frantically when the electric shock came on and quickly learned to leap over
the barrier to safety whenever they heard the signal. But the researchers were
totally surprised by the response of the dogs that had first gone through theinescapable shock experience. These dogs also ran around for a few seconds
after the shock came on, but then the dogs stopped moving. “To our surprise,
it lay down and quietly whined, ”a researcher explained. “After one minute of
this we turned the shock off; the dog had failed to cross the barrier and had
not escaped from the shock ”(Seligman, 1975, p. 22).
What had happened to these dogs? According to the researchers, the ani-
mals had learned that they were helpless. During the inescapable shock trials,
the dogs tried various moves to avoid the shock and found that none were re-
warded. The animals eventually learned there was nothing they could do toturn off the shock, and they became resigned to their helplessness. Of course,
this reaction was no surprise. It ’s probably the most reasonable response to
inescapable shock. The problem became apparent when the dogs experienced
shock in the shuttle-box situation —shock from which they could escape. In
behavioral terms, the dogs inappropriately generalized what they had learned
in the first situation to the second situation. Although the dogs could easily
have escaped the shock in the shuttle-box, they responded with the helplessness
they had learned earlier. In fact, before the animals could learn the simple
response, researchers had to physically move the dogs to the other side of the
shuttle-box to show them the shock was escapable.
Learned Helplessness in Humans
Soon after the first demonstrations of learned helplessness in animals, psy-
chologists wondered if learned helplessness could also be found in people.
Ethically, we can ’t put human volunteers in a harness and subject them to
inescapable shock. But with a few modifications in the basic procedure, re-
searchers figured out a way to test whether humans were also susceptible toShock grid turned on
on one sideShock grid turned off
on other side28 in.43 in.8 ft.
FIGURE 14.8 Shuttle-Box for Learned Helplessness Experiments396 CHAPTER 14 The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach