Online Reporter
Arthur Marara
Point Blank
We all face challenges that make us feel stuck. But what happens when that temporary feeling hardens into a permanent state of mind? This phenomenon, known as learned helplessness, can become a silent prison, limiting our potential in life, work, and relationships. The good news?
It’s a learned behaviour, which means it can be unlearned.
The foundational experiment: A tale of two groups of dogs
The concept was first identified in a seminal 1967 experiment by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier. They divided dogs into three groups:
- Escape Group: These dogs could stop an electric shock by pressing a panel with their nose.
- Non-Escape Group: These dogs received the same shocks but had no way to stop them. Their actions had no effect.
- Control Group: These dogs received no shocks.
In the second phase, all dogs were placed in a “shuttle box” with a low barrier they could easily jump over to escape a shock. The results were striking:
The Escape Group and Control Group quickly learned to jump the barrier to safety.
The Non-Escape Group mostly did nothing. They whined, lay down passively, and endured the shock, even though escape was now possible.
They had learned from their previous experience that their actions were futile. They generalised this belief to a new situation where it was no longer true.
What is learned helplessness?
Learned helplessness is a psychological state where an individual, after repeatedly experiencing uncontrollable and negative events, becomes conditioned to believe that they are powerless to change their situation. Even when opportunities to improve their circumstances arise, they fail to act due to the ingrained belief that nothing they do will matter.
This isn’t just about competence; it’s about perceived control A person struggling with learned helplessness isn’t necessarily incapable—they are convinced they are incapable.
This mindset manifests in various ways:
Passivity and Apathy: A “why bother?” attitude toward challenges.
Low Self-Esteem: Believing failures are due to personal flaws (“I’m just not good enough”).
Lack of Initiative: Giving up easily and not trying new solutions.
Chronic Complaining: Feeling overwhelmed and voicing frustration without taking action.
“All-or-Nothing” Thinking: Viewing setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and personal.
How does this apply to human behaviour?
We are not so different from those dogs. We internalise lessons from past failures.
The entrepreneur who tried and failed in the past, now trapped by the memory, refusing to adapt a new business model because “it will never work.”
The student who did poorly on a few math tests and decides they are “just bad at math,” leading them to stop studying altogether.
The employee who feels overlooked for promotions and concludes that hard work isn’t rewarded, so they disengage and do the bare minimum.
In each case, the person is trapped not by their present circumstances, but by a learned narrative from their past.
The Neuroscience of Control: It’s Not Helplessness, It’s a Failure to Learn Control
Steven Maier, Seligman’s partner, later reframed their discovery. The problem wasn’t that the dogs were learning helplessness; they were failing to learn control.
Our brains have a built-in stress response (the fight-or-flight system). Maier discovered that a specific region of the brain (the ventral medial prefrontal cortex) acts as a brake on this response — but only if it first perceives that the situation is under control. With learned helplessness, this “controllability circuit” never activates. Because you don’t believe you’re in control, your brain doesn’t engage the mechanisms that would help you exert control. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Antidote: How to Unlearn Helplessness and Relearn Control
The most hopeful finding from the original research was that roughly 10% of subjects were immune to learned helplessness. They couldn’t be made to give up. What was their secret?
Psychology points to several key strategies.
- Cultivate learned optimism
Martin Seligman’s concept of “learned optimism” serves as the powerful antithesis to learned helplessness. It is not about naive positivity, but rather the disciplined practice of identifying and disputing our ingrained pessimistic thought patterns. This process specifically involves reframing how we explain setbacks to ourselves by avoiding what Seligman calls the “Three P’s.”
When a problem arises, we must guard against seeing it as Permanent (“This will never change”).
Instead, we can consciously choose to view it as a temporary state. We must also resist the urge to see it as Pervasive (“This ruins everything”), and instead frame it as an isolated issue confined to one specific area of our life. Finally, we should challenge tendencies toward Personalisation (“This is all my fault”) by taking a more balanced view that considers the external factors that contributed to the situation. By systematically shifting our internal narrative in this way, we can break the cycle of helplessness and build resilience.
- Build your pillars of agency: Self-efficacy and locus of control
To dismantle the foundations of learned helplessness, we must actively fortify two critical psychological resources: self-efficacy and an internal locus of control.
Cultivate Self-Efficacy Through Small
Wins
Self-efficacy is the confidence in your own ability to execute the steps required to manage prospective situations. You can build this by consciously engineering small, achievable wins. Each minor success—completing a task you’ve been avoiding, mastering a new small skill—serves as tangible proof that your actions can, indeed, influence outcomes. This process creates a positive feedback loop of competence, gradually replacing doubt with a quiet assurance in your own capabilities.
Develop an Internal Locus of Control
Closely related to self-efficacy is the concept of an internal locus of control, which is the degree to which you believe your life is shaped by your own efforts and choices rather than by external forces. Strengthening this begins with a simple shift in your internal dialogue. When faced with adversity, consciously move from the disempowered question, “Why does this always happen to me?” to the empowered and actionable, “What is one step I can take to change this?”
This reframing places you back in the driver’s seat, transforming you from a passive victim of circumstance into an active agent in your own life.
Arthur Marara is a corporate law attorney, keynote speaker, corporate and personal randing speaker commanding the stage with his delightful humour, raw energy, and wealth of life experiences. He is a financial wellness expert and is passionate about addressing the issues of wellness, strategy and personal and professional development.
Arthur is the author of “Toys for Adults” a thought provoking book on entrepreneurship, and “No one is Coming” a book that seeks to equip leaders to take charge. Send your feedback to [email protected] or Visit his website www.arthurmarara.com or contact him on WhatsApp: +263780055152 or call +263772467255
