Learned Helplessness: Definition, Theory, & Examples

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Learned helplessness is when we believe we cannot change painful circumstances, so we stop trying and just endure what’s happening. How do we end up this way, and how do we avoid it?​
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Growing up, I was fortunate to live in a house with a big yard. It was mostly fenced-in, except for the front steps. This was an important detail because we had Skipper, a sweet, goofy golden retriever who would have loved to go exploring in the neighborhood. My dad’s solution was to install an electric fence and give Skipper an electric collar. ​
Each time he tried to go down those steps, the collar shocked him. When it was time for a walk, though, we took the collar off, and Skipper came to know that this meant he could go down the steps without getting shocked.

Eventually, the electric fence stopped working, but by that time, it didn’t matter. Skipper believed there was no way he could go down those steps, wearing that collar, without getting a shock. He never went down them without a leash on again. Growing up, I didn’t have a name for the psychological effect Skipper had experienced, but now I realize he was experiencing what we call learned helplessness. What was going through my dog’s head? Does this kind of thing happen to people, too? Let’s learn together about the phenomenon of learned helplessness.​
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What Is Learned Helplessness? (A Definition)​

Psychologists say that learned helplessness is the state of believing that you have no choices in a situation because in that situation you have repeatedly experienced a sense of powerlessness and painful feelings – or just plain pain (Hunziker & Dos Santos, 2007). When an animal is placed in a situation where it has no control over events, and the experience itself is very aversive, the animal will gradually – consciously or unconsciously – conclude that the painful experience is inevitable and can’t be avoided. It will decide that it is helpless and will generally just submit to whatever is happening in the situation.

What makes learned helplessness such an important psychological phenomenon is that, since most animals can understand the world through what is called associative learning, we often generalize helplessness from the situation in which we first experienced it to other, similar situations. For example, in the first studies that established learned helplessness as a phenomenon, dogs were placed in a situation in which they could not avoid electric shocks. When placed in a similar situation where they could in fact escape the shocks, the dogs did not try to do so (Maier & Seligman, 1976). They seemed to have generalized their learning – if I am in a cage like this, or in a harness like this, there is nothing I can do to avoid getting shocked.

This is the important implication of learned helplessness: it limits our behavioral responses to the situations we encounter, especially when those situations appear similar to previous situations but are actually quite different (Miller, 1998). We have come to believe that our actions will not make a difference, so we are less likely to try to change our circumstances.​

Opposite of Learned Helplessness​

There is a helpful, related term in psychology called locus of control. The locus of control describes where we believe control of a situation lies (Lefcourt, 1991). When you have an internal locus of control, you believe that the ability to determine outcomes lies with you. By contrast, when you are experiencing an external locus of control, the world just seems to be happening to you, without your input or influence mattering much. While there are times when one kind of locus of control is more adaptive than the other, having an internal locus of control is generally associated with better psychological outcomes (Spector et al., 2001), and experiences of learned helplessness are definitely associated with an external locus of control (Cohen et al., 1976).
​
So we can think of the opposite of learned helplessness as having a strong internal locus of control. People with an internal locus of control look at each situation with a focus on what they can control. Sometimes, this just means their response to what is happening around them, because events are otherwise truly out of their control (Frankl, 1985). But more generally, a person with an internal locus of control will look at a painful situation and see themselves as able to change it, which likely helps them stay focused on getting started with effective action.

Causes of Learned Helplessness

The common thread through the explanations of learned helplessness has been a focus on cognition, or the thinking that occurs in situations of learned helplessness (Maier & Seligman, 2016). At first, it was suggested that in situations of learned helplessness, people and other animals have their experience of contingency interrupted (Maier & Seligman, 1976). Contingent relationships are those in which one thing happening is dependent on another thing happening. For example, I have learned that certain friends are unlikely to reach out to hang out but will be happy to do so if I ask, so our hanging out is contingent on me making the first move.
 
In situations such as getting shocked and having no way to avoid it, we experience non-contingency: nothing seems to change this outcome; it is unavoidable. At this point, we make an interpretation of the situation, and that is where learned helplessness can develop (Abramson et al., 1978). If I decide that the cause of this non-contingency is internal – I am the one who cannot change the situation – then I am developing a sense of learned helplessness.
 
Furthermore, I also make an evaluation of whether this non-contingency is stable or unstable, and global or specific. For example, if I am stuck in traffic, the level of helplessness I feel is determined also by whether I expect the traffic to end in a couple of miles or go on indefinitely, and whether I believe alternative routes would work better. If I assume that the traffic is always this way, and there is simply no way it can ever change, and I have no control over my situation, I am deep in learned helplessness and likely to experience a lower sense of self-esteem (Abramson et al., 1978).
 
While thinking seems to be the driver of learned helplessness, emotions and behaviors are involved too (Maier & Seligman, 1976). Experiences of being ineffective in influencing our environments are generally emotionally unpleasant, which can discourage us from continuing our change efforts. We may avoid trying again, just to avoid feeling that sense of disappointment or, fittingly, helplessness.

Examples of Learned Helplessness

As a couples therapist, I see a lot of learned helplessness in action. When situations come up that trouble us in our relationships, and we do nothing in response, it is often because we believe that nothing we do will make a meaningful difference. For example, my partner might have tried every way she could think of to get me to consistently put dishes in the sink, but after a while, learned helplessness sinks in and she stops trying to change my behavior.

Learned helplessness can set in around our own behaviors, too. For example, many people with addictions may come to believe that there is nothing in their power that will stop them from pursuing their drug or experience of choice (Shaghaghy et al., 2011). In this sense, they have learned “I am powerless over my addiction.” In fact, this is a key aspect of recovery from addiction in the Twelve Step model.​

Learned Helplessness Theory

As we noted above, the theory behind learned helplessness leans on the “learning” part of the term – it is how we make sense of events that seems to lead to us developing learned helplessness or not (Abramson et al., 1978). If we have not learned that we are capable of changing our environments, we are more likely to become less effective in pursuing our goals and generally shaping the world to fit our desires (Winefield, Barrett, & Tiggemann, 1985).
 
One interesting study reveals just how much learned helplessness has to do with thinking. Rholes and colleagues (1980) put young children through a learned helplessness experimental design (there were no shocks involved, I promise) and found that learned helplessness was more likely to develop among the older children than the younger ones. They attributed this to how our cognitive abilities gradually mature – the younger children were less able to look at the situation and interpret it as “this is all my failing, I can’t fix this”, so they kept trying where the older children gave up.
 
It also takes time for the human brain to mature enough to interpret events at the more abstract level of whether a situation is permanent or temporary, whether I am the cause or others are the cause, and whether this situation will apply to other situations in my life. All of these components of cognition are necessary for an individual to fully develop a learned helplessness response to an event (Weiner, 1986).​

Learned Helplessness Symptoms​

When we experience learned helplessness, we manifest it through many symptoms (McKean, 1994). The behavioral symptoms may include taking a passive attitude or avoiding or giving up on a task. We may struggle to solve problems and begin to think negative thoughts about ourselves. Finally, the emotional flavor of learned helplessness is usually that of sadness or frustration.

Learned Helplessness vs Learned Optimism

Several decades after being one of the researchers to propose the concept of learned helplessness, Martin Seligman wrote a book about learned optimism, which he proposed as the opposite of learned helplessness (Seligman, 2006). People exercising learned optimism use a couple of key coping strategies when in difficult situations. First, they tend to look at the situation, and not themselves, as causing the problem. They consider the particular characteristics of the situation and focus on how those create the difficulty. At the same time, when they are able to change their worlds, they attribute this ability to themselves, looking for their positive role in the situation. In this way, they develop a tendency to see negative events as temporary and not about them, and positive events as reflecting the good things about themselves. Sounds pretty adaptive, right?

For some more information about how to apply learned optimism to your life, I recommend watching this video:​

Video: Learned Helplessness – How You’re Unconsciously Destroying Your Life

Learned Helplessness in Relationships

Learned helplessness has been shown to develop in abusive relationships (Bargai et al., 2007). In fact, it seems to be a key reason that the abusive behaviors that happen have such a devastating effect. This makes a lot of intuitive sense: abused partners are often told again and again that they are the problem in the relationship, and they often feel trapped and powerless. The less we feel able to change or resist the negative events in our relationships, the more mental health challenges we are likely to experience. Studies with animals seem to confirm this: animals subjected to learned helplessness become less effective in their fight or flight response and show more submissive and defensive behaviors around other animals (Hammack et al., 2012).​

Learned Helplessness at Work

People can experience learned helplessness at their jobs, especially when their supervisors or managers seem to have all the control and blame the employees for what goes wrong (Bassman & London, 1993). Since their livelihoods may be at stake, employees may have a hard time choosing to resist the situations in which they are made to feel helpless.​

Learned Helplessness and Trauma

Traumatic events are characterized by serious danger or injury, fear, and often a sense of helplessness (Bargai et al., 2007). Thus, learned helplessness can easily develop from traumatic events, since one of their hallmarks is that the traumatized person was not able to take much action to protect themselves or others or to stop the situation from unfolding. Especially when people internalize a sense of responsibility for the event, they may fall into learned helplessness around future situations that might be similar to what happened (Peterson & Seligman, 1983). Thus, learned helplessness has been described as a key cognitive component of post-traumatic stress disorder (Foa et al., 1992).

Learned Helplessness and Depression

The originators of learned helplessness theory proposed that it could be used to understand how depression develops (Miller & Seligman, 1975). Simply put, if we feel our actions will not result in the effects we want, we lose hope and stop trying to engage with the world. This is such an established understanding of depression that when researchers want to study depression in animals, they often generate depression in the animals by inducing learned helplessness in the animals (Willner, 1990).

Learned Helplessness Treatment

​The simplest way to undo learned helplessness is to have experiences of being effective in changing one’s environment (Klein & Seligman, 1976). Having experiences of effectiveness may also be an effective way to guard against learned helplessness developing in the first place (Buchwald et al., 1978). It appears that elevating people’s moods can also help them overcome some of the stuckness that comes with learned helplessness (Cemalcilar et al., 2003).

Articles Related to Learned Helplessness​

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Learned Helplessness​

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Learned Helplessness​

I think these experiences of thinking we are unable to change a situation, and then feeling bad about ourselves because of it, are actually quite common, even if most do not turn to a state of learned helplessness. If you’re feeling helpless about a situation, I hope you can recognize that it likely comes from many experiences of trying to make things better, and importantly, those experiences do not necessarily mean that future attempts won’t work. Sometimes, we have just tricked ourselves into believing we are powerless.

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