21
Sep 23

Unveiling the Prevalence of Helplessness: Is It More Common Than We Thought?

Hello and good morning, or evening. It’s not crazy to say that adversity is inevitable in our lives. Whether it be small as spilling soda on your shirt, to dropping the expensive cake to your daughter’s wedding on the floor, eventually something you dislike or that will stress you out WILL happen. But what if your beliefs on the adversity you might face were perpetual and actively preventing your sense of agency from making decisions and coping? You just might be experiencing something called “Helplessness”, something that affects more people more often than we assumed. 

Helplessness (or Learned Helplessness) is the mental state where one believes that nothing they say or do will change their unfortunate circumstances that might occur to them (Gruman et al., 2017, pg.108). Meaning instead of just being pessimistic about a single or few topics for a sec, everything to them becomes inevitable or something they can’t avoid. The cause for someone to develop learned helplessness is the experience of constant trauma or negative circumstances over an extended period (Maier, 2016). This constant adversity gives people the perception that anything they do is a waste of energy, so, they just accept the trauma without making any plan to stop it. It is honestly scary to think about, but what terrifies me more is the connection between helplessness and other disorders/mental health. 

While it is possible to see someone have learned helplessness alone, it’s way more common to see it coupled with another condition. This coupling of conditions is called a comorbidity, and learned helplessness is commonly coupled with depression and PTSD (Leonard & Sharon, 2022). Often one of the mental health conditions leads to the other. For instance, when someone has seasonal depression (the constant feeling of sadness and loss of interest as fall/winter comes around) they might try to start a project. But as they start to work, they may feel as though they’re sluggish, unmotivated, and tired, which results in them putting it off. If this chain of actions/adversity happens often enough, it could develop into learned helplessness as they may give up entirely on accomplishing what they wanted, as well as never deal with what they may believe is just the “Winter Blues.” 

Another point I want to push is how helplessness may not be coupled with just conditions but a lack of information on a certain topic. Trauma, which according to the American Psychological Association is an emotional response (usually negative) to a horrible event/disaster that may cause unstable emotions, flashbacks, and even physical systems like being nauseous or a headache (2008). This word is used a lot by the public but fails to see how deep it goes. For example, PTSD (or post-traumatic stress disorder), the intense anxiety/ stress one feels when perceive a trigger like their past trauma. Most people believe that only those who served in the army get this, but trauma can be gained as simply as being neglected by someone or constant run-ins with your local wasp nest. I mention this because we all may have trauma that we have gone through, or still are, that if we simply gave up on handling it could bring us to developing helplessness without knowing it. 

I feel like the topic of helplessness and trauma should be brought up more often. As it is important to know what may trigger us and how we should learn to cope in a healthy matter. Helplessness is a scary perspective to have, often coupled with other mental health conditions, which strips away our ability to cope and treat our problems. Along with our lack of conversation on common trauma, it becomes a issue invisible to us and ultimately unchecked. 

References

American Psychological Association. (2008). Trauma. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017b). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (3rd ed.). SAGE.

Leonard, J. (2022, September 2). Learned helplessness: Examples, symptoms, and treatment. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325355

Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological review, 123(4), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000033


27
Sep 15

Changing Perspectives

I often wondered what made some people feel helpless and others empowered in their choices and decision-making.  While I knew that thoughts could play a part in both, I did not realize how debilitating some could be when experienced in a negative light.  In this week’s reading for applied social psychology, Schneider, Gruman, and Coutts (2012) discussed Seligman and colleagues model of learned helplessness called the “attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness theory of depression.” As probably assumed by the name, people that are prone to depression typically believe that their situation is unchangeable and expect a negative outcome as a result (Schneider et al., 2012, p. 94).  Thinking about this cycle, it is no wonder why individuals continually experience the same results and always see the “down side.”  It’s pretty hard to break away from something that seems to occur naturally, particularly if happens more often than the good things.  But I am curious, can this change?  Has this practice been used in other settings successfully?

I received one answer in a study sought to change self-defeating behaviors in at-risk readers.  Coley and Hoffman (1990) selected six “at risk” sixth grade students who were receiving remedial reading for their case study.  To qualify, the students had to be involved in the program for a minimum of 2 years.  It was assumed that such students would lack expressed confidence in their abilities as they have experienced setbacks in their academic journeys.  The conditions the students were introduced to consisted of three parts: 1) question response cues, double entry/response journals, and 3) self-evaluation.  Based on their findings, the students were able to express more confidence in their abilities and viewed themselves more positively (Coley et al., 1990).

Being a student myself, I can imagine the way the sixth graders felt in that situation.  If I experienced difficulty and had a hard time changing this outcome, it would be pretty hard for me to see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”  Sometimes it takes an intervention, such as the one described, to help individuals to see that their situation can change.  Just like their perspectives and confidence improved, the same result can occur in other situations.

Langer and Rodin (1976) and Kane et al. (2007) found that elderly patients who maintained control of their day-to-day lives, with activities and the like, experienced health benefits that differed from similar patients in a nursing home and/or a more restrictive setting.  Kane et al. (2007) noted that patients in the experimental condition had lower incidents of bed rest than those in the other two conditions.  And Langer et al. (1976) reported that patients in the experimental group reported increases in happiness, which was significantly more than the comparison group.  Obviously, both studies worked against learned helplessness and enabled patients to be active rather than passively involved.  Although the studies differed in implementation, both the overall objectives and outcomes resulted in positive changes.

With the examples shared, the response to my questions would be that learned helplessness can change and this has been successfully demonstrated in several instances.  While it may not be easy to exercise hope in situations that seem impossible, with a little help in realigning this thought process, this this too can change.

 

References:

Coley, J. D., & Hoffman, D. M. (1990). Overcoming learned helplessness in at-risk readers. Journal of Reading, 33(7), 497-502.

Kane, R. A., Lum, T. Y., Cutler, L. J., Degenholtz, H. B. & Yu, T.-C. (2007). Resident Outcomes in Small-House Nursing Homes: A Longitudinal Evaluation of the Initial Green House Program. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 55, 832–839. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01169.x

Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(2), 191-198. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.34.2.191

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (Eds.). (2012). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.


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