Author Question: Describe learned helplessness. How is it developed in laboratory animals, and how does it help us to ... (Read 173 times)

sammy · **on:** Jun 22, 2018

Describe learned helplessness. How is it developed in laboratory animals, and how does it help us to understand human depression?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Describe the basic components of the multidimensional integrative model. What are the dimensions, and what does the term integrative mean in this model?

What will be an ideal response?

Fayaz00962 · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Martin Seligman described the phenomenon of learned helplessness, which occurs when animals encounter conditions over which they have no control. If rats are confronted with a situation in which they receive occasional foot shocks, they can function well if they learn to cope with these shocks by doing something to avoid them (say, pressing a lever). But if the animals learn that their behavior has no effect on their environmentsometime s they get shocked and sometimes they don't, no matter what they dothey become helpless; they give up attempting to cope and seem to develop the animal equivalent of depression.
Seligman theorized that the same phenomenon may happen with people who are faced with uncontrollable stress. People become depressed if they decide or think they can do little about the stress in their lives, even if it seems to others that there is something they could do. This finding illustrates, again, the necessity of recognizing that different people process information about events in different ways. These cognitive differences are an important component of psychopathology.

Answer to Question 2

-Behavioral includes causal factors from behavioral and cognitive processes, including learned helplessness, social learning, prepared learning, and even unconscious processes.
-Biological includes causal factors from the fields of genetics and neuroscience.
-Emotional influences contribute in a variety of ways, as do social and interpersonal influences.
-Social influences and cultural factors contribute to biology and behavior.
-Developmental influences figure in any discussion of causes of psychological disorders.

This use of the term integrative refers to the model's premise that many factors interact to cause any given disorder.