Learned helplessness Redux

Sun 8.29.21

            I wrote an essay in April of 2018 about the Seligman experiment with its findings of learned helplessness.  It was a hit and became a favorite.  Below is that essay with an added affirmation of my conclusions on Seligman’s observations about his experiment.

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There is a famous 2 part experiment in psychology by Martin Seligman in which he has placed a dog in a crate with an electrical grid floor that emits shocks on an intermittent schedule.  The dog never knows when the shock will occur.  Seligman added the component of a ringing bell just before a shock is administered.  The dog came to react to the sound as if shocked, just like Pavlov’s salivating dogs.  The bell was in no way helpful to the animal.

 In the second phase of the experiment, the dog was placed in a crate with a low wall bisecting it; on one side lay the shocking grid, but not on the other.  Did the dog jump to the safe side when he heard the bell?  No, he did not.  Seligman explained this behavior as Learned Helplessness.  The dog had learned in the first phase and the bell ring that the shock would follow and could not be avoided. 

 I read at the time that the CIA and Britain’s MI6 were going to relocate the Skripals and give them new identities, https://www.rt.com/uk/423517-skripals-cia-us-relocation/.  They will disappear, and we will never hear of them again.  Unfortunate situation in that it seemed to have no effect on international standings, other than Russia getting more sanctions imposed on it because they were “probably” involved in poisoning the pair.  In the morning the U.S. accused Russia and that “animal” Syria’s Bashar al Assad of foisting a chemical attack on Syrians, women and children 

Do you sometimes feel like one of Seligman’s dogs, [think current ongoing Afghanistan massacre] the bell ringing in your ear intermittently and, like the powerless dog you marshal your energy for the coming onslaught.  You hear the bark of other dogs that will undoubtedly suffer similar cruelty but you are not concerned, your problem doesn’t allow for it. 

Learned Helplessness.  There may be a safe place to escape the violence, but few have been trained to jump that wall.  I am sure that if Martin Seligman continued his experiments he would have had to come across the dog that jumps the low wall to safety.  There is always one . . .

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      And that one is Marine Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/i-demand-accountability-marine-commander-fired-viral-video-ripping-inept-afghan-war, who posted on his Facebook page a video with the following:  “I have been fighting for 17 years.  I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, ‘I demand accountability.’”  He did this in his office, in uniform.  What constitutes the failures in Afghanistan that led to American servicemen dying, he wants to know.  He knows he will not get a response and he will most assuredly be relieved of his command and further, dismissed from the military.

      Scheller took his chances and he jumped the wall which held him to the tune of that familiar painful bell.  It was a jump into the infinity of self.  Who could possibly know how that would turn out?

      We need an experiment that explains what causes a person to jump that wall knowing he will lose everything he has known, loved and committed himself to most of his adult life https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Leaders/Leaders-View/Article/2692528/lieutenant-colonel-stuart-p-scheller/.  My experiment’s goal?  What is the ideal environment that promotes self-assurance and courage and allows an individual to say, account for what you have permitted/perpetrated?

The favorite post this month has been Simulation Theory