Overview
Learned Helplessness Discussion
An example of this model of depression is a person who is trying to leave an abusive relationship but counites to fail. The person leaving the abusive relationship has been put through a lot of trauma and if this person has made multiple attempts to leave and failed that can lead them to believe that no matter what they do they will always fail and end up giving up accepting the negative situation. This can lead the person to develop learned helplessness and cause them to be depressed. Another example of this model of depression is a child who is in a neglectful home, this child after being denied their basic needs and love and affection will learn that no matter how much they plead for attention they will be ignored leading them to stop trying for anything which can lead to a very depressed child and or adult when they grow up. The learned helplessness theory shows the importance of attributions in predicting depression, some factors that can influence learned helplessness are when people feel like they lack control over outcomes, having expectations to continue facing negative situations, and self efficacy(Roth S. J Pers. 1980). Internal attributions are viewing the cause of an negative event as my fault, Global attributions is view an negative event as something that affects everything in your life, and stable attributions are viewing this negative event as if it was always going to happen no matter what(J Psychother Integer, 2016). Examples that i can give on internal attributions is i failed this test because i am stupid, i didn't get the job because i am incompetent, and this boy does not like me because i am ugly. Global attributions can be perceived like i will never succeed in anything, i will never find a friend because i am unlikable, and i will never finish anything because i am lazy. Stable attributions can be seen as this is how my life will always be, i will always be alone, and i will always struggle to make friends because that's just who i am.
Question for the class: In your personal life which attribution(internal, global, and stable) would you say you tend to have the most frequently after experiencing a negative situation in your life?