Seligman (1979)

Aims

To see whether dogs would become accustomed to receiving shocks to their feet.

Procedures

Three groups of dogs – put in harnesses:

1. Control group – harness and released
2. Given random shocks, which they could stop by pressing a lever.
3. Got sock of same intensity/duration of 2 but the level did not stop it.

2 and 3 were yoked pairs.

After, the dogs were tested in a shuttle-box apparatus, where they could escape by jumping over a small partition when the shocks were given.

Findings

• Group 1 and 2 learned the task quickly and escaped the apparatus when the shock was given.
• Group 3 had learned that nothing could stop the shocks, so they lay down passively and whined for the duration of the shock.

Conclusions

The dogs do not try to escape because they expect that nothing they do will stop the shock. To change this expectation, experimenters physically picked up the dogs and moved their legs, replicating the actions the dogs would need to take in order to escape from the electrified grid. This had to be done at least twice before the dogs would start willfully jumping over the barrier on their own. In contrast, threats, rewards, and observed demonstrations had no effect on the “helpless” Group 3 dogs.

Strengths:

• De-conditioned – the dogs were shown how to escape before the end of the experiment, therefore they unlearned the helplessness.
• The behaviour was not learned – threats and rewards did not work, therefore the experiment is supporting the theory that depression cannot be learned from observation.
• Hiroto(1974) – found out that humans endured loud noise after they had learned they could not stop it even if they were given a handle to turn it off.

Weaknesses:

• Unethical – the experiment caused physical pain to the dogs and could have also affected their relations to other dogs/humans in the future.
• Not applicable to everybody – some people blame themselves only for their depression.
• Animal research – even though human studies have been carried out, the theory is based on animals; thus, we cannot generalise completely to people.