Psychology2016

212 CHAPTER 5

or relationships rather than trying to escape or better their situation. Seligman proposed

that this depressive behavior is a form of learned helplessness. Depressed people may

have learned in the past that they seem to have no control over what happens to them

(Alloy & Clements, 1998). A sense of powerlessness and hopelessness is common to

depressed people, and certainly this would seem to apply to Seligman’s dogs as well.

Maier ’s recent work also has implications here, especially the focus on the components

necessary for learning how to relax and exhibit control: input from the vmPFC and

training (repeated exposures to stressors). This combination provides a mechanism not

only for understanding resilience* but also for possibly helping people foster resilience

and avoid anxiety or mood disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or

depression (Maier et al., 2006). to Learning Objectives 14.6 and 14.9. Maier and

colleagues are continuing to study the brain foundations of learned helplessness and

examining how factors related to control and controllability impact not only immediate

events but future stressful events as well (Amat et al., 2010; Rozeske et al., 2011; Varela

et al., 2012).

Think about how learned helplessness might apply to other situations. Perceived

control or learned helplessness can play an important role in coping with chronic or acute

health conditions, either for the person with the disorder or for the family member making

medical decisions for a loved one (Camacho et al., 2013; Sullivan et al., 2012). What about

college? There are many students who feel that they are bad at math because they have had

problems with it in the past. Is it possible that this belief could make them not try as hard or

study as much as they should? Is this kind of thinking also an example of learned helpless-

ness, or is it possible that these students have simply not had enough experiences of success

or control?

Cognitive learning is also an important part of a fairly well-known form of learn-

ing, often simplified as “monkey see, monkey do.” Let’s take a look at learning through

watching the actions of others.

discovered that the animals did nothing in a specific situation

learned helplessness: tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation

because of a past history of repeated failures; or according to recent

work by Maier, possibly due to not learning how to relax and take control

accompanied by activation of key brain structures

Cognitive Learning Theory

(focuses on role of cognition, or thought processes, on learning)

Seligman

originally studied

escape and avoidance

learning in dogs

chimp first exhibited trial-and-error approach

later appeared to experience a sudden insight into

solving the problem (retrieving a banana)

Köhler

worked with chimpanzees;

set up a problem situation

suggested animals form a cognitive map

of the physical layout of the maze

performance not due to reinforcement

latent learning: learning occurs but behavior not

manifested until organism has reason to demonstrate it

Tolman

worked with rats in a maze

Concept Map L.O. 5.10, 5.11, 5.12

Interactive

Reset

*resilience: the ability to recover quickly from change and/or stress.