Learned Helplessness in the Workplace

Running Head conditi atomic number 53d impuissance in the seduceplace Paper versed Helplessness in the Workplace Psychology 320 November 22, 2010 Professor Sprinkle Abstract In the late 1960s and early 1970s Mr. Martin Seligman began to study what effects surround take hold on not only animals, only human beings. His studies were an attempt to coiffure what ramifications proscribedside influences could feel on a live beings motivation and endeavour for success. He started his studies by giving rats electric shocks.They were inadvertent and with let out cause, and this was so the rats had no modal value of reasoning what could cause or prevent the shocks, and how to avoid them. What he found, was that eventually the rats would guide up on assay to avoid or escape the shocks. Seligman eventually applied these studies to human infants and what he disc all overed was a possibility he deemed, Learned Helplessness. Learned Helplessness in the Workplace When Martin Seligman cho se to study human infants and the effects of outside influences, he wanted to insure whether a lack of view over ones surroundings could lead to a lack in motivation.What he found was that sound handle the rats, existence would learn impuissance, and hence the reason his surmise is cognize as the Learned Helplessness Theory. In short, the theory states that with no control over ones surroundings, the response lead be failing. He also found that those who learn this depart have an interference with the correspondence of their development. They may have emotional problems along with anxiety and depression as adults. One of the representations that Seligman believed children learned incapacitatedness was if there was no correlation between actions and there outcome.Just like the rats who move to escape just now where sleek over punished with shocks, they snarl that no matter what they did the outcome would be the same. Children who had parents with suffering parenti ng skills or who didnt recognize their successes, learned that no matter what they did, it didnt change the outcome. Kids who struggled in school may begin to fail repeatedly as they would feel that even if they did try, they would fail. People who have learned helplessness suffer from low self-esteem, and tend to blame themselves for every thingWhile studying learned helplessness in humans, Seligman found that it also can be associated with different meanss of thinking about the events that form persons explanatory style. Seligman believed there were three major(ip) components of explanatory style associated with learned helplessness. He termed those as permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Permanence pertained to the idea that no matter what happens or the events leading up to them, the outcomes were in event permanent. Pervasiveness referred to the thought that if more or lessthing negative happened in one situation it would happen in otherwise situations as well. For instance if a person struggles with math, they then tackle they are stupid and struggle in every eyeshot. Personalization, the third and concluding component of explanatory style, refers to whether one will attribute negative events to their witness flaws or to outside circumstances or other community. Most people with Learned Helplessness will attribute everything to their own flaws or shortcomings. Seligman believes in order to help a person overcome Learned Helplessness they must strive to Learn Optimism.He believes parents and others who celebrate young person kids mastery of new subjects can lead to optimism as well as their own billets toward purport. In my own position as a lineage owner, I believe I have employed a young woman and possibly a few others with who had learned helplessness. There is one young woman in particular who seemed to struggle with the struggles Seligman outlined in his theory. I felt a daily battle in trying to convince her she could change her life and the outcomes of the events in her life if she became cause.When I bought my health club flame durrajong was the young woman who was the receptionist at the front desk. What I quickly learned was that Cassie had two drug addicted parents who had dog-tired her inherent life beating each other up, a fix who was in and out of jail who tried to use her to get drugs, and a mother who tried to get her to do drugs with her. I quickly accepted in Cassie the ability to be different than her upbringing, but I couldnt see a desire from her to get there. She had an inner role that told her she never could be successful, as mediocrity was all she felt she deserved.I yielded her for her work in attempt to motivate her, but it seemed no matter what advance or reward I offered I couldnt get her move to make changes in her life. She would come to work on time, and do what was asked of her, but I never saw any motivation to rise to a steeper place and excel to the next level , even though I could see she was naturally in checkigent and cap adequate of umteen things. I felt for Cassie as I am not sure she ever had a occur given her parents, but I couldnt change her as I so wished I could.No amount of positive praise or reward could convince Cassie that she could change her life, even though her intelligence was high and her ability was great. She just didnt believe it was possible. I tried for quadruplet years to be a role model for Cassie, and there were many days when I thought she was qualification the choices to change her life, but she never followed through as she really believed change for her was impossible. Cassie had tried for her entire youth rise above both her parents, but eventually she felt no matter what she did the end was inevitable.Its as if she predetermined her approaching by thinking it was going to be the worst future possible. In the end it seems she figured if she couldnt beat her parents, she should join them. I tried very secure to be a positive impact for Cassie and help change her life, but the damage that she had incurred seemed to be too great. No matter what I did, she couldnt stimulate an optimist or change the way she felt about the outside influences in her life. No matter how hard I encouraged or pushed her in a positive direction, she constantly wound up back on the bottom because she truly believed that is where she belonged.I a great deal think about her and wonder if there is anything else I could have do to help her crawl out of her life and into one she was worthy up, but in the end I think that she couldnt change her way of thinking and truly believed the type of life she had was meant to be permanent. She is living someplace now in a rundown apartment off of eudaemonia with her young daughter who I believe will turn out exactly like her. She has no job because she doesnt want to discharge her food stamps and welfare, and she is back on drugs.My only hope in life is that someb ody will be able to walk into her life and tell her daughter that she is smart, and capable of so much in life. I have learned from Cassie the value of celebrating a childs dwarfish successes, and encouraging them to be something in life. Its sad, but Cassies case of Learned Helplessness has taught me about promoting optimism, and I plan on spreading it to any children I come in contact with. References Learned Helplessness (2001) Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence. Retrieved at http//findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_g2602/is_0003/ai_2602000349/Theory prepare Major Theorist(s) Time Period Created Key Theory Concepts First noble-minded Theory WILL Socrates, Plato and Descartes Ancient Greeks and 17th-18th centuries Socrates and Plato literally broke down the construct into mind and body. Mind over matter. According to Plato there was a way to keep body in check. This could be accomplished by the will. In other words the will was in control of all aspects of blueprint both sensible require and that which would be considered spiritual. Descartes was convinced that motivation was the will. He believed that the will was in charge of whether to act or not to act.Bodily needs pleasures, pain, impulses were just means to an end. Will had the ultimate say. He and other philosophers at the time were convinced that they had the answer. In the end the will turned out to be something of a mystery. In dealing with just the will to pardon motivation, it just proved to be a purpose and it was not customary in its theory because some people had more willpower than others. plump for Grand Theory Instinct DarwinWilliam JamesMcDougall 19th-20th Century Darwins thoughts were dealing with the biota of mankind.His theory is still being dealt with today. Religions and scientists still trying to prove or disprove his theory. His main distinction was between animals and humans. Darwin took away the idea of will when he was able to show that animals were able to use thei r resources (motivation) to adapt to like humans. So in this sense the will was no longer an news report of motivated demeanor. James theory consisted of introducing stimulus into the picture. Reflex and fulls is what makes human motivation. McDougall took the research on a generation later on Darwin.Once researchers embraced this idea the next thing to do was to identify the instincts. This became a daunting task. On top of that the instinct theory was exposed as circular. In other words, instinct theory failed because theorists were unable to determine if instincts really exist. Third Grand Theory sweat Sigmund Freud Robert Woodworth Clark Hull 20th Century Freud, all behaviors were satisfying needs. Behavior serves bodily needs and drive acted as a guard or impinging to take care that behaviors occurred when needed for comfort of the body. Satisfaction of the bodily need quieted drive.Freuds theory was crushed imputable to three factors (1) overestimation of biological forces (2) overreliance on data taken from case studies of mentally ill individuals and (3) ideas that were not scientifically testable. Hulls drive theory did had one thing the other will and instinct did not have and that was prediction. Drive came from environmental learn which marked the beginning of scientific study of motivation. If the answer to the environmental doubt could be answered as to the motivation created then, one would be able to moderate or predict motivational states in the laboratory.Eventually though drive met its set too. It was clear that drive reduction was neither necessary nor sufficient for eruditeness to occur. Robert Woodworth responsible for the so called dynamic interactional metaphor of nature vs. nurture. He saw the essential task of psychological investigation as the give and take between the organisms mentality and the requirements of its physical and friendly existence. According to the scientific world of the 21st century these thoughts a re property the discipline back. Goal Setting Locke Late 1960s Mini-theories represented attempts by researchers and theorists to focus on more and more specific aspects of behavior quite a than to account for ALL motivating factors by relying on one sensation theory. As a takings of this emphasis, mini-theories were developed to help develop some but not all of motivated behavior. For example, mini-theories might attempt to explain why a student is performing poorly in simple(a) school or why Mini-theories became popular because they focused largely on cognitive approaches to understanding behavior.They represented a reaction to the idea that humans are inherently passive. They also reflected a growing need for psychological science to provide answers to questions that had classic social implications or solved problems that were socially relevant. Edwin Lockes Goal Setting Theory states that people who set goals for themselves will become motivated to master those goals, sol ely as a result of making those goals. Furthermore, those who set specific goals that are more demanding are able to achieve a higher level of performance than those who set easier and thieve goals.The Goal Setting Theory outlines five important principles of goal linguistic context that motivates individuals and they are clarity(measurable and unambiguous goals with a specific completion time ensure that there is no misunderstanding about what is required to reach the goal), challenge (difficult goals are often more motivating than easier goals), commitment (when there is a strong commitment to the goal, there is a higher level of motivation), feedback (it is important to provide opportunities for clarifying and reassuring), and task complexity (allowing time for people to achieve the goal or learn what is needed to achieve the goal).One important aspect of the goals is that they must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound (SMART). In 1975 the theory was scientifically proven by researchers Latham and Baldes. Common criticisms of this theory are that it is a technique preferably than a theory, it can produce undesirable competition, and it emphasizes some aspects over others (quantity over quality). cognitive illegitimate enterprise Achievement Motivation Learned HelplessnessOthers? FestingerAtkinsonSeligman 1950s19641975 The Cognitive Dissonance Theory is based off of the idea of cognitive randomness.Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling that arises from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time. Dissonance is referred to as the uncomfortable feeling and can often be project as feelings of guilt, embarrassment or immorality. Dissonance can also be greater in some cases such as with big decisions or decisions that will have a great impact, decisions that are particularly difficult to solve (such as with two similar decisions), and decisions that are concerned with oneself.This theory states that when a pers on has these conflicting thoughts, then they will be motivated to resolve the conflict as humans tend to seek unanimity within their thoughts. Often there are three ways that a person will resolve the conflict. They may change their behavior, justify their behavior by changing the conflicting beliefs to reduce dissonance (such as by reducing the importance), or justify the behavior by adding more beliefs that will reduce dissonance (such as focusing on strengths).It is important to neb that one will be more likely to change their attitude or beliefs as there would be less dissonance involved, rather than changing ones behavior. Atkinsons theory states orientation is the result of two separate motives the motive of achieving success and the motive to avoid unsuccessful person. A persons motivation to achieve success depends on three factors the need to succeed, the persons label of the ability to success and likelihood of succeeding, and the incentive for success.The motive to av oid failure shares the same three conditions, but in relation to avoiding failure. This theory has been criticized due to the fact that a persons needs must be known originally behavior can be affected. The Learned Helplessness theory speculated after testing on dogs, that humans too learn to be helpless when placed in a situation in which their actions seem to not have an effect, leading to depression. It has been criticized for not distinguishing between universal and personal helplessness.