Ramblings 4: Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness: We're not so Independent

I was on my way to work when I suddenly recalled a study that I had read about in psychology. 

It had to do with operant and classical conditioning, which is when you condition an animal/person to do certain behaviours. 

Like training a dog to sit, fetch or come when you call. You call dog, dog looks at you, you give it a treat. Then you build up from there, withholding treat until the dog gets up and comes to you when called. That is it simplified, there are other ways as well.

The experiment was done by Seligman in early 1965. He trained various dogs to avoid shocks from an electrified floor in a cage when a light turned on. When the light was on the dog would jump over the barrier to safety. They also had condition with no light. The dog would still jump.

Then he thought of this; he put the dog in a hammock and did the same light and shock association. thinking that after the dog was removed from the hammock it would learn to jump to safety.

What he discovered is something called Learned Helplessness. When the dog was released and shown the light it just cowered, and lay down taking the shocks. 

Not even attempting to get away. It was had learned not to react since it believed there was nothing it could do.

However not all dogs cowered in later experiments some became vicious.

In another experiment the scientists gradually increased the voltage on a dog that could not get away. What they did was give it a weak shock then a stronger and then the next “weak” shock would be slightly stronger than the last and the stronger shock stronger than the last. The dog would react less and less to the weaker shocks even though they were the equivalent of stronger shocks made later. Eventually the dog did not react to any shock.

Know the frog experiment? Toss a frog into boiling water and it will jump out but if you put it in a pot of cool water and gradually turn up the heat the frog will just stay in that water until it boils to death?

Well, that was a bit long winded. I thought I should give you a little background… I hope it wasn’t too garbled!

Main Point:

The above is what I think about whenever I see peoples reactions to debt, gas prices, food prices or any changes in the world. 

Gas prices soar to 2 dollars from 60 cents, people cry outrage. The gas price, drops to 70, then shoots up to nearly 2,50 dollars and then drops to 80. Etc, etc, and each time people react less and less to prices they nearly rioted over a year ago. 

It is so… blatant.

You can see this kind of MARKETING strategy in a lot of places, you can see it in our food, our clothes, in products we buy and in the wars that are fought.

People are being conditioned, there’s even brainwashing involved in this to make sure you don’t think too hard about your conditioned responses.

Because of our conditioning we think always that someone else will do something. Someone else will take care of it. One person can not make change. Though almost everywhere you go you hear that you can do it.

It's why if someone collapses in a crowded hallway, you don't say SOMEONE CALL 911! You say YOU IN GREEN SWEATER CALL 911 NOW! Otherwise you stand the chance that no one will call.

Humans adapt, we can get used to almost anything… but why should we get accustomed to things that isn't good for us?

Why is it that we study so much psychology and science but rarely carry it over as to how it is used on us? 

Guess we don't like to admit how easily we are manipulated. I know I don't.

Info about learned helplessness: http://www.noogenesis.com/malama/discouragement/helplessness.html

Ramblings 1: Comment

Dear Deeply Introspective Anonymous Person,

Thanks for the comment!

When I was writing this I was following a stream of thought and as I started thinking about the many different forms of assumptions I forgot about KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid! To excuse myself a little (which I really shouldn’t do) I will say that this was a stream of thought (Ramblings are generally random topics that I let run wild in my mind as I attempt to record them!), as in it was free flow and I hadn’t really planned to type so much. When I realized what was happening in the end, which was further enforced by your comment, was that I was making WAY too broad strokes on the canvas, though it is kind of nice having them laid out!

The problem now is that I have even more to write about assumptions, really you could probably write a 2000 page essay or something on it! Well if you were REALLY wordy!

Okay, so I love to write and don’t mind having so much more to think about! Shh don’t tell anyone.

I agree with your comment about learning about yourself through experience, but I believe that you have to do both at the same time. That we can’t allow the external environment to control how we perceive ourselves, because even through interactions we develop more assumptions. I should probably go more into this later...

I don’t think I should have added the last part though it can be true. Hmm I am getting a bit lost in what I meant to say!

I will say this, and will later write more about it: (you triggered me into thinking about it, but at the moment I don’t have time (I’m at work, boo!)) I think we need to understand the unconscious assumptions first, the ones that trigger emotion. I believe that many people, myself included, are controlled by emotion. We have to let emotion flow through us, feel it, but not it control our thoughts and behaviors.

Well time to go, sorry if I misinterpreted something… probably come back and add or remove from this later when I read your comment more precisely!

 

Rambling: Assumptions

To assume, one of my favorite professors always said, makes an ass out of you and me.

She taught me, and I ASSUME the rest of the class about assumptions, though of course I shouldn't assume, after all how do I know if the others were paying attention that lecture? Paid it any heed if they did? Maybe they took something out of it completely different than I did?

It's hard not to assume it's built into us, it makes life, makes THINKING easier to do. Think how much time you would have to spend on THINKING if you didn't assume. Didn't stereotype, didn't categorize? We do it not just in thought but also when we process memory, process hearing, process vision. How many times have you read or seen something that turned out to be something completely different when you took a closer look?

Our minds are, not to say lazy, but they prioritize, you assume that the round ball you saw was just that a ball and not let's say a melon, or a rock. The mind categorizes incredibly quickly or most likely if it didn't you'd spend most of your time just listening, watching and feeling.

Which isn't to say that is wrong, I think everyone needs to do that. Everyone needs to stop, and look, examine and understand what it is that they are assuming with every breath, every thought.

This can take a life time.

And no I'm not saying that I am better than the rest, I know for fact that I assume all the time. But every so often I will catch myself and go, "Enh, isn't that funny." And start 'looking' examining what it is that drove me to categorize or assume something about what I have seen/heard/felt/etc.

When I do I find myself delving deep, looking anew at things I've learned or experienced years ago and even just moments before hand. Why did I assume that melon was a ball? Well seems that it was in the middle of a basketball court. (No I have not recently mistaken a melon for a ball, but that is the first example I could think of.)

I find myself often sitting on a bus, train, metro, or walking, just thinking about my thoughts and where they lead and what is it that others think? Do I have any right to think that I can even guess at what others think? To be able to understand the forces, internal and external, that have shaped them.

I find myself more and more often looking more inside myself, and less outward for answers.

How can I understand anything if I do not first understand myself?