Repeated uncontrollable adversity produces failure to act even after control is restored.
Seligman and Maier's 1967 dogs stopped attempting escape after inescapable shocks. The 2016 reinterpretation by the original authors inverts it: passivity is the default, and what is learned is control, not helplessness.
In practice
- A resident whose four maintenance requests went unanswered stops reporting the leak, and the housing officer records a satisfied tenant.
- A team that has had four proposals rejected stops proposing, and the manager reads it as disengagement rather than as accurate learning.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop