Learning To Be Depressed By Seligman And Maier: An Analysis

2. A. The research was conducted by first paying his participants $4.50 ($30 today) to come in and take part in the experiment. The group of participants he selected was composed of 40 males between 20 and 50 who were told that the experiment was to test the effect of “punishment on learning“. There was 15 skilled-unskilled workers, 16 white-collar employees, and 9 professionals. Apart from them, there were 2 key participants, a confederate, who was actually a 47 year-old accountant and an actor who dressed as the experimenter. He decided to test the power of obedience in a laboratory which was clever on Milgram’s part. He designed a realistic looking fake scenario, complete with a shock chair and men dressed in lab coats. The most realistic component was the fake shock generator that actually quite scary-looking. It had levels of shock that went up from 30 to 450 volts and the levels were labeled to describe the intensity of the shock. The participants

In each study the participant was give the role of ‘teacher’ and placed in a room with a ‘scientist’. The teacher was instructed to ask the learner (who was sitting in an adjacent room, and who along with the scientist where confederates in the experiment) a series of word associations, the teacher had to read the first word and the learner had to answer a matching word form a choice of four given by the teacher. They answered by pressing a corresponding switch on a unit in the room. The teacher was sat in front of a ‘shock generator’ a device which had 30 switches along the front which went up in 15 volt increments from 15volts to 450 volts. The labels above the switches described the shocks as ranging from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger severe shock’ above 375 volts and the post powerful shock had XXX above it. In Milgram’s study the teacher was given a 45 volt shock to experience the sensation of being shocked and to show how the leaner would receive the shocks. In Burgers replication the teacher only received a 15 volt shock. In both cases the learner made the teacher and the experimenter aware that he had a minor heart

Depression is a mood disorder which is categorised by low mood and a wide range of other symptoms, which will inevitably differ depending on the individual. This mental health illness can either progress at a fast rate or steadily. Many scientific and medicinal professionals view depression as a defence mechanism that the body implements in order to escape from stress. Seligman (1973) discussed depression in terms of it being like a ‘common cold’ of psychiatry, due to how frequently it is diagnosed. The behaviourist approach accentuates the significance of the environment in regards to determining an individual’s behaviour. To behaviourist theorists, our behaviour does not relate with our internal unconscious struggles or suppressions. However, psychologists in this field use ideologies of the learning theory to explain human behaviour. According to the behavioural theory, dysfunctional behaviour such as depression is learned and so because of this, psychologists propose that it can also be unlearned. This perspective focuses on behaviour which is observable and the circumstances in which a particular individual has learnt that behaviour. As a result, depression is therefore seen by behaviourist theorists as a result of an individual’s contact with their environment.

In the video titled Learned helplessness (PsychYogi, 2014), Martin Seligman conducted a study in which he took three groups of dogs and put them in harnesses. He gave each group a lever that would either stop a charge that electrocuted the dogs, or do nothing. Group one was the control group and did not get electrocuted. The dogs in groups two and three were the experimental groups. Group two had control over the electric shocks and could stop them with the lever. Group three also received the shocks every time group two did, except group three had no control over their own lever. Every time group two pushed their lever to stop the shocks, group three’s shocks also stopped. Group three never knew when their shocks would stop. The dogs in group two learned that the lever would stop the shocks, so the more times they were shocked, the less time it took them to push the lever. Group three was the only group to have symptoms of depression due to learned helplessness (Psychyogi, 2014).

Seligman and Maier’s discovery is derived from the results of an experiment based on Pavlov’s classical conditioning theory. The experiment being performed involved dogs and mild electrical shocks. Initially, the dogs were restrained in a hammock and they would receive a mild electric shock every time a specific sound was heard. After a conditioning period, the dogs were removed from the restrictive hammocks and placed into boxes. The boxes did not restrain the dogs in any manner, and they could easily jump out of the boxes in order to avoid the electrical shock at any time. The dogs involved in this experiment never tried to escape from the boxes. The dogs had learned in the previous conditioning that the shock was not based upon their behavior and it was unavoidable. The dogs had developed a feeling of helplessness that had overwhelmed their beings, that they quit trying to avoid the electrical shocks and just accepted it as fate

The subjects of the experiment believed that they were taking part in a study on the relationship of learning and punishment. The subject would sit in a room and ask questions to an actor in another room, who was supposed to be another subject. In front of the questioner was a box that had a series of buttons labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts. The subject was told to shock the person every time they answered incorrectly, increasing the voltage each time. As the shocks got worse, the actor would make noise, bang on the wall, yell for help, etc. but the researcher would tell the subject to keep going. Milgrim found, contrary to many psychologists predictions, that sixty-five percent of the subjects delivered the shocks all the way up to 450 volts (Slater).

Those subjects either played the role of a student or a teacher. The Teachers were told to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner when questions were answered incorrectly. The shock levels were from 15 to 450 volts. In the Milgram Obedience Study Video, it states that” Many if not most subjects were troubled by it and found it a highly conflicted experience... Some were laughing hysterically after inflicting damage upon them,” meaning that this quote not only presents how the experiment gave too much power to the experimenters but also shows the misuse in power (Milgram, 6:40-7:00).

Results of the study are looked at by the number of participants and students when they stopped or continued to the end of the experiment. Participants in the study gauged on how far they would go in delivering shock the students. The question posed to a group of student from Yale where the study was conducted and participated in the experiment. The result was 3 out of 100 provided answers to giving the maximum voltage allowed by the administrator. 65% of the participants in the study which is shocking to the question proposed before the experiment proceeded with pressing the lever for maximum voltage (Cherry, 2008). The subjects in the study became highly agitated, angry, distraught, and extremely upset with the examiners (teachers); the participant students continued all the way until the end of the study. Unexpectedly the findings produce quite a shock itself because of the high level of participants who would follow orders by continuing the shock someone as they know and understand that the severity of voltage would go from 30 volts and in 15-volt increments, and it continues all the way to 450 volts. The levels were labeled, slight, moderate, and danger “severe shock.” Moreover, the last two labels were simply documented as XXX.

where there would be a teacher and a subject on two opposing sides of a wall. Whenever the subject made an incorrect answer, they would receive a shock, this experiment was rigged so that the subject would actually be shocked be rather made extremely convincing screams of pain and the subject was told to give the wrong answer to the teacher. When the voltage reached passed 200 v, the teacher would become more reluctant to go further with the experiment due to the pain that the subject was going through, but the teacher didn’t know that the test was rigged. After it got past 475 V, about 65% of the teachers would hold the switch to shock the subject under the pressure from the men in the white coats recording the experiment and in most cases were reluctant to press on the button by themselves. This experiment no only proves that many people will do dangerous and immoral things under the pressure of authority, but also supports the idea that many people would not commit these acts underneath their own free will due to human

These shocks were to start at a mild 15 volts and gradually increased to an extremely painful (and lethal) level of 450 volts. During the experiment the teacher was coaxed to continue giving the shocks to the learner. The results of the experiment were most disturbing: most (60%) of the “teachers” (who were ordinary people) continued to give the electric shocks right up to the maximum (lethal) level of 450 volts, just with a little bit of coaxing from the psychologist.

On arriving for the experiment they were told that they would play he role of the teacher. They were to read a series of words pairs to an individual on the opposite side of a partition. They were to test the individuals' memory by giving him a word and asking him to select the correct matching word from four alternatives. Each time the learner made an error, they were to give him/her an electric shock at the touch of a lever. The individual was strapped into an electric chair while they watched. The teachers had levers in front of them labelled from 15 to 450 volts and switches labelled from slight shock to danger: severe shock to the final ‘XXX'. They were instructed to move one lever higher on the shock generator each time the learner made an error. There were not of course any shocks.

The experiment lasted 15 consecutive days. During the experiment, the rats were placed into 12 identical operative chambers which was used for all behavioral training and testing. Each chamber had an automatic retractable lever

At this point, the Teacher and Learner were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. The Teacher was then given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample what the Learner would supposedly to receive during the experiment. After the Teacher was given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the Learner. The Teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. To respond the Learner would press a button to indicate their answer, if the answer was wrong the teacher would shock the Learner with the voltage increasing by 15-volts for each wrong answer, if correct the Teacher would read the next word pair. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer the Learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After a series of wrong answers the Learner would start complaining about their heart, afterwards there would be no response from the Learner at all. Many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner at this point in the experiment. Some paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment, while most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects even began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress when they heard the screams of the

Seligman was testing dogs in three groups. Group one was strapped into a harness. Group two was strapped into an electrocuting harness that

Learned helplessness occurs when a person is repeatedly exposed to an aversive stimuli and feels that no matter how much they try to escape; they are not successful. Therefore, they tend to cave in since a sense of being helpless has been developed to escape the situation. Early studies on the idea of learned helplessness occurred accidently since psychologists were initially studying avoidance learning in dogs. These dogs were subject to a few foot shocks and at first would attempt to escape the shock however, these dogs later on stop attempting to escape and would submissively accept the foot shocks. Then these psychologists tried numerous situations to examine this sensation by placing the dogs in different cages where it would be easier