1. Depression – Learning Theory  Depression is the result of a person’s interaction with their environment  Classical conditioning  Operant conditioning psychlotron.org.uk

2. Learning Theory & Depression  Learned association between certain stimuli & negative emotional states  Removal of positive reinforcement from the environment  Inadvertent reinforcement of depressed behaviour by others  Learned helplessness psychlotron.org.uk

3. Learned Helplessness  If a person learns that their behaviour makes no difference to their aversive environment, they may stop trying to escape from aversive stimuli even when escape is possible. psychlotron.org.uk

4. Learned Helplessness psychlotron.org.uk

5. Learned Helplessness psychlotron.org.uk

6. Learned Helplessness psychlotron.org.uk

7. Learned Helplessness  Seligman (1974)  Dogs subjected to inescapable electric shocks later failed to escape from shocks even when it was possible to do so  Maier & Seligman (1976)  People subjected to inescapable noise, insoluble problems later gave up trying in similar situations, similar to Seligman’s dogs psychlotron.org.uk

8. Learned Helplessness  Learned helplessness does have similarities to depressed behaviour in humans  Findings are inconsistent  Unexplained gender differences  Some studies show inescapable situations facilitate later escape behaviour  Helplessness in humans depends a great deal on the cognitions people have about their situation psychlotron.org.uk