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M Sutapa Lakshmanan

9/12/2010

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How many times have you heard,

thought, or said:

“Why won’t they just try harder?”

“I can’t achieve my goal” 

“She just doesn’t want to be helped!” 

“Why should someone keep helping me when I don’ttry to help myself?” 

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This leads to:

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Learned Helplessness Condition resulting from the perception that we do

not have control over the environment

People in the state of learned helplessness viewproblems as

Personal: Internalization of problem(blaming self)

Pervasive: Affecting all aspects of life Permanent: The problem is not going to go away 

Martin Seligman’s experiments with dogs 

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Explanatory Style Way of explaining to ourselves our relative lack of 

control over the environment

Optimistic:

More likely to have better immune system ,live longer,report less stress and depression, compared to

pessimistic Pessimistic

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Depression Association between learned helplessness and

depression

Symptom: Inability to control outcomes

Ultimate pessimism: Create explanations about

negative situations into personal and pervasive terms

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Attribution Model We attribute our lack of control or failure to some

cause

Pessimists: Internal, stable and global causes

Optimists: External, unstable and specific causes

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 Development of Learned Helplessness in

Childhood Early interaction with environment will determine

later feelings of control over environment

 Abuse Can associate old events with new situations

 Attribution of failure made to self rather than thecircumstances

Personal helplessness

Universal helplessness

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Learned helplessness

leads tohopelessness

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Helplessness can be Unlearned

 We can help ourselves and others unlearn helplessness

by gaining control in lives.

By cultivating

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Positive Psychology Deals with happiness, excellence and optimal human

functioning

Concerned with strength as well as weakness

Concerned with building the best things in life as in

repairing the worst

Concerned with making the lives of normal peoplemore fulfilling and nurturing high talent

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Migrating from Pessimism to Optimism ABCDE Model

 A: Adverse event or situation

B: Beliefs about that event(Hear) C: Consequences of those beliefs(Feel)

D: Disputation and distraction

E: Energization

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Six Variables associated with Happy

Personality Repressive – defensiveness

Trust

Internal Locus of control Resilience

Emotional stability and positive affect

Self-esteem