Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness means that a person stops trying to change a situation because they have repeatedly experienced failure or lack of control and have learned to believe that their actions won’t make a difference.

The concept is mainly associated with psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier.

example

Imagine a student fails an exam three times.

At first, they think:”I’ll try harder next time.”

“Nothing I do will work. I’m just bad at this.”

Eventually, even when they have a good teacher and enough time to prepare, they stop trying seriously.

That is learned helplessness.