Learned Helplessness: What is it and Why Does it Happen?

Have you ever felt helpless? Have you studied hard for an exam only to score below average? Have you ever worked tirelessly on a project, only for your senior to downplay your efforts? Does this leave you with a feeling of passiveness? Do you feel like giving up on putting in any effort? This may be because you know the outcome will not be favourable either way.

This is not just about being sad and dejected. It’s the feeling that you can’t change your negative situation even if you try. Coming across a situation repeatedly and realizing there is no escape can force you into a mindset of not trying. In such cases, even when there is a possibility of escape, your mind may have gotten used to passivity. You assume that things are out of your control, so you might as well let things happen and not actively work toward bringing a change.

It becomes an uphill battle. Even encouragement from friends and family becomes futile. This is termed as learned helplessness. In the longer run, it becomes so strong that trying to believe anything else might seem ridiculous. The encouraging words from people who are close to you, despite the good intentions behind them, may not stick. Continue reading to learn more about it.

A Quick Definition

This phenomenon was first discovered in animals. The original theory was propelled by a psychologist, Martin Seligman. He experimented on a group of dogs. They found that when animals find themselves repeatedly in aversive stimuli, they stop trying to avoid it. The inability to escape negative events pushes them to completely give up on trying. Even when an opportunity to find a way out arises, they let it pass.

This founding was not only applicable to animal behavior but also to humans. When people encounter a stressful situation multiple times with no positive outcome, they may lose hope. They might believe they are not in control of the situation. They may feel helpless to bring a change. Also, they may tend to stick with their negative mindset when an opportunity for change becomes available.

People who experience repeated traumatic events such as child abuse or domestic violence are more at risk of developing this attitude. However, not everyone who goes through such events will have this feeling. Explanatory styles also play a role in its development. These range from pessimistic to optimistic and are a person’s way of explaining an event to themselves.

People with a pessimistic explanatory style view negative events as unavoidable and resulting from their shortcomings. These people are more likely to experience the feeling of learned helplessness. On the other hand, people with an optimistic explanatory style are less likely to do so.

This could have not only a negative impact on the professional life of an individual but also on their social life. If one feels that no matter how hard one tries, people still distance themselves from them, that person may not put enough effort into sticking around the people who actually support them. They will develop a sort of passivity to all relations. This can result in a secluded and isolated life.

What are the Symptoms?

Learned helplessness can hamper an individual’s ability to handle a stressful situation. Once in a while, everyone will struggle with adverse situations. Setbacks can be hard at times for everyone. But this condition has some common lasting symptoms. These are:

• Giving up quickly and easily
• Being indecisive
• Avoiding making decisions
• Feeling frustrated and being unable to tolerate that frustration
• Lack of effort or passivity
• Putting less effort into tasks
• Having little to no motivation toward work
• Bad attitude
• Having low self-esteem
• Lack of persistence
• Procrastinating things as much as possible
• Feeling a lack of control over the outcome of the situation
• Failing to ask for help from others

On its own, this is not a mental health condition. But it can be a sign of other mental health disorders like anxiety or depression.

What Causes It?

It is often a result of a stressful experience or a traumatic event. Encountering incidents that leave you with a feeling of having limited control over the outcome repeatedly can result in a lack of motivation and assertiveness.

Some of the common causes are:

• Domestic abuse or abuse of any kind: Putting in effort for your home and family, only to get violent treatment, can dishearten anyone. Once the feeling of not being important or worthy finds a home inside your heart, you may stop believing in yourself. Along with that, you might stop believing in your ability to change things.
• Childhood neglect: A child tries a lot of things to get their parent’s attention. But if neglected by the parents, the child can develop low self-esteem. If denied parental love, the child can lose motivation to get things done. This is because their efforts earlier to get attention failed. They may develop a mindset of not being in control of things. The outcome seems to be something they can’t change.
• Overparenting: Contrary to feeling neglected, the child gets too much attention in this situation. Excessive involvement in the day-to-day life of a child can take away their independence. Even though the aim is to shield them from difficult situations or help them succeed, they could develop a poor sense of personal agency.
  When they are not allowed to take charge of their life, they might develop dependence or feel they are not suited for it. Once exposed to situations where they must take control, they can feel like a fish out of water.
• Natural disasters and trauma could be the other causes behind this condition.

How it Impacts Children Vs. Adults

This condition may not always generalize across all settings and situations. One who feels helpless in one situation might not have the same feeling in a different situation. For example, a student who experiences learned helplessness while solving a problem in maths class might face a situation in real life that requires calculation more positively.

When it originates and what leads to it will influence its impact on your life. If developed in childhood, the child could suffer from long-term consequences. Their decision-making will also differ as compared to an adult. There also tends to be a difference in mindset. Let’s see that below:

Impact on children:

It often originates in childhood. Some children might exhibit symptoms very early in life. If they have grown up in a standardized environment, they might have had this feeling since infancy. Along with that, unresponsive or unreliable caregivers could add to this feeling.

If the caregivers do not respond to the child’s call for help, the child might learn to give up. They might subconsciously develop a feeling of not being in control of things. Such incidents, if repeated, just build on this helplessness.

Hopelessness and powerlessness may find a home inside them. They are likely to carry this in their growth. Once they become adults, they might cultivate a habit of giving up easily and not trying hard enough. They may tend to be more pessimistic about things.

Some symptoms of this in children include:

• Frustration
• Giving up
• Failure to ask for help
• Lack of effort
• Low self-esteem
• Procrastination
• Ascribing success to factors beyond their control, such as luck
• Ascribing a lack of success to a lack of ability
• Passivity
• Poor Motivation

They can develop a mindset that nothing can change the outcome and that all future events will be uncontrollable. This can lead to anxiety and depression. The main consequence of this for children is in academics. If a child feels that no matter how much they study, the result will be poor, they might stop bothering about putting in any effort.

The inevitability of poor grades could cause them to stop trying. This may even further affect their performance. The grades might suffer more. In today’s world, academic results are important for a professional career. A child’s poor performance in school and college could shut down the prospects of a career. They might also feel that nothing they do is right or valuable. This will further decrease their motivation and desire to venture into different fields.

However, developing resilience can help a child avoid this feeling. Positive attachment to independence, humor, and caregivers can all contribute to developing resilience.

Impact on Adults:

In adulthood, one faces a variety of problems. Most of these problems don’t have written solutions. One needs to learn and adapt consistently to tackle them. Once an adult stops learning or using adaptive responses to a difficult situation, they may leave themselves vulnerable to learned helplessness.

They might stop looking for a potential solution. Instead, they accept that bad things will happen and that there is nothing they can do about it. Some examples of learned helplessness in adults are as follows:

• Trying and failing to lose weight through lifestyle and dietary changes. This can push an individual into believing that it will never happen. They might give up and leave things to be as they are.
• Trying to quit smoking but failing despite several attempts. This can force them to believe that they will never be able to quit.

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Is it Associated With Any Mental Health Conditions?

Individuals who suffer from this feeling are at an increased risk of many mental health conditions. These include anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. It may also influence the onset and severity of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

People suffering from chronic anxiety may consider their anxious feelings untreatable and unavoidable. They may give up on finding relief. They may even refuse to accept medical help. Refusal to go to therapy or take medication may make it worse for them. They can get caught up in a vicious cycle. The outcome of this is encountering more and more mental and social problems.

Ways You Can Deal With It

With proper and timely intervention, this condition can be significantly decreased. Even long-term learned helplessness is not out of bounds. It just needs long-term and more dedicated efforts. Some of the ways to tackle it are:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy: Therapy is one of the most common and effective treatments for this. It can help individuals overcome this challenge by changing their thinking and acting. Cognitive behavioral therapy works on your behavioral patterns, contributing to learned helplessness. It will explore the origins of this feeling and address them directly.
  During therapy, an individual identifies negative thought patterns. Then they try to replace it with more positive thoughts. You actively analyze your thoughts and challenge them. This brings an optimistic and rational change in your thought process. Therapy will also help in improving your self-esteem.
• Lifestyle changes: Meditation and practicing mindfulness can boost your mental well-being. Along with this, a healthy diet can help you in fighting stress. Other self-care strategies like getting enough sleep and managing stress levels can help you get a sense of control in life. Sticking to deadlines is another lifestyle change that can make you feel like you are in control.
• Support from friends and family: Once in a while, we all feel down. The aim should be not to let them become a consistent aspect of our life. A little encouragement from close people in such situations can boost you. When others show confidence in you, you feel energized. It gives you the strength to keep trying.

Examples of This Condition

There are different examples of this condition at different stages of life. Some of them are:

• A teacher marks all the students the same, irrespective of their performance. This will take away the motivation from students who actually work hard in their studies. They will feel no need to put in the effort since the outcome will stay the same. Over time, they can develop this attitude in other fields of life.
• Victims of domestic violence develop a pessimism toward things. They can’t find an escape from their situation, especially in a patriarchal society. They might feel helpless as they can’t find any help or solution.
• Alcoholics who struggle to quit despite several attempts. An individual who tries to give up alcohol but can’t seem to can develop a feeling of powerlessness. Their failed attempts may discourage them from trying again. They might feel that they need alcohol, and it’s not in their power to give up. Instead of going through the struggle of giving up alcohol, they will accept their fate.

Seek Help With a Trusted Therapist From DocVita Today

Despite not being a disorder on its own, learned helplessness can profoundly impact your mental health. Don’t let it take control of your life. It will affect the way you think and approach things. Pessimism can scare you from trying different fields.

If you feel you are developing this condition, it’s better to seek help in therapy. Get in touch with our counselors to schedule an appointment. Our team of experienced therapists will be able to evaluate your condition better. They can recommend accurate diagnoses based on the evaluation. Timely treatment will allow you to replace negative thoughts with optimism. Don’t let negativity influence your life decisions.

Believe that you can change things if you try, and with that belief, get in touch with us. We assure to support you in your journey toward positivity.