Which is true regarding Dr. Seligman’s Learned Helplessness studies? A group of rats that were overfed refused to press the bar in the Skinner Box. Dogs that had received a series of inescapable shocks did not try to escape the shocks when the opportunity existed. Cats that were placed in puzzle boxes gave up trying to escape when trial and error behavior proved ineffective. Pigeons became confused and agitated when not rewarded for turning in a circle.
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer:
Dogs that had received a series of inescapable shocks did not try to escape the shocks when the opportunity existed.
Explanation
Dr. Martin Seligman’s studies on learned helplessness were foundational in the field of psychology, particularly in understanding the impact of perceived control on behavior. The correct answer refers to the most well-known and scientifically significant of Seligman’s experiments, conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In these studies, dogs were subjected to a series of electric shocks. Initially, some dogs were placed in a harness and given shocks they could not escape—no matter what behavior they exhibited. Later, these same dogs were placed in a shuttle box, a two-compartment setup where they could easily avoid the shock by jumping over a small barrier to the other side. Remarkably, the dogs that had previously experienced inescapable shocks made no effort to avoid the shocks in the new situation, even though escape was now possible. Instead, they lay down passively and whimpered.
This behavioral pattern was described as learned helplessness—a mental state in which an individual who has experienced repeated failure or lack of control comes to believe that their actions are futile, even in situations where control is possible. The dogs had learned from prior experience that nothing they did could prevent the shock, so they stopped trying altogether.
The other options in the question are not accurate representations of Seligman’s work. Overfeeding rats, puzzle box experiments with cats (which were conducted by Edward Thorndike), and pigeons spinning (related to B.F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning) are either unrelated or loosely associated with other behaviorist experiments.
Seligman’s findings have had broad implications, particularly in understanding depression and other mood disorders in humans, where individuals may feel powerless and stop trying to improve their circumstances due to a history of repeated failure or trauma.
