Sai Muttavarapu

Period 4

Experiment Analysis- Learning to be Depressed

During 1967, Seligman and Maier conducted an experiment with dogs to see

if they escaped harmful pains under different learned behaviors. He wanted to see if

humans learned to control what is happening to them from past experiences. If the

outcome of your action was positive then you will be motivated to do the same thing

next time, but if your actions always ended up negative you will soon become

helpless and eventually give up and become depressed.

Seligman and Maier used 24 mongrel dongs that were 15 to 19 inches in

height until the shoulder and weighing in between 25 and 29 pounds. They divided

the dogs into three groups of eight. One group was the escape group, one was the

no-escape group, and the other was no-harness control group. The escape group

was placed in a harness individually. This group was given shocks and was able to

stop them by pushing a panel on either side of their head with their head. The no-

escape group was paired with a dog from the escape group and was given the same

amount of shocks, although, the no-escape group had to depend on the escape group

to stop the shocks by pushing the panels with their head. In other words, the escape

group had a way to escape the shocks, but the no-escape group couldn’t do anything

to escape and simply had to depend on the escape group. By this, the escape group

quickly learned to escape the shocks for themselves and the no-escape group. The

no-harness group didn’t get any shocks. 24 hours later, all the groups were tested
individually. They were placed in a shuttle box similar to the one Pavlov used. A

panel divided the box in between and there were lights on both of the sides. When

the lights go off on one side, the shock will be transmitted within 10 seconds. The

dog must be able to jump to the other side within those 10 seconds to be completely

able to escape the shock. If the dog fails to escape the shocks, they would feel it for

60 seconds because that’s when the shocks would end. There were two things that

were being observed in this experiment (1) how long it took from when the lights

turned out until the dog jumped over (2) The percent of dogs that failed to learn to

escape the shocks.

It took the no-escape group much longer than the escape group and the no-

harness group to jump over the barrier after the lights turned off. This the time it

took the dogs to jump over after the lights turned off. None of the dogs failed to

learn to escape in the escape group. In the no-escape group, 6 dogs failed to escape.

This is a critical experiment for our knowledge and future research because

we all know how miserable depressing is. If we don’t know what actually causes us

to feel that way, we won’t have a solution to the problem. If we know what is

causing them to feel that way we need to find a solution, and the right one. We need

to know exactly what to do and how to deal with it. The main cause for us to go into

depression is that we feel helpless. We lack motivation. It is the people’s

responsibility around them to help them find motivation and help them face

problems.