TOEFL Speaking Task 3

In psychology, the concept of 'learned helplessness' refers to a condition in which an individual, after repeatedly experiencing unavoidable negative outcomes, comes to believe that they have no control over their situation, even when opportunities to escape or change the outcome later become available. This belief leads to passive behavior and a failure to engage in actions that could improve their circumstances, despite clear possibilities for relief.

Professor: So, let me give you a classic example of learned helplessness from a famous experiment. Researchers placed dogs in a chamber with a low barrier dividing it into two compartments. First, they gave the dogs mild electric shocks from the floor, but they had no way to escape—no matter what they did, the shocks continued. After repeated trials, they then changed the setup: the dogs could now jump over the barrier to the safe side to avoid the shock. However, the dogs that had experienced the earlier inescapable shocks didn’t even try. Instead, they lay down, whined, and passively accepted the shock. Even when the researchers opened the door to the safe compartment, these dogs remained inactive. In contrast, dogs that had never experienced the uncontrollable shocks quickly learned to jump over the barrier to escape. The key point is that the first group had learned that their actions were useless, so they gave up, even when escape became possible.