托福口语 Task 4

Today, we're going to talk about a fascinating concept in psychology called 'learned helplessness.' This refers to a condition where an individual or animal, after repeated failures or uncontrollable negative events, stops trying to change their situation, even when they later have the ability to do so. The key point is that the experience of lacking control teaches them to give up. Let me give you two classic examples from research. First, in a famous experiment with dogs, some dogs were given electric shocks they couldn't escape. Later, when placed in a shuttle box where they could easily jump over a barrier to avoid the shocks, these dogs just lay down and whimpered—they didn't even try to escape. In contrast, dogs that had never experienced uncontrollable shocks quickly learned to jump over the barrier. Second, in human studies, researchers found that students who were given unsolvable puzzles initially, when later presented with solvable ones, often performed poorly and expressed feelings of helplessness, saying they 'just couldn't do it.' However, students who had solvable puzzles first continued to try hard and succeeded. These examples illustrate how prior experiences of uncontrollability can crush motivation and learning.