# learned helplessness (under)

A self-model that reports its reach as nothing after acting changed nothing, so it does not act where its reach is wide.

- Computed level: L15 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [self-model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-model.reflexive), [reach](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reach.action), [report](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-report.information), [nothing](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-nothing.absence), [act](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-act.deed), [learn](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-learn.cognitive), [wide](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wide.spatial), [change](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-change.process), [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension)

**Through:** A window where no action moved anything teaches the self-model that its reach is empty; the lesson outlives the window, so in a new window where action would work the thing still does not act. The walls are no longer there; the reading of them is.

**Novel properties:**
- a wall that exists only in the self-model
- a lesson that outlives the window it was learned in
- reach present and unused

## Examples
- In Seligman's 1967 experiments, dogs that had received inescapable shocks later failed to cross a low barrier to escape shocks they could have avoided. *(psychology)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-learned-helplessness.under*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-learned-helplessness.under.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*