Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience.
Maier and Seligman state that the original theory got the direction backward. Passivity in response to prolonged aversive events is the default, unlearned response, mediated by serotonergic activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus, and what is learned is control, through the medial prefrontal cortex.
Maier and Seligman state that the original theory got the direction backward. Passivity in response to prolonged aversive events is the default, unlearned response, mediated by serotonergic activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus, and what is learned is control, through the medial prefrontal cortex.
Written from the abstract on the Crossref and Europe PMC record, read 2026-10-25.
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Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349-367. doi:10.1037/rev0000033