Learned helplessness and its application to low-income families

¶ … Helplessness

Low Income Families and Learned Helplessness

Skinner's theory of behaviorism was a dominant theoretical model of psychology for many decades, but in the 1960s Martin Seligman and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments on dogs that seemed to question many of behaviorism's tenets (Shields 1997). Instead of learning behaviors, the experiments conducted by Seligman's team of researchers (which involved administering electric shocks to groups of dogs that either could or could not press a lever to end the shocks) seemed to suggest that helplessness -- a lack of behavior or even, apparently, the desire to act -- was learned (Shields 1997). At first, this might not seem to surprising to a lay observer, but in fact the ramifications of learned helplessness in both animals and humans have profound effects on development and success in life. This can be seen both on a personal and individual basis, and as a systemic issue that requires consideration at the societal level. Before the far-reaching social implications of learned helplessness are delved into, however, a basic understanding of the phenomenon is necessary.

The psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness was actually discovered by accident when Martin Seligman, Steven Maier, and C. Peterson were testing a hypothesis about their two-process learning theory (Shields 1997). In the experiment, one group of dogs was subjected to electric shocks that they could end by pushing a lever, while another group has no control over their shocks. The dogs that could end the shock quickly learned how, and in part two of the experiment when they needed to jump over a low barrier to escape the shock, they accomplished this quickly as well. The dogs that had come to expect not being able to control the pain of the shocks, however, made no attempt to escape them in the second part of the experiment, even though they could have done so just as easily as the dogs in the first group (Shields 1997).

This showed, according to Seligman et al., that helplessness was a learned trait (Shields 1997). Furthermore, the dogs exhibited signs similar to those of clinical depression in humans, including a seeming lack of motivation and increased acceptance of deteriorating situations (Shields 1997). Of course, no such clearly explicit and direct examples of learned helplessness exist in human society; such experiments are ethically questionable in their treatment of animals, and would be absolutely inappropriate with human subjects. Other examples emerge, however, from both personal cases and large-scale societal and governmental situations.

Low-income families are one major example of a situation where learned helplessness has an impact on both society and individuals. The ways in which the mechanism of learned helplessness operates in the framework of the economic structure of modern society are quite complex, and it would be impossible to fully illustrate the full interplay of the phenomenon here. Child development in low-income families, however, is indicative of the way learned helplessness applies to many different aspects of living in a low-income family. There is abundant evidence that children living in poverty have increased developmental issues and reduced mental abilities later in life (Campbell & Ramey 1994). It is also true that living in low-income situations makes children more likely to live in single-parent homes, meaning tat there is markedly reduced time for interaction with the child during the critical early years of development (Campbell & Ramey 1994). These are the components from which learned helplessness can be deduced.