reportedthatthe“implicationsofthesefindingsforlearned
helplessness theory are not entirely clear” and that “a
substantial number of questions remain.”^37
At the University of Tennessee at Martin, G. Brown, P.
Smith, and R. Peters went to a lot of trouble to createa
speciallydesignedshuttleboxforgoldfish,perhapstoseeif
Seligman’stheoryholdswater.Theexperimenterssubjected
forty-fivefishtosixty-fiveshocksessionseachandconcluded
that “the data in the present study do not provide much
support for Seligman’s hypothesis that helplessness is
learned.”^38
Theseexperiments haveinflicted acute, prolongedpain on
manyanimals,first toprove atheory,thentodisprove the
theory, and finally to support modified versions of the
originaltheory.StevenMaier,whowithSeligmanandGeer
wasa coauthorofthepreviouslyquotedreportoninducing
learned helplessness in dogs, has made a career out of
perpetuatingthelearnedhelplessnessmodel.Yetinarecent
reviewarticle,Maierhadthistosayaboutthevalidityofthis
“animal model” of depression:
Itcanbearguedthatthereisnotenoughagreementaboutthe
characteristics,neurobiology,induction,andprevention/cure
of depression to make such comparison meaningful.... It
would thus appear unlikely that learned helplessness is a
model of depression in any general sense.^39
Although Maier tries to salvage something from this
dismaying conclusion by saying that learned helplessness
mayconstituteamodelnotofdepressionbutof“stressand
coping,” he has effectively admitted that more than thirty