托福口语 Task 3

In psychology, the concept of 'learned helplessness' refers to a condition in which an individual, after repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative events, begins to believe that their actions have no effect on outcomes. As a result, they stop trying to change their situation, even when opportunities to escape or improve become available. This learned passivity can generalize across different situations, leading to decreased motivation, anxiety, and depression. Learned helplessness is often studied in both animal and human experiments, demonstrating how past experiences shape future behavior.

Professor: So, let me give you a classic example from a study with dogs. In the experiment, dogs were placed in a chamber with a low barrier they could easily jump over. But first, they were given electric shocks. Some dogs could stop the shocks by pressing a panel, while others had no control—they received shocks randomly regardless of what they did. After this phase, all dogs were placed in a shuttle box where they could escape shocks by jumping over the barrier. The dogs that had control quickly learned to jump over. But the dogs that had no control—they just lay down, whined, and endured the shocks. Even when the barrier was lowered, they didn't try to escape. They had learned that nothing they did mattered, so they gave up. That's learned helplessness.