What is Learned Defenselessness?

Most of us have heard of Pavlov’s dogs, classical conditioning. Pavlov rang a bell before feeding the dogs, conditioning the dogs to respond to ringing the bell.

Many years back, before animal rights and with no respect to damage of creatures, some psychologists and physiologists used dogs for their exploration ventures. In one of them, they put a dog in a confine which was fitted in the center with a vertical grid dividing the area. The psychologists had fixed an apparatus that would give the dog a little electric shock. They gave the dog a zap and then moved the dog to the other side of the pen. Next they gave the dog shocks until it hopped over the middle grind to the next side of the pen. The psychologists conditioned the dog to stop getting zapped by jumping over the grind, classic negative reinforcement.

This process was repeated again and again. At that point the scientists chose to change the guidelines.

The dog was set on the definitive side of the cell and given a stun. When it hopped over the grind, then again, it was then given an alternate shock on that side of the pen. It didn't take long until the dog didn't try to bounce over the grind. It realized that regardless of which side of the pen it was on it was going to get a zap, it had no control.

The dog set out in the corner of the cell and just took the shocks as they happened. The dog gave up.

At long last, the specialists opened the entryway of the confine to let the dog out. They watched the dog just lay in the corner and not even attempt to take off. The dog had advanced what we term as "learned powerlessness or defenselessness". They had broken the dog’s spirit.

The powerlessness, learned defenselessness, carried over even outside of the pen. The dog was given no way to win over the scientists’ negative stimuli. Such experiments never needed to be done the psychological damage inflicted on the dog, just to see want would happen, cannot be justified.

If we are to learn anything from this it should be to use common sense with our dogs. Be consistent when demanding anything for your dog. No dog should be conditioned with inconsistent negative reinforcement alone. There must always be a good positive way for the dog to win.