Health psychology/Models & behaviour · Behavioural model

Learned helplessness

What it means

Seligman’s concept: after repeated uncontrollable aversive events, an organism stops trying to escape even when escape becomes possible; a model of depression.

Worked example

A person who has failed repeatedly stops attempting tasks they could now succeed at.

In the exam

After years of circumstances he could not change, a man no longer even attempts solutions that are now within reach, having "given up trying" — a pattern linked to depression.

What settles it

Learned helplessness is passivity following perceived uncontrollability. An external locus of control is a belief; learned helplessness is the behavioural collapse it can produce.

Classically confused with

Locus of control

Source: Seligman