Let’s Talk Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness isn’t just a buzzword from Psych 101. It’s a silent killer of motivation, self-worth, and social progress. At its core, learned helplessness is the internalized belief that one’s actions are futile.

Whether in escaping a controlling relationship, breaking a poverty cycle, or fighting systemic oppression.

It’s when people stop fighting because they believe no fight is winnable. This phenomenon isn’t just personal; it’s deeply political.

What Is Learned Helplessness?

Coined by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier in the 1960s, the concept was first observed in dogs who eventually stopped trying to escape after repeated exposure to unavoidable electric shocks. Even when escape was possible. Humans aren’t all that different.

“When exposed to prolonged situations of failure or lack of control, people often stop trying altogether.” — Seligman, 1975

In modern psychological terms, learned helplessness is defined as a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. Over time, it manifests as passivity, low self-esteem, depression, and a belief that one’s actions do not affect outcomes.

The Psychology of Learned Helplessness in Marginalized Communities

According to Musiyenko, foreign students who lack support in forming a strong ethnic identity are especially vulnerable to learned helplessness. When a cultural expression is repressed and systems don’t accommodate differences, students lose confidence in their academic potential and sense of belonging.

This leads to withdrawal, low participation, and ultimately underachievement.

This concept also intersects deeply with disability studies. Pande highlights how disabled individuals, particularly in institutional settings, are conditioned to believe in their inefficacy. They are often denied autonomy and decision-making, creating a feedback loop where helplessness becomes learned behavior rather than a natural limitation.

Importantly, Pande advocates for self-defense skill development as a means of psychological empowerment and dismantling internalized oppression.

Action Research: Breaking the Cycle in Education

The academic system can either perpetuate learned helplessness or interrupt it. According to Karakashev, action research, a form of participatory inquiry where students and teachers co-create knowledge, can be a powerful antidote.

Instead of a top-down education model, action research invites students to engage, question, and become active participants in their learning. This process helps break down the internalized narrative of passivity and turns the classroom into a space of agency.

Learned Helplessness as a Political Tool

In political science, learned helplessness isn’t just a psychological effect. It can be a mechanism of control. When citizens feel that their vote doesn’t matter, when protest yields no change, and when generations are locked into poverty, resignation can take root.

This resignation is not natural; it is learned.

This is why authoritarian regimes often rely on consistent suppression and unpredictability. It’s not just about silencing dissent. It’s about teaching the population that dissent doesn’t work. The aim is not just control, but the internalization of futility.

Why the Weak Stay Weak

The phrase “the weak stay weak” may sound harsh, but it encapsulates a devastating truth: without intervention, people trapped in learned helplessness do not often escape on their own. The absence of safe, affirming spaces and support systems reinforces helplessness.

In communities where systemic injustice is the norm, such as among persons with disabilities or marginalized ethnic groups, strength is not merely the absence of weakness.

It’s often a hard-won resistance to helplessness.

Without empowerment structures, accessible education, inclusive policy, and community care, helplessness becomes generational.

Reclaiming Power

Learned helplessness is not permanent, but unlearning it requires more than personal resilience. It requires structural change, community support, and a shift in how we design systems — from classrooms to governments. Breaking this cycle starts with awareness but must end with action.

Rebuilding agency in people requires dismantling the conditions that taught them they had none.