Quotes of Martin Seligman

"The drive to resist compulsion is more important in wild animals than sex, food, or water. …The drive for competence or to resist compulsion is a drive to avoid helplessness." (Book: Learned Optimism)

"The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case." (Book: Learned Optimism)

Seligman's Theory of Learned Helplessness (example of the dogs)

Martin Seligman had a strong interest on the topic: depression. It was pretty much an accident that Martin and some contemporaries noticed that the conditioning of dogs gave to results that were contradictory to the predictions of B.F. Skinner’s in Behaviorism. So, Martin Seligman expanded the theory more, realizing that learned helplessness was a psychological condition where an individual or animal has learned to behave helplessly in a particular circumstance. Frequently, after undergoing some failure of incapability to prevent an adverse situation; also when it has the power to modify its unpleasant, uncomfortable and sometimes damaging situation.

This psychology researcher saw a resemblance with extremely depressed subjects, and he disputed that clinical depression and connected mental illnesses outcome in part from an apparent nonappearance of the control over the result of a situation. The tests were notorious because of the received harm of the dogs over an extensive period. He gave intense electrical shocks to the subject dogs and consequently the dogs howled and unwillingly urinated. The dogs were left with no alternatives but resist the pain and accepting that it would persist with no relief or liberation.

Also it is important to mention that this psychologist, Martin Seligman, gave a talk on supporting and helping United States soldiers to resist torture, since he has a complete understanding in learned helplessness.   

Example of Learned Helplessness

An example of Learned Helplessness could be the way elephants at the circus are trained and they have learned helplessness and that is why they dont attack humans. As we all know, elephants are really dangerous animals, but, with learned helplessness humans have taken advantage of it and that is how they have control over them. For example, if you have a baby elephant and put a heavy chain around his neck and then shock him, so it tries to escape; the elephant wont be able to escape. So, with time the elephant develops learned helplessness. When the elephant grows and it is in under human tame, it has learned helplessness and now it doesnt require a big chain to secure him, just a small rope so the elephant can feel helpless and thats how it experiences learned helplessness.