the behaviors cognitive and emotional, with an extremely important addition: we can think about such relationships. That is to say, a dog or a snake are subject to laws of contingencies between their behaviors and the consequences that follow, humans too; But apart from that, humans can realize them, we are capable of generating consciousness. Which, we know, is no small feat.
Operant conditioning has a very obvious adaptive evolutionary meaning. In very simple terms, it helps eliminate from the individual’s repertoire those behaviors that have led to a consequence. unsatisfactory while it increases those that lead to satisfaction, an elementary process but of key importance for survival. Precisely, this very vital basic process is the one that “gets sick”, so to speak, in helplessness. Let’s better elucidate this point.
Animals receive a string of uncontrollable aversive events; in other words, no matter what they do, they cannot avoid them. Since their behaviors and unpleasant events simply have nothing to do with each other, what do they learn from an instrumental conditioning point of view?
Well, precisely that, that their behavior and such motivationally significant events are independent, in other words, that the behavior is in no way related to important painful events. If animals could talk, they would tell us “since we can’t escape from this, then why put in the effort?” And in fact, although their dogs did not speak, from the very beginning Seligman and Overmier conceptualized learned hopelessness as a cognitive process in which the formation of expectations was affected. Go for it.
As mentioned above, one of the distinctive qualities of instrumental conditioning in humans is that we can raise awareness of the relationships we establish between our behaviors and their consequences. Furthermore, we can verbalize them, plan them and even play imaginatively with relations of behavior-consequence impossible in reality (so many people “fly” by extending their arms).
This ability to consciously think about relationships behavior-consequence It falls into the field of the formation of expectations. We expect certain actions to lead to certain results, which is why, for example, we make an effort to read before an exam or get up early when looking for a job. We hope that such behaviors will lead us to a desired result. Now, what happens to this process of forming expectations when a person suffers from learned hopelessness? Let’s illustrate this with real cases.
What will happen to children who systematically receive arbitrary punishments from their parents? Let’s imagine, for example, a child whose father or mother suffers from bipolar disorder that is not adequately treated and who, as a result, behaves erratically with respect to the limits imposed. Thus, regardless of the boy’s behavior, the father will be kind and understanding when he is in a period of stability,even endorsing inappropriate behavior like playing with some electrical device.
However, at a different time they may act excessively rigid and punishing, going so far as to apply physical punitive measures without the child having done anything. no inappropriate behavior. In this case, of course, the “rewards and punishments” that the child receives will be independent of his actions. Over several years of one “modus operandi”What can this person learn from the relationship between their behaviors and their consequences? Well, obviously, they are not related. Here is the seed of depression. Over the years, this will lead to a pessimistic explanatory style, which means that there will be a tendency to interpret and explain important events as phenomena independent of one’s own behavior.
Guidelines for its approach
The Cognitive Behavioral treatment program for depression includes addressing the phenomenon of hopelessness from different angles. On the one hand, it uses a large set of behavioral techniques specifically designed for the treatment of depression. Among them, stand out the gradual task scheduling and the training the family in differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors. The first procedure consists of planning and executing progressively more complex behaviors.
The key to the technique lies in the gradualness. Since initially the patient will propose the simplest behaviors, both the probability that he will actually do them and that they will receive their feedback is maximized. natural reinforcers. Obtaining reinforcement for simple behaviors begins to operate a reversal of the phenomenon of helplessness at the behavioral level because natural incentives are generated that motivate the initiation of new actions. On this first basis, more complex tasks are then programmed that will act in the same direction, that is, relinking the behavior with its important consequences.
Training the family in differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors encourages significant people in the patient’s environment to learn to grant social reinforcement to behaviors opposite to depression and vice versa, that do not reinforce depressive behavior itself. But it also operates cognitively, appealing to the distinctively human quality of raising awareness of the contingency relationships between behavior and its consequences.
Following the same example, the behavioral activation program mentioned uses mastery and liking exercises, which helps the depressed patient to assess how much he could actually do and how much he liked it. In summary, our objective is “cure” hopelessness on a behavioral and cognitive level. Behavioral because we favor specific actions that, by their nature, they connect with its results. Cognitive, because we ensure that patients they notice of these relationships between their actions and the results they obtain.
Of course, the Cognitive Behavioral treatment of depression encompasses another set of procedures, variously related to the phenomenon of learned helplessness. But this would be the topic of another article.
By: Lic. Ariel Minici, Lic. Carmela Rivadeneira and Lic. José Dahab.