“LEARNED HELPLESSNESS EXPERIMENT: TACKLING ITS

DARK HISTORY & ETHICAL ISSUES"

GROUP REPORT FOR EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

ARGANA, Princess Sarina P. February 18, 2020

GOLAMCO, Katrina Linda A. Dr. Elisa Bernadette Entao-Limson
LAVARIAS, Marie Francesca D.

Conceptualized and developed by the famous Positive Psychologist, Martin E.P Seligman,
Learned Helplessness Experiment focuses on how animals and humans become passive when
repeatedly faced with uncontrollable adverse events. This experiment first started in the 1960s
when Seligman was researching and testing Ivan Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning. While he was
proceeding with his experiment, he unintentionally discovered that the dogs appeared to be
helpless in simple tasks that Seligman assigned to them. He then prepared three groups of dogs to
test his ongoing theory, i.e the Control Group, the second group being the ones who are shocked
by electricity but has the choice to simply switch it off, and the third group being the ones who are
shocked by electricity but had no control over it. Expectedly, the third group of dogs was the one
who acquired the feeling of learned helplessness - completely surrendering to the electric shocks.
After initiating the first trial of electric shots to each group, Seligman tested their ability and
eagerness to get out of the painful struggle. For the shuttle-box test, the dogs have to walk to the
other side of the box in order to stop experiencing the electrical shots. Seligman saw that the second
group was most likely to make an effort to get up and jump over the safe side compared to the
third group which stayed on the other side and defenselessly endure the pain received.
Later on, this theory was adapted by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two military
psychologists behind Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape (SERE) Training Program. This
training program was designed for military soldiers to be equipped in withstanding interrogations
if captured by enemies. They tested the theory of learned helplessness on humans - particularly on
Central Intelligence Agency detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - to develop more enhanced
interrogation techniques. These techniques called the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT)
include waterboarding, sleep deprivation, facial slap, and other brutal procedures. In such a
manner, the CIA believed that EIT is a much more effective way to obtain the information they
need from the detainees since they saw that if the psychological state of the person becomes
passive, the higher possibility that the person will cooperate and submit to an authoritative figure.
However, this kind of experiment caused several complications on the animals and humans end.
It was later found that this experiment can evoke psychological developments such as depression,
pessimism, sometimes optimism, and most of the time, torture.
Therefore, this elicited several investigations regarding the ethical principles that were
violated throughout the utilization of EIT. Here are the following ethical principles that were
breached on both experiments - Seligman’s and Mitchell and Jensen’s - in reference to the
American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of
Conduct:

1. Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence

In the case of Mitchell and Jensen, the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques are not
actually procedures for interrogations but for torture. The difference between
interrogation and torture is that the former is asking for information from someone
who is willing to speak up. However, if the willingness of that person is not present
in the situation and authority starts to project brutal actions to inflict helplessness,
interrogation becomes torture. Torture according to the United Nations is “the
systematic and deliberate infliction of severe mental and physical pain by one
person or another in order to accomplish the purpose of the former against the will
of the latter.”, thus, Mitchell and Jessen already breached Principle A since they
elicited psychological damages to the detainees who were consumers of EIT. It was
reported that some victims of EIT acquired behavioral issues such as paranoia,
insomnia, attempts of self-harm, and self-mutilation (Ashkenas, J., et al, 2014). In
connection, SERE and EIT - both architected by Mitchell and Jessen - put their
respondents to a great extent of risks:
● Psychological Harm - Their adaptation of Learned Helplessness to
the military and CIA procedures delivered various psychological
disturbances to the afflicted people. According to one of the
graduates of SERE, David Morris (2009), they were sleep-deprived,
given extreme confinement, beaten, starved, stripped naked, and
forced to watch other fellowmen water-boarded near death. These
experiences gave these men psychological trauma and disturbances
that can affect them for a lifetime. (Also violated Sec 3: 3.01 -
Avoiding Harm and Sec 3: 3.03 - Other Harassment)
● Physical Harm - Basic human rights were taken away from their
respondents. They were water-boarded near death, they were hosed
down until they became hypothermic, and confined in a cramped
3x3 foot cage with nothing but a rusty can to urinate into.
● Legal - The CIA provided the senate with misleading information
when questioned on the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other
detainees of the 9/11. In an overview, the CIA told the senate that
EIT was an effective way to obtain confessions and information
from detainees, but CIA records say otherwise.

In 1965, Martin Seligman led an unethical analysis utilizing dogs. The motivation
behind the analysis was to perceive how control could be seen, and if weakness
could be instructed. To begin, Seligman placed a dog in a box split into halves by
a low boundary. He at that point directed an excruciating shock that the dog could
escape by hopping over the boundary. As expected, each dog immediately
discovered that on the off chance that he jumped to the opposite side of the crate,
he could avoid the pain of being stunned. Be that as it may, Seligman made his test
a stride further. He at that point harnessed a group of dogs together with the goal
that they couldn't get away from the shock when he stunned them. The following
day, he set those equivalent dogs independently in the first box. Be that as it may,
this time, however each dog could have just hopped the barrier to safety, none of
them did. They realized to be helpless in a situation where they cannot do something
about it. (The first set of dogs or the control group learned that they just have to
walk across the other side of the room for them to not feel the shock. The second
set of dogs learned that they have to try and do something for them to be able to
stop the shock while the third set of dogs already accept the fact that they can’t do
 something to stop the shock hence this lead to those set of dogs to learn and come
up to realization that they cannot change their environment in a given situation.)

Ethical guidelines were made to ensure that in a specific research or experiment,no

participant ought to be hurt. Nonetheless, the utilization of animals in logical and
medicinal research has been a subject of warmed discussion for a long time. Animal
research has had an vital role in numerous logical and therapeutic advances of the
previous century and keeps on supporting our comprehension of different illnesses
consequently there has been the ensuing improvement of new medicines and
medications which individuals appreciate in light of better personal satisfaction
because of these advances. As indicated by an article of EMBO Reports, The Ethics
of Animal Research: Taking Point on the utilization of creatures in scientific
research in 2007, Opponents to any sort of animal research—including both basic
entitlements extremists and against vivisectionist gatherings—accept that animal
experimentation is merciless and superfluous, paying little mind to its motivation
or advantage and that creatures ought to be utilized for inquire about just inside a
moral structure.

In this experiment,the said group of dogs were harmed and hurt to see the impact
of the molding test done to them. As indicated by an article from VetsNow 2017,
excruciating stuns can cause the dogs extreme injury that can make inner harm the
mind, heart, lungs and gastrointestinal tract. Power from an electric stun can harm
the lungs and cause them to load up with liquid, making it hard for the dog to relax.
Shock can damage the ordinary heartbeat bringing about an arrhythmia (irregular
heart beat) which may make the dog breakdown, or may even reason heart failure.
In the most pessimistic scenario, mind harm, unconsciousness or even death can
happen.

In accordance to Principle A of American Psychological Association’s (APA)

Ethical Principle of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, Beneficence and
Nonmaleficence: Psychologists endeavor to benefit those with whom they work
and take care to do no damage. In their expert activities, clinicians try to protect the
welfare and privileges of those with whom they associate expertly and other
influenced people, and the welfare of animal subjects of research. At the point when
conflict happen among therapists' commitments or concerns, they strive to
determine these contentions in a mindful design that keeps away from or limits hurt.
Since therapists' logical and expert decisions and activities may influence the lives
of others, they are aware of and make preparations for individual, money related,
social, authoritative, or political components that may prompt abuse of their impact.
Analysts strive to know about the conceivable impact of their own physical and
emotional well-being on their capacity to help those with whom they work.

2. Principle C: Integrity
According to the US Senate CIA Torture Report, Mitchell and Jessen personally
conducted the interrogations while not having initial backgrounds on legal
interrogations and knowledge on al-Qa’ida. These psychologists did not have the
credentials to operate a life-threatening procedure. They deceived the detainees by
 pretending to be a liaison between the CIA and foreign intelligence service. They
violated Sec 3: 3.06, Conflict of Interest since they accepted more than $80 million
to develop EIT despite knowing the underlying psychological stress it may bring to
people.
The two psychologists also manipulated information. From the account of Ahmed
Rabbani, a prisoner without charge who firsthand experienced EIT said that
Mitchell and Jessen assured the military men and the CIA that their techniques were
entir4ely painless. One instance is that in the contract it was said "a technique in
which the detainees' wrists were tied together above their heads and they were
unable to lean against a wall or lie down." however, what Rabbani experienced a
more brutal procedure wherein he was put down in a hole, chained in a horizontal
bar from the wrist and his feet cannot touch the ground, left him there in total
darkness with no food for several weeks.
3. Principle D: Justice
- In this principle, it is said that psychologists should “recognize that fairness
and justice entitle all persons to access to and benefit from the contributions
of psychology and to equal quality in the processes, procedures, and
services being conducted by psychologists” (American Psychological
Association, 2017).

References:

American Psychological Association, 2017, Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of

Conduct, Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index
Animal Welfare Act 2006. (2010, April 24). Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Welfare_Act_2006
Chappell, B., 2017, Psychologists Behind CIA ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Program Settle
Detainees’ Lawsuit, Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/08/17/544183178/psychologists-behind-cia-enhanced-interrogation-program-settle-
detainees-lawsuit
Fish, J.M., 2014, Psychologists and Torture, Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/looking-in-the-cultural-mirror/201412/psychologists-
and-torture
How Seligman's Learned Helplessness Theory Applies to Human Depression and Stress. (n.d.).
Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-
applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html
Konnikova, M., 2015, Trying To Cure Depression, But Inspiring Torture, Retrieved from
https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/theory-psychology-justified-torture
Rabbani, A., 2020, I WAS TORTURED FOR DAYS THANKS TO BRUCE JESSEN AND JAMES
MITCHELL. A "SORRY" WOULD BE NICE | OPINION, Retrieved from
https://www.newsweek.com/tortured-jessen-mitchell-rabbani-sorry-guantanamo-1483100