What is Learned Helplessness?
14th March 2006
Definitions of learned helplessness on the Web:
A tendency to be a passive learner who depends on others for decisions and guidance.
www.siena.edu/studentaffairs/disabilities/disabilities_definitions.asp
A condition in which a person attempts to establish and maintain contact with another by adopting a helpless, powerless stance.
www.indianpsychiatry.com/Glossary.htm
with repeated exposure to inescapable aversive events, the person or animal learns that escape is impossible. In subsequent circumstances where escape or avoidance is possible, no attempt is made. The principle has been applied to understanding the origins of depression.
www.mindful-things.com/Glossary/glossary_l.html
A parallel concept to the social breakdown syndrome posit considerable responsibility on the individual
www.people.vcu.edu/~swharkin/swhpages/glossary.htm
Learned helplessness, a term initially used in experimental psychology, is a description of the effect of inescapable negative reinforcement (such as electrical shock) on animal (and by extension, human) behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness