Learned Helplessness

Overmier and Sleigram’s (1967) exposed dogs to unavoidable electric shocks in one situation and to avoidable electric shocks in another situation.  They found that dogs who had learned that they could not escape the electric shocks during a prior experience would not even try to escape in a later situation when escaping was actually possible.

Watch this video from The Awesome Life for more:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Vuqvp2V7w%20