Chapter 8 Latent Learning Essay

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aversion does not require cognitive awareness to develop; the subject does not have to consciously recognize a connection between the taste and the effect that it leaves on them.  This experiment with the dogs helped Garcia create a taste aversion theory for humans.

Learned helplessness is a behavior typical of an organism that has endured repeated and painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it was unable to escape. Martin Seligman and his team had begun studying classical conditioning. In their experiments, they used dogs and bells. Every time that a bell was rung the dog was given a light shock and would jerk. However, over time the dog had in a sense learned that the sound of the bell meant they would get shocked, and would jerk even before getting shocked. The second part of the experiment included an area split into one floor that was electrified and the other non-electrified. When the dog was shocked, the expected reaction would be to jump to the other side, but instead the dogs would lay down, realizing that there was no way to avoid being shocked. Seligman’s observations from his experiments, and their association to the idea of learned helplessness attribute to the theory known as Seligman’s Learned Helplessness Theory. Learned helplessness has been identified in many different species. Humans affected by the phenomenon will often have harder times in the future. An example would be if a young boy consistently demonstrated poorly on math exams, will feel there’s is nothing he can do and when faced with any math questions later on he will experience helplessness.