LEARNED HELPLESSNESS WITH

MARTIN SELIGMANRyan Edmundson, Garrett Harmon, Michael Jenkins

BIOGRAPHY• Martin Seligman is a well known psychologist, and is known to have

discovered the theory of learned helplessness.• He also is a large advocate for and is known to have created positive

psychology.• He got his B.A from Princeton in 1964, and has written over 250

publications and over 20 books.

THE PURPOSE• The purpose of the experiment was to see how much stimulus a animal

needed to be exposed to before it acted 100% helpless even when given an opportunity to escape.

SUMMARY• The people that were involved in Learned Helplessness was Martin Seligman

and Steve Maier.• The experiment occurred at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965.• In the experiment, Seligman would ring a bell and give small shock to a dog.• After a while, the dog would react to the shock as soon as the bell rang, and

would act like it got shocked even when it didn't get shocked.• Then he set up 2 sides with a small partition in the middle, with one side

electrified and one not. He set the dogs on the electrified side, and expected them to jump over to the other side, but they did not because they had accepted they would be shocked and they couldn't stop it.

RESULTS• At the beginning the animal rejected the stimulus and over time the

animal excepted it and grew helpless and when given the opportunity to get away, it just went to the ground and gave up.

PROBLEMS WITH THE RESULTS• Learned helplessness can lead to poor physical health, depression, poor

motivation, and a poor social impact.

WOULD I HAVE PARTICIPATED?• No, I would not have participated because I generally do not enjoy being

shocked at random, and if I were giving the experiment I wouldn't find it right to shock defenseless animals for no reason.