Learned Helplessness

The theory of learned helplessness is people become depressed when they think or feel that they have no control over the reward and punishments in their lives and that they are to fault for the way their live has derailed. The depression can also contain the facet of feelings of hopelessness. They feel that they are hopeless to do anything to change their lives. Even when they really do have control or could change situations in their life they still believe that they are completely helpless to change the situation.

Much research has been done to study the development of depression. Theories support that there are three attribution dimensions that are present that pave the way towards depression. There is an internal, global and stable mechanisms used by the person and these are compounded by the feelings of hopelessness. In the example of the fender bender the person who would be at risk to develop depression would apply these dimensions to the situation. They would use an internal thought such as “I am so stupid, I can’t drive and that is why I hit that pole” They would use the global thought such as “I have never been able to drive”. They would use the stable thought “I will never be a good, safe driver”. They could have feelings of hopelessness that may be expressed with thoughts such as: “I should not drive anymore and ask my neighbor to drive me from now on”.

Another person could experience a fender bender hitting a pole and they would have a different reaction. They would not be at risk to develop depression. They would use the specific, unstable and external mechanisms. They would not experience the feelings of hopelessness therefore not develop depression. They would use the specific thought such as: “if I had slept better last night I would have seen that pole before I hit it”. They would have unstable thoughts such as: “I really don’t know how I happened to hit that pole, this is the first time I ever hit a pole”. They would use the external thoughts such as: “the road men should never have placed a pole there