Learning 211More recently, Seligman’s colleague and coresearcher in those early studies,
Steven F. Maier, has revisited the phenomenon of learned helplessness from a neurosci-
entific approach, and this work has provided some new insights. Maier and others have
investigated the brain mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, focusing on an area
of the brain stem that releases serotonin and can play a role in activating the amygdala
(which plays an important role in fear and anxiety) but also participates in decreasing
activity in brain areas responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response. This combination of
increased fear/anxiety with non-escape or freezing is the very behavior associated with
learned helplessness. This part of the brain stem (the dorsal raphe nucleus) is a much
older part of the brain and not able to determine what type of stressors are controlla-
ble. Their research suggests that a higher-level area, a part of the frontal lobe called the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), is able to help determine what is controllable. In
turn, the vmPFC inhibits the brain stem area and calms the amygdala’s response, allow-
ing an animal to effectively respond to a stressor and exhibit control (Amat et al., 2005;
Maier et al., 2006; Maier & Watkins, 2005). In other words, it is possible that the dogs in
the early studies, rather than learning to be helpless, were not learning how to relax and
take control of the situation. Maier and colleagues suggest that both training and input
from the vmPFC are necessary for animals to learn how to take control (Maier et al.,
2006).
I know some people who seem to act just like those dogs—
they live in a horrible situation but won’t leave. Is this the
same thing?Seligman extended the concept of learned helplessness to explain some behaviors
characteristic of depression. Depressed people seem to lack normal emotions and become
somewhat apathetic, often staying in unpleasant work environments or bad marriages
Figure 5.11 Seligman’s Apparatus
In Seligman’s studies of learned helplessness, dogs were placed in a two-sided box. Dogs that had no prior
experience with being unable to escape a shock would quickly jump over the hurdle in the center of the box
to land on the “safe” side. Dogs that had previously learned that escape was impossible would stay on the
side of the box in which the shock occurred, not even trying to go over the hurdle.
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