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A the imho proper and useful concept of "learned helplessness" refers to a situation where someone learns that appearing helpless and asking others for help is
by staunton 3y ago
A the imho proper and useful concept of "learned helplessness" refers to a situation where someone learns that appearing helpless and asking others for help is the success strategy for achieving any goal. In an environment where this is true, most people will quickly learn this. The situation where this is bad is when a person learns this unconsciously and really believe themselves to be helpless, their learning immediately ruling out even the thought of solving any problems themselves.
There is no reason why both negative and positive stimuli couldn't contribute to such learning. If you reward children every time they ask for help, or punish them every time they try something themselves, or both, there is a big chance they learn helplessness to some degree.
- the_af 3y agoBut this is not what it's meant by "learned helplessness". You are describing an unrelated phenomenon. Learned helplessness has nothing to do with feigning helplessness to get what you want; it's instead about giving up and accepting a harmful situation that is perceived as unavoidable.
- ransackdev 3y ago> it's instead about giving up and accepting a harmful situation that is perceived as unavoidable So we could clear up the confusion about what "learned helplessness" means by instead calling it, "hopelessness", or "despair"? Interestingly enough, the definitions of hopelessness and despair are circular references to each other: hopelessness | ˈhōpləsnəs | noun a feeling or state of despair; lack of hope despair | dəˈsper | noun the complete loss or absence of hope Huh, weird