[Learned helplessness vs perseverence; in dogs, rats and humans] Seligman called these differences our explanatory style. Some people were naturally inclined t

[Learned helplessness vs perseverence; in dogs, rats and humans] Seligman called these differences our explanatory style. Some people were naturally inclined to believe that bad things will keep happening to us and that they are our fault. Some were naturally inclined toward the opposite—bad things are happening now, but they’ll stop and they’re not our fault. The former were those who were prone to depression; the latter were those who tended to bounce back. Seligman believed that humans, like dogs, could be taught to become more resilient, a phenomenon he called learned optimism. … In 1984, he published a review of the evidence. First, he and his colleagues had found that the way people explained bad events to themselves really did link closely to depression risk. It was true in students, in people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, in children, and, predictably, in depressed patients. And, importantly, training people to change their explanatory habits—to more narrow, external, and transient—seemed to help them overcome existing depression and, in some cases, prevent its onset even when other risk factors were high. http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/theory-psychology-justified-torture http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/theory-psyc...